7 Reasons to Rethink Your Blogging Strategy: New Research

Posted by MC on Dec 23, 2011 in Social Media | 92950 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.kimmonuotio.com%2Fsocial-media%2F7-reasons-to-rethink-your-blogging-strategy-new-research%2F7+Reasons+to+Rethink+Your+Blogging+Strategy%3A+New+Research2011-12-23+15%3A50%3A30MChttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.kimmonuotio.com%2Fsocial-media%2F7-reasons-to-rethink-your-blogging-strategy-new-research%2F

Is your business working with bloggers?

Do you blog?

This article examines new research that shows blogging is here to stay.

Like many social media tools, blogs have seen a steady increase in numbers and influence over the last several years.

Note the growth charted by Invesp. On Dec. 2, 2011, that number was 178,637,835 (according to BlogPulse).

Number of Blogs Grows

14 million blogs were added since July 2011 (as of 12/2/2011).

 

If people are adding nearly 3 million blogs per month, surely this is a tool worth understanding and maximizing. That is the conclusion Technorati reached in their 2011 State of the Blogosphere Report.

In this report, bloggers fall into one of five categories:

1. Hobbyist—Someone who blogs for fun and doesn’t report any income from blogging (this represents 60% of the study).
2. Professional Part-time—These people typically blog to supplement their income and blog about personal musings or technology (approximately 9% of respondents).
3. Professional Full-time—These individuals make their living by blogging, but typically work freelance (approximately 9% of respondents).
4. Corporate—Corporate bloggers blog full-time as part of their job or are contracted to blog full-time for a company (8% of respondents).
5. Entrepreneur—Entrepreneurs blog for a company or organization they own (13% of respondents).

***Please note that Technorati’s data is heavily skewed by the presence of 60% hobbyist bloggers—people who blog as a way to express themselves or influence their community, but don’t seek to make money. I will focus on results from the 40% of bloggers who have a business objective with their blogging.

#1: Bloggers are young, educated and experienced

Bloggers come from all over the world and span the age range. But with that diversity come some commonalities worth noting. (Go here to see all the statistical comparisons made by Technorati.)

Nearly 60% of bloggers are between the ages of 25 and 44.

Most business bloggers are ages 25-44, but nearly 50% of entrepreneurs are over 45.

Most bloggers are highly educated, with almost 30% having college degrees and an additional 50% who have started or completed a graduate degree.

Bloggers are highly educated.

Most bloggers have been blogging for at least 2 years.

A vast majority of bloggers has at least 2 years of blogging experience, with a significant 20% carrying 6 years or more experience.

The average number of blogs managed by each respondent is three, up from two in 2010.

Business bloggers now manage three blogs on average.

40% of bloggers spend more than 3 hours a week working on their blog.

60% of entrepreneurs spend 1 to 5 hours blogging weekly.

A majority of bloggers updates their blog at least two to three times per week.

Over 50% of bloggers post at least two to three times per week.

#2: Bloggers help brands

Technorati found that a surprising one-third of bloggers have work experience in traditional media as journalists and in other capacities. They also found that consumers are increasingly putting their trust in blogs versus traditional media.

This reflects a major shift in marketing for brands of all sizes. Brands must become friendly with bloggers. If 40% of all blogs are business-oriented, that means there are around 72 million business blogs. Many of these represent an opportunity for you to foster mutually beneficial relationships with bloggers.

Not convinced? Check this out: 65% of bloggers follow brands on social media and most bloggers write regularly about the brands they follow.

A significant majority of bloggers uses social media to follow brands.

A vast majority of bloggers blogs regularly about the brands they follow.

#3: A growing number of consumers trust blogs

As expected, consumers receive their information primarily through friends, whether in real life or on social media. Of all social media platforms, consumers trust information they receive through blogs more than Facebook or Twitter.

Consumers are almost as likely to look to blogs for information as they are magazines and newspapers.

Consumers have the lowest level of trust in a brand’s social media sites.

Consumers are almost as likely to share information they find on a blog as from a newspaper or magazine.

Consumers are more likely to share information found on a blog than from a brand on other social media sites.

Consumers are most likely to share information they find on blogs through email and Facebook with Twitter being the third most likely.

Email and Facebook are the most likely way consumers will share blog posts.

#4: Bloggers depend increasingly on social media

(see stats here).

Bloggers get their inspiration and insights from social media.

Bloggers spend 10-12 hours weekly on social media sites, with 14% spending at least 21 hours. Additionally, bloggers spend another 8 hours weekly reading other blogs.

Most bloggers spend at least 10 hours a week on social media sites.

Bloggers “like” Facebook.

Over 90% of bloggers use Facebook and at least 65% of non-corporate professional bloggers have a Facebook page for their blog.

The primary way bloggers use Facebook is to promote their blog, but a significant 61% of entrepreneurs also use Facebook to market their business.

Entrepreneurs are nearly as likely to use Facebook to market their business as they are to promote their blog.

Twitter is very important for bloggers.

Over 80% of bloggers use Twitter and all professional bloggers have at least 1000 followers.

All business bloggers have 1000 Twitter followers on average. Note that full-time professionals and corporate bloggers have more followers than accounts they follow.

Around 80% of bloggers use Twitter to promote their blog.

The most common use of Twitter is to promote a blog.

Bloggers are early adopters of Google+.

This is one of the first studies I’ve seen on Google+ adoption. Over 60% of all surveyed bloggers have a Google+ account, but few had established a page.

Here are some of the ways bloggers use Google+:

Bloggers use Google+ for bringing interesting links to light, even more than promoting their own blog.

Bloggers have a diverse social media toolkit.

Not surprisingly, LinkedIn and YouTube are the top social media platforms used by bloggers. At least 30% of professional bloggers also make use of StumbleUpon, Delicious and Digg.

LinkedIn is the most commonly used social networking platform for business bloggers after Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

The most effective social tools for driving traffic are Facebook and Twitter, with LinkedIn being a distant third.

Facebook and Twitter lead the pack in effectiveness for driving traffic to blogs.

#5: Bloggers use multimedia

Around 90% of bloggers use some form of media in their posts, with photos being the most popular.

Videos are also widely used by almost 50% of all bloggers.

Photos are the most popular media type. Notice how audio is much less utilized.

#6: Bloggers are earning money through their blogs

While only 14% of bloggers earn a salary through blogging, bloggers are increasingly finding ways to earn money through advertising and brand partnerships. If you’re interested in knowing how bloggers approach revenue and advertising, see these interesting results.

#7: Bloggers are increasing their activities

Professional bloggers are generally increasing their blogging activity since they started blogging.

Professional full-time bloggers are significantly increasing their blogging activities.

How about you? Do your 2012 business plans include blogging? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Social Media Examiner

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogging, Blogs, Business Objective, Conclusion, Diversity, Entrepreneur, Express, Full Time, Job, Last Several Years, Media Tools, Money, Nbsp, Part Time, People, Personal Musings, Presence, reasons, research, Respondents, Rethink, Span, Statistical Comparisons, strategy, Technorati

This Facebook Marketing Book Might Be Just What You Need

Posted by MC on Nov 29, 2011 in Social Media | 92420 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.kimmonuotio.com%2Fsocial-media%2Fthis-facebook-marketing-book-might-be-just-what-you-need%2FThis+Facebook+Marketing+Book+Might+Be+Just+What+You+Need2011-11-29+03%3A49%3A59MChttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.kimmonuotio.com%2Fsocial-media%2Fthis-facebook-marketing-book-might-be-just-what-you-need%2F

Whether you’re new to the marketing game of Facebook or a pro looking for ways to improve your Facebook marketing strategy, Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies, which consists of 9 books in 1, might be your hole-in-one.

Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies was written by three industry experts, Amy Porterfield, Phyllis Khare and Andrea Vahl.

Amy, Phyllis and Andrea.

Let’s get started showing you what you can learn from the pros who authored this book.

Your customers live inside the walls of Facebook!

Facebook is a one-to-one online marketing machine that has now surpassed 800 million users!

“American Internet users now devote more time to Facebook than any other website, spending a total of 53.5 billion minutes a month on the world’s largest social networking site,” as reported in Nielsen’s Social Media Report.

Your customers are somewhere among those 800 million users. How do you use Facebook to market to your customers within Facebook? Check out Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies for the answers.

Book I: Joining the Facebook Marketing Revolution

Book I contains two very important chapters. You’ll learn how to get started, why you should get started and the importance of a well-crafted Facebook marketing plan.

If you aren’t brand-new to Facebook, you might be inclined to skip Book I. I suggest that you don’t. You’ll find some very valuable marketing questions to ponder and gain an understanding of how you can use Facebook to market your business.

Book II: Claiming Your Presence on Facebook

Book II contains four chapters, which will guide you through the different types of Facebook pages—very crucial for you to have a clear understanding. In these chapters you’ll learn how to create and administer your business page.

You’re going to get the complete tour of Facebook in these four chapters and you don’t want to miss any of the tips from Book II. Don’t forget that Facebook is a powerful platform with many features you’re going to need to market your page.

Book III: Adding the Basics to Your Facebook Page

Don’t let the word “basics” cause you to skip Book III, which consists of five chapters. This book leads you through the strategies of posting to your page, an overview of iFrames, connecting your social media accounts and very important legal considerations—something many overlook.

Book IV: Building, Engaging, Retaining and Selling to Your Community

People often mistakenly think that Facebook is about direct selling. It’s about engaging with your customers. Done correctly, sales should come in the process.

There’s a strategy to using Facebook in your marketing efforts. You must learn how to build visibility for your page, engage your community—and more importantly, keep them engaged. You also might want to expand your existing e-Commerce into Facebook. There’s much for you to learn and master from the four chapters in Book IV.

Book V: Understanding Facebook Applications

Book V consists of two chapters devoted to Facebook applications. Applications are a marketing opportunity that is often overlooked. Apps allow you to expand the way Facebook interacts with your audience.  You will learn about apps that have been developed by Facebook, along with strategies for use and how to activate them on your page. You will also learn about third-party applications.

Book VI: Making Facebook Come Alive With Events and Contests

This book has four chapters. Learn how to promote your events, run a contest and analyze the results. Who doesn’t like a contest, especially when you may win something? What you don’t know can hurt you; so don’t go off creating a contest on Facebook until you have read Book VI. You would hate to get shut down by Facebook before you even started.

Book VII: Advanced Facebook Marketing Tactics

It’s time to roll out the marketing artillery, with Book VII, which consists of four chapters.  You will learn nine core marketing principles, market with Facebook social plugins and learn how to get started using streaming video (cool way to engage).

Book VIII: Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising is a great way to attract new clients. There are three chapters in this book. You’ll learn how Facebook advertising works and how to set up and run your first campaign. That’s just the overview, so be sure to read all three chapters.

Book IX: Measuring, Monitoring and Analyzing

This is an important book. It consists of three chapters that will train you how to set realistic targets to identify success, how to make sense out of Facebook Insights and how to use tracking tools.

Summary

facebook marketing for dummies

Facebook is very innovative, which is reflected in its regular and often unannounced changes. Since the publication of this book, Facebook has made many changes, especially on the Facebook Personal Profile page side, among others.

Don’t let this deter your purchase because Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies is packed with the latest and greatest in Facebook marketing strategies.

The book is easy to understand and has complete step-by-step directions and associated screenshots to make your learning easier. The book is also filled with tips.

Make a hole-in-one with your Facebook marketing by reading and applying the contents of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies. I give this book 5 stars!

Social Media Examiner

Technorati Tags: American Internet Users, Andrea, book, Business Book, Business Page, Dummies, Facebook, Hole In One, Industry Experts, Just, Khare, Marketing, Marketing Book, Marketing Game, Marketing Plan, Marketing Strategy, Might, need, Nielsen, Online Marketing, Porterfield, Presence, Social Networking Site, This, Vahl, Valuable Marketing

Great Ideas For Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Posted by MC on Oct 30, 2011 in SEO TIPs | SEO Consulting | Comments Off

Great Ideas For Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Proper search engine optimization is perhaps the best internet marketing technique available. If your website ranks highly on search engine results pages, you can expect to receive a lot of organic, targeted traffic. Coming up are some practical SEO tips that you can use with your website to improve its ranking.

Design your website with SEO in mind. When you are able to consider SEO this early in the design process, you can develop options in your site that will make SEO much simpler for your copywriters. If possible, find a web designer who also knows the strategies and tools surrounding search engine optimization.

Keyword Analysis

To increase the traffic to your Internet marketing website, take into consideration the keywords that your customers are using to search for your product or content. Using a keyword analysis service can pinpoint the most likely keywords that potential customers are using. Adding the right keywords to your content or product description will result in more traffic.

Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to include too many keywords. Keep your site focused on a dozen or so main keywords or phrases that really capture the essence of what your site is about. Use analytical tools to figure out which words and phrases really bring in the most traffic.

Google

Utilize the AdWords tool kit from Google, to increase the effectiveness of your keyword selections for SEO. By using these tools, you can increase traffic to your site and increase traffic that translates into sales. You can search by specific keywords or type in a specific URL to discover the keywords that drive those particular searches. Choosing effective keywords boosts your ranking in search engines and increases your sales.

To ensure that your site shows up when people search for it, be sure to register your site with the major search engines. This helps make sure that their spiders will crawl to your site. It’s easy to go through their webmaster tools, and it won’t cost you a thing. All you need is a free account.

You should consider creating an XML sitemap for your website to improve your search engine optimization. Search engines love XML sitemaps and they are easy to implement. Use tools such as XML Sitemaps Generator to upload a sitemap quickly and then just let Google, Yahoo and Bing know where they are located.

Bing

A good search engine optimization tool lets you check the popularity of keyword searches on the internet. Having popular keywords is imperative in optimizing your search engine results. SEO tools allow you to see which keywords are trending in popularity at any given time.

For search engine optimization, the first thing you should do is register with Google and other search engines (such as Yahoo! and Bing). You can visit a special site, fill out a very short form with your website address and you’ll likely be “crawled,” in other words added, by that search engine faster.

Based upon your resources, you may be able to fully optimize your site for only one or two of the major search engines. Using keyword-rich content and structure will give you an advantage on any engine, but Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, and Bing all have their own nuances that favor certain SEO elements.

Use web analytic software to track visitor and other information to your site. This should be in place from the very beginning so that you view your progress and know if your SEO efforts are paying off. Google offers free analytic and Webmaster tools, but there are other programs that are available for purchase.

Yahoo

If you are looking to increase your sites visibility, you need to make sure that you sign up for free local listing through Google and Yahoo. These services give you free publicity that, in turn, bring you more visitors and more visibility. Never turn down a free venue for publicity.

Always validate your website’s HTML code if you are serious about its search engine performance. Broken HTML can keep search engines from indexing the full content of your site. Even a site that appears to function with no problems can have broken code. Website building programs or free online tools can inspect your site’s HTML and validate that it all works properly.

Search engines like Google and Yahoo are constantly evolving in terms of how they find information on the web. Consequently, you will have to change your pages to correspond with the changes that are occurring in the search technology if you want to stay on the cutting edge of Search Engine Optimization.

SERPs

To make sure your entire website is indexed by Google, submit your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. A good sitemap should link to every page of your site, and listing your site map on Google will assure each of those pages is listed. This can take a few weeks, but yield great results in the long run.

Use appropriate keyword density in all your content. If you are overdoing keywords, search engines pick that up as keyword filling, and they will often reject the site from the SERPs. You want to moderate use so you are providing quality content that has the right amount of keywords to be found in a relevant search.

Write website content that human beings can understand and enjoy. Keyword injected nonsense just isn’t going to work. Search engines are programmed to differentiate between actual sentences and strings of words. They know a paragraph shouldn’t have the same sentence repeated over and over.

If you fill your site with valuable content then the SERPS will reward you.

A powerful search engine optimization tool is Google’s Webmaster Tools. This program allows you to see how Google’s search engine robots experience your site, so that you can change things to make it easier for them to navigate as well as discover what weaknesses your site may have so that you can address them.

While these SEO could help get your website to the top of search engine results pages today, it is important to remember that search engine algorithms are constantly changing. As a result, you should always try to keep up with the latest news from the search engine optimization industry in order to ensure that your website retains its high ranking.

Technorati Tags: Analytical Tools, Best Internet Marketing, Copywriters, Free Tools, Google, Keyword, Optimization Seo, Phrases, Product Description, Proper Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Results, Search Optimization, Seo Optimization, Targeted Traffic, Title Tag, Tool Kit, Traffic Tip, Web Designer, Website Ranks

The New Relationship Marketing: Wisdom From Mari Smith

Posted by MC on Oct 26, 2011 in Social Media | Comments Off

Recently I interviewed my very good friend Mari Smith, the “Queen of Facebook.” She’s coauthored the most popular book on Facebook called Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day and has an exciting new book on relationship marketing.

You’ve also seen her outstanding articles on Social Media Examiner pretty much since our inception, and she’s also the anchor of Social Media Examiner TV.

She now has a brand-new hot book out called, The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, and Profitable Network Using the Social Web.

Catch the full interview (audio) at the end of this article.

Mike: Your new book is called The New Relationship Marketing, and I want to key in on the word “new.” What’s new about relationship marketing?

Mari: Well, first of all, the phrase relationship marketing was coined way back in the ’80s by a professor, and I have for 10 years—long before Facebook was even on the map—called myself a “relationship marketing specialist.” And I love that term because to me it transcends the medium. It’s all about people doing business with people.
                                               

What’s new is the social networking aspect and the fact that business is much more personal now. Everything is out in the open with the advent and popularity of social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

People are being much more open. Consumers are sharing vast amounts of information about themselves online, and as a savvy marketer, you can use that in creative and respectful ways to actually reach out and forge new relationships and deepen existing ones. Marketers can actually use online social technologies to create new relationships with prospects, customers and potential business partners.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Using information that people are sharing openly and publicly about themselves, a friend of mine has a key contact with whom he really wants to do business. He looks at that person’s Facebook profile and finds out what some of his favorite movies are. Then he does a little bit of research, and he’ll go onto eBay and find a piece of a movie set from that particular person’s favorite movie, for example, and he sends it to him. He told me that he’s gotten so much business from it. It blows people away.

Here’s another quick example of utilizing online social technologies. One time I was flying up to Seattle from San Diego. My flight was at noon and I showed up an hour early. I got to the desk—I was flying Alaska Airlines—and they looked at me and said, “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Ms. Smith, your flight has been delayed five hours.” I said, “What?! The flight is only three hours long!”

I’m not the type of person to post anything negative or derogatory. I’m not going to complain about a brand publicly like that, but I wanted to express that I wasn’t terribly happy. As it happened, I had forgotten to bring my iPhone charger with me, so I just put a little tweet out @AlaskaAir indicating I forgot my charger and: “Oh, bummer about the five-hour delay.” I didn’t think anything of it.

I go off to a quiet spot in the San Diego Airport and I begin to do some work on my computer. I’ve got Internet. I’m okay. I’m plugged in, I’m wired in—I can always do stuff. Forty-five minutes later, I hear this voice, “Hello there. Excuse me, are you Mari Smith? We have an iPhone charger for you.” I was absolutely gobsmacked!

Alaska Airline’s headquarters are up in Seattle, and their PR department spotted the tweet, called down to San Diego and said, “Hey, there’s this lady…” and they described me. “Look her up. She needs an iPhone charger.”

They really went the extra mile, and to me this is what the new relationship marketing is. You can take publicly available information to build a relationship with a prospect or existing customer. I will now go out of my way to fly Alaska Airlines because of their emphasis on really caring.

It didn’t stop there. They have sent me vouchers in the mail for Internet access on their planes and things like that.

Mike: That’s pretty cool. That reminds me of Peter Shankman from Help a Reporter Out. He recently tweeted Morton’s Steakhouse and said something like, “Landing at Newark Airport in five hours. I’d love a 21-ounce porterhouse.” He was just kidding, but when he got off the airplane and he was going over to the luggage claim, there was a guy in a tuxedo with a bag, and inside the bag was a 21-ounce porterhouse steak. Can you believe that? The guy said, “We got your tweet.”

I would imagine one of the take-home points here is that it doesn’t really matter what kind of business you’re in—on the business side of things, you can be watching for these opportunities to make a difference.

Can you share one or two of the softer skills that you think marketers need to develop in order to try to build relationships with “strangers” via new media?

Mari: The first skill, without a shadow of a doubt, is empathy.

I think there’s still a lot of fear around embracing new media: fear of exposure, fear of it being all-consuming and fear of privacy concerns. But also, there’s the technology fear of knowing what button to press. Those are technical. Those are more hard skills: “When I click ‘send,’ what happens?”

But underneath it all, there are also the soft skills. Soft skills are like people skills. People skills have never been more important than now because things can be taken out of context and misconstrued. You can say something in jest and someone takes it seriously, and so forth.

But the empathy part, especially, on Twitter where the messages are limited to 140 characters, it’s really easy to take things out of context. You have to train yourself and build that muscle to read between the lines and read what’s not being said.

Mike: Can you give us an example of a situation you’ve been in or that you’ve heard about where empathy helped build a relationship in a place that it didn’t seem plausible?

Mari: Off the top of my head, an example comes to mind which may be not quite in line with what you’re asking. But one time, somebody decided to put up a big blog post and start a meme with a hashtag. The hashtag was just #Iloveyou. This guy was really imploring people, whether they were a professional or a business or an individual, to just really go with this hashtag #Iloveyou.

For this one girl, it was literally the catalyst she needed to make this profound shift in her life. She read this blog post, she got caught up in the meme, and she really, really felt connected with people when she hadn’t been before.

And she shared that nine years before, her mother had died, and they were on bad terms. Her parting words were rather harsh, and she just kind of got shut down. She closed down her heart and didn’t really want to be friends with people. She saw this meme go by and it made such a profound difference to her that she was able to open up and share more with people.

Let me give you another example on a grander scale. Recently, there have been a lot of hurricanes. Sometimes individuals and brands try to capitalize on a situation for commercial gain, and it ends up being devoid of empathy.

Recently someone had posted an image trying to build up their presence on Facebook. They were saying, “Click ‘Like’ to wish everyone safety during the hurricane.” Well, of course, they got all these likes.

It was weird.

Somebody drew it to my attention and said, “What are your thoughts on this, Mari? Don’t you think it would have been better to say something like, ‘Our thoughts and prayers go to anyone affected by the hurricane’?”

Empathy, to me, is like listening between the lines, putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. This girl losing her mom and the “I love you” meme, putting myself in her shoes was like, “Wow, that was really brave of her.” She just put herself out there. She wrote up this big blog post that was completely transparent and it let people in.

To me, a large part of this relationship marketing concept is allowing yourself to be a little bit vulnerable and let people in. They naturally empathize with you, in fact.

Mike: Let’s talk about maybe one other soft skill that you think marketers need to develop.

Mari: I know that this one will resonate with you, Mike. It’s basically giving with no agenda. It’s helping people just because you can if you see a question on Facebook or on Twitter.

We’re talking a lot about online, and really, relationship marketing transcends and goes offline as well, but it’s basically giving with no agenda. It’s helping; it’s building what I call “social equity.”

When you do that, you’re building this grand social capital, and what comes back to you is that someone in that grand scheme will do business with you. It may not be the person that you directly helped initially, but if you keep contributing and giving with full intent of just being a genuine, caring person, that totally comes across.

It’s a fine line. I see people all the time who really genuinely believe that they’re giving with no agenda, but you can feel it. There’s a great line in the book Tribes, by Seth Godin. He says that people can “smell the agenda of a leader.” I think we can smell the agenda of anybody.

Mike: “Give to get” is this thing that so many marketers have been trained to do. “If you give something, you’ll get something in return.” I don’t think that’s a good reason for us to give.

I think when you just give in a genuine way, people know it and it’s an expression of care for them. It is an expression of love for your customers and the end result can be something positive.

I’ll share a brief little story. There was a lady who had to ask for a refund from one of our events. I felt really sad for her situation, and I said, “I’ll give you your money back and you can still attend.” She was blown away by that, and she ended up attending another of my events.

She sends me emails all the time, saying, “You’ve really taken great care of me in the past. You don’t know how much it made a difference to me.” So these kinds of things can be very rewarding.

Mari: For the longest time, my motto has been “Relationships first, business second.” And if you focus on building those quality, really connected, genuine, caring relationships, what happens is the business naturally follows.

But I think people tend to get a little fearful. They think that they have to focus on only the business and hopefully the relationships will follow, but you have to get it the other way around.

Mike: So how do you manage it all?

Mari: I usually see that social presence has two primary components and they both start with “C”—there’s “content” and there’s “connection.”

The content part is somewhat easy to systematize, even to outsource and delegate. Create a content calendar so you can decide ahead of time what you’re going to post on your various social profiles. You can have someone on your team who helps with that and goes out and looks for content to curate.

You can use pre-scheduling platforms. I’m a huge fan of HootSuite. I use it every single day for Twitter in particular. There are these studies out there where people are talking about, “You should be tweeting 20 times a day for optimal results,” and that’s pretty much almost once an hour, day and night. I think that’s far too much.

The thing is consistency. Less is more. At the end of the day, you want to be the voice that’s remembered, not just heard. So you send three to five really helpful, useful resources in quality posts, something profound—an inspirational quote or whatever it might be—both consistently and daily, which you can do with the scheduling.

Use rigorous time management, using a stopwatch if you have to or having a friend call you, if you find you do get drawn in and consumed. I struggle with this one on a regular basis, but I manage somehow to do it.

The content can be planned and scheduled. What ends up happening in the “connection” aspect—even if you don’t get around to replying to everything out there that people are saying to you or about you—if you reply to as much as you can, you will give the appearance of somebody who is conversational, connected and caring.

That’s what’s happened to me, in fact. Some people will say that about me. “Mari doesn’t get around to 100% of her @replies on any given day, but we know that she does her best to try to get to them all.” And people feel valued.

Mike: You talked about how you can schedule things, and I think you alluded earlier to the fact that it’s helpful to have people who can help you. In your book, you talk about the importance of developing a support team. Can you briefly explain why this is important and why people should do something like this?

Mari: Even if you’re a sole proprietor or solopreneur, at some level, you’ve got people supporting you. I really challenge people to think bigger, to dream bigger. If you have a talent or gift to bring to the world, if you surround yourself with really, really competent people, this will free you up to do more of what you’re good at.

I think that when you have terrific team members, that really can augment what you’re providing out there. It can help you have stellar customer service.

There’s a saying around hiring: “Hire slow, fire fast.”

I talk a lot in the book about values, and I use Zappos as an example. Tony Hsieh has 10 core values for the company. Out of that emerges this culture. I think that any company—I don’t care what size you are, small, medium or large—when you embody a really powerful value-driven culture, that comes out. It automatically permeates all your social interactions. Zappos really empowers their hundreds of staff to be discerning on their social profiles.

I think at any given time, you should know who’s on your team and what kind of stuff they’re putting out there. Are they representing you well? You don’t want to look like a broken-down store with half-baked profiles out there.

Mike: In your book, you talk about different circles of relationships with people. You talk about intimates, your friends, your key contacts, your acquaintances and the community at large. I want you to identify which of these groups are the ones we should focus on when it comes to relationship marketing.

Mari: Absolutely key contacts. It’s not always about the numbers. It’s not to go and just jam up your Rolodex with every top influencer and key contact that you can. If you get three to five stellar contacts who are aligned with your values and they’re willing to create a win-win venture, alliance or strategic partnership, that can be extremely lucrative for both parties.

In addition, you can expand beyond that three to five to have maybe 15 to 20 key contacts from whom you can easily call in favors. These would be people who would have a large following on any of the different social networks.

They might have a large email base and things like that, and they would support you in a heartbeat. If you message them directly and ask them if they could retweet something for you, absolutely, of course they would do it for you. They would want to be part of something that you’re part of.

So really look to see whom you can add to that key contacts circle and really nurture them using some of these relationship-building techniques we’re talking about.

Mike: This is kind of a crazy question, but I know it’s the one everybody wants me to ask: “How do I become the center of influence in my network?” I ask this carefully because I know that sometimes being the center of influence has pros and cons. But I think really where I’m going with this question is: how can I be someone important and perceived to be important to those within my network?

Mari: In essence, I really like to treat everyone as equals. I will interact with someone exactly the same whether they have 10 followers or 10,000 followers or a million followers. It’s all people to me, and I just like to treat everyone as equals.

Then also in regard to influence, I think we have it in our brains and perceptions that you need a massive audience to be an influencer. Ultimately, we all influence. In some way, shape or form, we have an environment around us filled with people whom we influence.

Essentially, you earn trust—and this will be music to your ears, Mike—by becoming a top-quality content provider. People realize they can come to you. They know you’re like a breath of fresh air because when they’re looking for a certain answer, they’re coming to you. You can do that even through curating other people’s content and having this attitude—as we’ve been saying throughout our chat here today—of being someone who’s kind, inclusive and generous.

And it’s also that you’re focused. I see a lot of people who are very scattered. They’re an expert in this one day and an expert in that tomorrow. But if you’re really focused, which I like to say stands for “follow one course until successful,” and you become this really kind person who’s consistently focused and providing great content, people are just naturally drawn to you.

Also, it’s expressing an opinion about the content that you’re sharing, not just necessarily retweeting everybody, but actually saying what it means to you.

Mike: This has been really spectacular stuff, Mari. I’m going to now ask you a question that might be difficult for you to answer. If there was such a thing as a “Mari reset button”—if you had to start all over from scratch and you didn’t have all the stuff that you have today except for the knowledge that you’ve gained, what would you do differently?

Mari: You know, I would absolutely think way, way bigger. If I was even to reset maybe 10 years ago, I would take far bigger risks, and I would step it up. I would live a life in alignment with my truth, my dream in my heart, my vision, my power and my light far sooner.

It took me a long time to get to the point that I’m at now. I joke about being an “overnight success” 10 years in the making.

Mike: That’s pretty quick by a lot of standards.

Mari: That’s true.

Mike: Well, you’ve done a really spectacular job. I’m very excited about your new book. And the new book, once again, is called The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, and Profitable Network Using the Social Web.

Mari, where can people learn more about you and your book?

Mari: My main website is www.MariSmith.com, but I do want to direct everyone to the book site, which is www.RelationshipMarketingBook.com.

Mike: Mari, I really appreciate your time today and I wish you the best with the new book.

Mari: Thank you. It’s been a delight.

Listen to our complete extended interview below to hear more about Mari’s nine-step program for building a loyal network.

Click here to download MP3.

What did you think of Mari’s step-by-step plan? Leave your comments in the box below.

Social Media Examiner

Technorati Tags: 10 Years, 80s, Advent, Anchor, Business Partners, Doing Business, Facebook, from, Good Friend, Inception, Mari, Marketers, Marketing, Profitable Network, Prospects, Relationship, Relationship Marketing, Savvy Marketer, Smith, Social Networking, Social Networks, Social Web, Twitter, Wisdom

Get the Most From Your Facebook Pages

Posted by MC on Aug 18, 2011 in Social Media | Comments Off

by dazza17 – DJ

Get the Most From Your Facebook Pages

Get the Most From Your Facebook Pages

Facebook Pages are the most straightforward way for businesses to have a presence on the Facebook social networking website. A Page is similar in its appearance to a standard Facebook profile (which are used by individuals who join Facebook), except that it’s designed to be the Facebook profile of a business.

People are becoming comfortable with conducting an increasing amount of their online activities exclusively on Facebook. Rather than using a search engine to find a product or service they need, some people are simply asking their Facebook friends for recommendations, or doing a search on Facebook itself. If you don’t have a Page set up for your business, you’ll be limited in how many of these potential customers can find you.

Begin the sign-up process by visiting the Pages area of Facebook. When you create a new account, try to choose a Page name that is as close to your real business name as possible. This will make it easier for people who you already do business with to find you on Facebook.

After you set up your Page, you can begin to build a following for your business. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that social networking tools such as Facebook are generally not very effective sales tools, at least in the traditional sense of the term “sales.” Facebook users who receive sales pitches on their Facebook walls tend to view the companies making them rather negatively.

In fact, companies who try to use Facebook as a direct sales tool are quite often viewed rightly or wrongly, as “spammers.”

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Instead, you would be better served by viewing your Facebook Page as an opportunity to build a following or community around your business. For example, whenever someone follows or becomes a “fan” of your company’s Facebook Page, any time you post a status update or link or other item to your Page, your followers will get a notification in their main news feed. You can use your Page to announce new product offerings, sales or special offers that you may be conducting, or other interesting news about your business.

Resist the temptation to try to sell to these people by posting multiple status updates or notes every day. If your followers feel overwhelmed by the volume of updates from you (especially if it seems to them like some of the updates are “forced”, or not noteworthy information), there’s a good chance they’ll simply un-follow you, and you’ll lose Facebook as a means of reaching that customer.

You should also consider how your business’ Facebook Page provides a new way to engage in a dialogue with your customers and potential customers. Ask customers what kind of new products and services they’d like to see from you, or how they might want you to refine your existing offerings. Once the conversation is underway, you may find that a greater number of people participate.

Sometimes the “business intelligence” you gain from your Facebook Page is something you’d never be able to get any other way.

Troy Jones is the owner of http://www.MagneticSalesTraining.com and is currently working as a salesman in the competitive mortgage industry. The site reviews sales training offerings available on the Web and offers other sales related resources.

Technorati Tags: Appearance, Business Name, Dj, Effective Sales, Facebook, Facebook Friends, Followers, from, Main News, Most, Networking Tools, Networking Website, Pages, Presence, Profile, Sales Pitches, Sales Tool, Sales Tools, Search Engine, Social Networking, Traditional Sense

Add new Will? Increase the gene my Twitter feed on my site my PageRank?

Posted by MC on May 13, 2011 in SEO TIPs | SEO Consulting | Comments Off

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