| When you’re desperate it’s hard to win business, get that job, market a product or do anything (like find a mate). The trouble is that most people who are desperate, can’t even muster up the levity to see, feel and hear it in themselves. When you’re desperate, your confidence drops, so whether you’re looking to meet someone, get a job or close a piece of business, nobody wants to connect with someone who reeks of desperation – and therefore lacks confidence in whatever it is that they’re doing.
If you can’t find a job, there are plenty of things that you can do. What most people fail to realize is that while they are looking for work, their full-time job is actually making themselves as knowable as possible (Hugh McGuire over at the The Book Oven and one of the co-hosts of Media Hacks once brilliantly stated, “don’t Blog to be know. Blog to be knowable”). Our work/world has changed. If you are looking for work, pay attention to this… 4 Ways to not Reek of Desperation:
Do you see how this works? Nobody owes you anything. Social Media offers you tools, access and opportunity that were not available to a single person within a specific niche until very recently. It’s up to you… and it’s incumbent on you to be successful. As Jeffrey Gitomer says, you don’t have to ask your Daddy for an allowance anymore. Translate that: you don’t need permission… it’s on you to do this, and no HR person can do this for you. So, while everyone else is letting their Blogs lapse or are spending their time tweeting for the sole purpose of gaming their numbers, why not use the channels to empower yourself to be become more knowable and interesting? What do you think? What would you add to this list? |
It Is What It Is And It Does What It Does
| Social Media (or any other form of Marketing and Communications) won’t save a bad product, brand or service.
This may seem like an obvious statement out of the gates, but it is something that many brand managers don’t really wrap their heads around. If you love the TV show Mad Men (and who, in their right mind, doesn’t?) the subtext of the early days of advertising (and something that kept happening until very recently) was the ability for a brand to engage with a Madison Avenue type of advertising agency to help them turn a coal into a diamond. The germ of mass media advertising was about creating an allure or desire for products and over-selling them. Making them seem and feel bigger than they really were. Social Media changed all of that… and more. While advertising still works on creating this perceived desire, things do change when all voices (the brand, the advertising agency and the consumer) have an equalized platform. Any one individual with a gripe or with something nice to say can get to the top of the search engines or have their online social network share their story (in places like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc…)so brands, products and services have to be able to deliver. In fact, with customer reviews (or peer reviews) individuals can affect a sales outcome right there where the “buy now” button lives. Ultimately, your brands, products and services have to hold up to this very simple adage: “it is what it is and it does what it does.” It’s great if it can do more (but if it could do more, you would probably say so in all of your marketing and communications), but it really doesn’t have to. So, when you use words like, “better, brighter, faster, 20% more, 40% off, etc…” you can disguise the true realities of the marketing initiative in the small print. Social Media is forcing companies to do away with that fine print. Seth Godin wrote brilliantly about how brilliant brands are the only way to go in his seminal best-selling business book, Purple Cow. While being remarkable should be every brand’s lighthouse, the conversation around what it takes and those who have actually done it eludes the majority of companies. Most companies still do make regular products for regular people (in fact, if everyone was able to create a Purple Cow, how would we know? We would probably need a phrase for something that is more remarkable than a Purple Cow – Purple Panda anyone?). Seth’s right, we need to get there, but most brands are falling woefully short of those purple pastures. The point is to ensure that your product is what it is and that it does what it’s supposed to do. That – in and of itself – is enough to begin some semblance of a conversation and the initial strikes at building a community. Sadly, most brands don’t even do that. They’ll make claims in their advertising and fight for people to understand “their side” on Twitter. It’s sad, because it is only the brands that are the exceptions to this rule that we can point to… and we can’t even do that one hundred percent of the time… and there aren’t enough great examples (hint: we need more!). Why? Why? Why? Why don’t brands live up to that one simple adage? Why can’t we all (as Marketers) make a commitment that our initiatives, programs and campaigns will be based on creating an appetite for something that can do what it claims and that works? One hundred percent of the time. All of the time. Without any small print. We would have a very different world. One where consumers actually enjoyed (maybe even looked forward to) advertising and one where the notion of brand loyalty would go beyond sending out mass emails to individuals who relinquished some of their privacy to simply save a few bucks. Wouldn’t it be nice? |
Don’t Let Digital Marketing Make You Lazy
Digital Marketing is not the faster, cheaper and/or easier way to get your message out to the world.
If you stick to that mantra you won’t be making any of the many foibles and
fumbles that are currently happening in the digital spheres. One of those is the now-classic email blast about the charity event you are taking part in, and how you have committed to raise a significant amount of money for a very worthy cause. Don’t get me wrong, asking for help from others is critical, and if it’s something as important as a charitable organization that is helping to make the
world a better place, then using these digital marketing channels to spread that message far and wide make sense, but you must (like anything else) be strategic about it.
Simply blasting your online social network or spamming your email address book may get you some results, but it won’t get you the best results. Yes, there are many people in your social network that will find it more than acceptable to get a mass email message from you. They love you, they care about you and would probably give you money even if you started telemarketing to them during dinner, but the “big win” is in how you treat those you are connected to who are nothing more than second/third degree connections (semi-acquaintances). Why not use the channels to tell a story?
It’s so easy to cut and paste a template email. It’s so easy to start off your communications with, “apologies for the mass email blast, but,” etc… but if you really do care, and you really do want to raise some money/awareness, why not do the right thing and take the time to get it right? Here are some basic
steps (and they’ll work equally well if you’re asking for money or trying to get people to buy your product/services).
6 Ways To Raise Money (And Awareness):
1. Let people know up-front what’s going on. Update your Facebook profile or tweet out on Twitter, “I’m going to be doing something special for a very special charity. Does anyone want to help me?”
2. Ask for help. As you can see from the simple message above, right away you are opening yourself up to questions and potential people who can help you better connect.
3. Show me why you care before asking for help. Publish content – text, images, audio and video – show the world why this is important to you, your family and the community at large.
4. Support others. Don’t just ask for help… get active in other people’s communities who are related to the charity. It could be other people looking to raise money or simply a news portal that is aggregating information about the cause. The more active you become in other people’s communities the more inclined others will be to help you.
5. Tell a story. Don’t make one up. Tell a human story – with emotion. By showing pieces of content and acting like a human being in these online social networks (versus a robot-like form letter/email), people will connect with you.
They won’t be able to resist. Real stories told in a very real human way are the most powerful… and don’t forget to thank them when they do something for you. 6. Copy David Armano. Before doing anything, please read this: Please Help Us Help Daniela’s Family (and read the comments too).
Don’t be lazy.
Most people are lazy. They’re busy with their day-to-day lives, and they think that the easiest way to get things done is by blasting everyone they know with emails (or through Facebook or Twitter or Linkedin). They’re wrong… and it’s lazy. Even taking the extra time to personalize each email with a name and a sincere note will make all of the difference in the world.
Marketing a message should not be an act of laziness, but an act of care and
sincerity. Those that take the time to care and are sincere about it are usually the ones that are successful.
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Your Blog Is Your Business
Your Blog is your business, unless it’s not your business.
If you Blog as a hobbyist, that’s fine, but if you’re Blogging to grow your personal profile, build your business, create some semblance of thought leadership or to simply share some of your thoughts and ideas, nothing is going to really happen, unless you treat it as a serious piece of your business. It’s not easy. In fact, if you ask anyone who Blogs regularly, it’s one of the hardest things to do.
It’s easy to forget about your Blog.
Being impressed by someone who regularly Blogs would be a dwarfed emotion compared to the stat of abandoned and forgotten Blogs. For every Blog that is regularly updated, there are probably thousands of Blogs that have been
orphaned. The problem with most Bloggers is that they’re not writers. They don’t see Blogging as a craft and art that must be practiced, pushed and prodded on a consistent and constant basis.
It’s easy to let a Blog drop.
In fact, it’s easy to let any of the many Social Media channels that you use to connect and share to drop off of the priority list. Sure, there are days when
the inspiration runs dry. Sure, there are days when the day-to-day stuff gets in
the way of the words. Sure, it’s easy to say that it’s “the work” that must come
first. But, before you do all of that, ask yourself this: “what was it that made you this busy in the first place?”
It’s not easy to let a Blog drop.
Think about your clients. Think about the work you’re doing. How did you happen to close those pieces of business? I’m lucky (some might say cursed), but a majority of the success we’ve had at Twist Image comes from the work we do – right here – on this Blog. When we started Blogging in 2003, we (and I say “we” because although this is my worded playground, it is a group effort and a huge
part of the overall business strategy of the agency) had a few clients and a few employees. The mass media and industry publications didn’t care much about us, because there wasn’t much of a story there to tell. Blogging enabled and empowered us to share how we think about the Digital Marketing landscape with the world. This Blog prodded along (it still does), and whether it’s working with a major brand, securing a business book deal or getting talent bureau representation, we stay focused on the fact that a lot of that came (initially) because of this Blog (in fact, it still does). Yes, we needed the work to stand on it’s own (both the creative and strategic) and we need to keep nurturing all of those client and business development relationships, but to this day many brands find us (and want to work with us) because of the ideas we share here (amongst other reasons).
This Blog is our business.
So, when you think you’re too busy to Blog or other priorities float on to the radar, try not to forget that Blogging (if it’s a part of your overall business strategy) is your business and the important work that must get done. What do you think?
A special thanks to Chris Brogan (author of Social Media 101 and co-author of Trust Agents with Julien Smith) for the inspiration with his Blog post: Your Blog Is Not Your Job.
7 Tips for Getting People to Your Blog
I love having a blog. It’s less formal than an e-newsletter and lets me express a more “authentic” voice. I’m also not bound by a publishing schedule and can post when the mood strikes me.
Building a blog readership, however, is a little more difficult than building an e-newsletter subscriber base. This is because the e-newsletter subscription process is automatic — you hand over your email address and viola, an e-newsletter shows up in your email inbox.
A blog, however, requires the reader to set up the RSS feed in a feed reader
(i.e. Bloglines or Google Reader) — and sometimes those feeds don’t work — and then you as the reader have to make the time to go read all those blog posts. In short, even with a blog reader you still have to go to the blog whereas an e-newsletter comes to you. To get people to your blog you have to work a little harder. I’m using the following tips with my own blog and have seen pretty good results:
1. Write remarkable content — As Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah write in
their best-selling book, Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs (full disclosure: I edited this book), you want to write content that others will want to comment on and pass around.
This means you can’t write product pitches or publish press releases or talk
about your company or post any of that other corporate dreck that puts people to sleep.
Instead, you have to think of yourself as a journalist and write content that’s interesting, insightful, humorous, and maybe even off the beaten track. 2. Publish regularly — Notice I didn’t say “establish a regular publishing schedule.” The beauty of blogs is that you can post stuff all day long, the way Mashable does, or you can post twice a month.
The important thing is to develop content on a regular basis. If you can’t post
for a few weeks or even a month or so (i.e. you just had a baby), explain why so that your readers don’t think you’ve abandoned your blog.
When I was developing my new Website and did not have time to post, I explained why. I was pleasantly surprised when people left comments.
3. Include an email subscription option — I still don’t understand why people
would want to subscribe to a blog via email, but some people do. So include this option on your blog (you can easily add it via FeedBurner).
4. Include social media buttons — Make it easy for people to repost your blog content on the various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Buzz, by prominently displaying the various icons or buttons to each platform.
Don’t forget to include the new Facebook “I Like” button, too. (If you use WordPress, you can download the “I Like” plugin.)
5. Market your content — Once you publish your content, you have to market it by publishing links to it via Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask a few of your favorite followers or your friends / colleagues to RT (retweet) or repost your content.
You can publicize your content via your e-newsletter, too.
6. Respond to comments — Once you start getting comments, always respond to them. This lets people know you’re reading comments and that you appreciate someone taking the time to leave a comment.
If you use WordPress, consider adding the “Get Recent Comments” plugin to your blog. The most recent comments will show up in your sidebar, which shows that your blog readership is active and paying attention.
7. Leave comments on others’ blogs — If you want people to read your blog and leave comments, then it pays to leave comments on other people’s blogs. I’ve made it a goal to try and read two or three blog posts a day and then leave a comment on at least one of them.
Once you start leaving comments, your fellow bloggers will be so happy they’ll start leaving comments on your blog — as will other readers who find your comments.
Bonus tip: Add a call-to-action — At the end of each blog post, ask people what they think about your post and to leave their comments / ideas / insights.
What strategies have you used to get people to your blog? Post your ideas / tips below — and thank you!
Sensation Blog! 