MackCollier.com

by

Your Social Media Strategy Starts With Monitoring

If your company is ready to dive into the social media waters, which tools such they examine first? Blogs? Facebook? Twitter? Wrong. Try Google.

Before you can launch a successful social media strategy, you must begin monitoring existing conversations about your company. This has several advantages:

1 – It lets you be proactive in responding to complaints from customers. Want to impress a customer that’s blogged about a problem they are having with your product? Leave a comment 15 mins after their post goes up, then follow up with an email attempting to help them with their problem. If you are sincere in trying to help that customer, you’re almost assured of flipping her from being an angry customer, to a passionate advocate for you.

2 – It helps create evangelists for your brand. See above. Not only are you giving angry customers a reason to become a fan, but you’re validating to your existing fans why they love your company. If Bob is passionately promoting your company on his blog, but stopping by his blog and leaving a quick ‘Thank You!’ comment, you validate why he loves you to begin with.

3 – It increases your brand equity. By actively monitoring the blogosphere and other social sites, your company can develop a reputation of reaching out to and helping customers. Also, as you gain a reputation for being responsive, it helps set you apart from competitors that aren’t as responsive.

4 – It makes you more familiar with social media tools and sites. Once you begin monitoring the blogosphere and social media sites for company mentions, you’ll begin to better understand how ideas spread in this space, and how blogs work. You get a better understand of how your customers are communicating with each other and how those interactions change based on the site they are on at that moment.

 

Remember that monitoring what customers are already saying about your company and your space simply improves your chances of communicating effectively with those customers.

 

by

Ten Quick Tips For Growing Your Blog’s Subscribers and Comments

 

Subscribers and comments are two of the most popular metrics bloggers use to measure if their blog is a success or not. I’d like to share some ways that I have increased my blog’s subscribers and the number of comments I get per post. Your mileage may vary, but hopefully many of you can benefit from at least some of these tips:

Subscribers

  • Set up a Feedburner account. This should be one of the very first things you do when you set-up your blog.
  • Once you do, burn a feed for your blog, and then set up your account so all your different feed versions will redirect to your Feedburner feed. This is important because it then gives you a much better idea of how many subscribers you have, and how they are accessing your feed. Feedburner’s blog explains how to make the switch(for Blogger blogs). I saw my number of reported feed readers double overnight by doing this.
  • Ask for subscribers. Amazingly, asking for what you want really does work! Feel free to remind readers at the end of posts that if they enjoyed this content, to please subscribe to receive all your posts.
  • Give your readers the ability to subscribe to your blog’s posts via email. Feedburner can set this up for you as well. Always give your readers as many choices as possible for how they can receive your content.

Growing your number of subscribers and comments on your blog

Comments

  • Ask for reader feedback. One thing I figured out VERY early on in my blogging journey is that my readers are, as a group, always smarter than I am. Since I always learn from you guys, I want your feedback.
  • Take a definite stance. This is actually something I need to work on. But when you take a definite stance on an issue, it makes it easier for those that agree with you to chime in, and it makes it easier for those that disagree, to express why they do. And when you have contrasting opinions, that usually leads to a more robust conversation.
  • Put a ‘window’ on your comments, in your blog post. Let’s say that I write a post and it gets a couple of comments. Then Gavin leaves an incredible comment that sparks the exchange to take off and grow into a conversation. Why not go back and edit your post and add Gavin’s comment at the end of your post? And add a link to Gavin’s blog when you do. This is a great way to show your other readers Gavin’s comment, and it will likely prompt them to check out the comments section to see what the smart kids are saying!
  • Leave comments on and link to other blogs. I’ve said it a million times, but the best way to grow your blog, is to leave it. Make a point to comment on the blogs of your readers that comment on your blog, or at least link to their blog posts. This is why I love Twitter, cause it’s a great way for me to quickly and easily share links with my followers, and I try to share links from bloggers that comment on my blog, first.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from your social networks. This comes with a big caveat that you have to be careful about how often you do this, and you need to also link to other blogger’s posts. If the only time I see you is twice a week on Twitter asking me to please come leave a comment on your new blog posts, I probably won’t do it. But if I see you everyday on Twitter chatting and linking to other blog posts, THEN when you ask me to please read your new post, I probably will.

What did I miss? How are you growing your blog’s subscribers and comments?

by

Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans

Collier_cvr_alt

“Think Like a Rock Star is the rediscovery of the simple but powerful truth: the ability to acquire new customers depends on the ability to engage, ignite your existing customers and convert them into passionate fans.”

An Amazon Bestseller and the most requested McGraw-Hill publication ever submitted to NetGalley, Think Like a Rock Star is for any brand that wants to learn how to cultivate passionate fans that drive real business growth.  Every single chapter has detailed, step-by-step instructions showing you exactly how to create a fan-centric brand.  Tired of reading books that are long on ‘why-to’ and short on ‘how-tos’?  Then you’ll love Think Like a Rock Star.

Here’s some of the many areas covered in Think Like a Rock Star:

  • An entire chapter with detailed, step-by-step instructions showing your brand how to respond to customers online, especially customers that are leaving negative comments about your company online.  Including multiple case studies of businesses that correctly and incorrectly handled criticism from customers, this chapter shows you not only how to respond to angry customers, but to do so in a way that can actually convert them into fans of your brand.  
  • How to design a content strategy that focuses on The Bigger Idea and cultivates fans of your brand.  Creating compelling content is an area that many brands struggle with.  I show you what the three methods are to creating compelling content that your customers will find value in, and that will convert them into fans.
  • How to structure an Influencer/Blogger outreach program, and a detailed look at the advantages and disadvantages of these programs versus connecting with your fans.
  • The exact blueprint for creating a fan-centric brand.  Everything is covered, right down to internally and external staffing, core responsibilities of each employee position, everything.  Additional sections cover creating and launching a brand ambassador program, even a section on how to measure the ROI of your efforts.

 

Still not convinced? Check the reviews on Amazon and GoodReads.  Here’s what some of them are saying:

“THINK LIKE A ROCK STAR is so engaging, well written and useful that it should be required reading not only for marketing and PR professionals but for anyone who represents a brand, from the CEO to the sales team to the receptionist who takes the customer’s first phone call. The very fact that I now want to sing this book’s praises is testimony that what Collier writes about in this title actually works.” – Angie Finley

“I am actually considering buying a copy of this book and sending it to the marketing departments of each of my favorite companies – those to which my undying loyalty goes largely unnoticed and unappreciated, and to the small local businesses I support that DON’T make the effort to get to know me despite my status as a frequent customer.” – JL Keats

“This is one book that I will be sharing with my team, from our customer service superstars to our editorial team to our sales group. Aside from being engaging and easy to read- I mean come on, we all love rock stars!- Mack provides the reader with concrete, actionable take-aways that can be immediately applied to any business setting.” – Rebecca Amy Todd

Here’s a video review from John Bellamy, who works for Dell (one of the case studies in the book)

Hopefully by now I’ve sold you on why you should buy Think Like a Rock Star.  But if you still aren’t convinced, email me and I will be happy to send you the Introduction from the book, which will give you an idea of what it’s all about.

Here’s some of the places where you can buy Think Like a Rock Star online:

Also, if you would like for me to present Think Like a Rock Star at your event or do a workshop on how brands can connect with their fans, please email me for pricing and availability.

by

Who is Mack Collier?

Mack1Recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 25 Social Media Marketers in the World, Mack Collier is a social media strategist, trainer and speaker located in Alabama that specializes in helping companies better connect with its customers via social media and digital marketing channels. He has been actively immersed in social media since 2005, and in that time, has helped businesses of all shapes and sizes better connect with their customers via these amazing tools and sites. His clients include businesses of all sizes, from sole proprietorships, to Fortune 100 companies.  His goal is to help his clients create connections with their customers, and nurture them into relationships that help grow their bottom line.

Mack is a highly sought-after speaker on social media and customer-engagement topics and has presented at some of the top social media conferences and events, including South By Southwest Interactive, Blog World and New Media Expo, Content Marketing World, and Social Media Tourism Symposium.  Additionally, he founded and moderates #Blogchat, the largest Twitter Chat on the internet, where thousands of people meet each Sunday night on Twitter to discuss a different blogging topic.  The amazing growth of #Blogchat, first on Twitter and now as a series of Live events, speaks to Mack’s ability to leverage Social Media tools as a way to build community and make connections.

Additionally, Mack’s thoughts and expertise on Marketing, Brand Advocacy and Social Media have been sought by some of the world’s most prestigious news sources, including The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, USA Today, CNBC, ESPN, The Washington Post, CNET and Entrepreneur Magazine.  His first business book, Think Like A Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans was published in 2013 by McGraw-Hill and is an Amazon Best Seller.