Mack Collier, Author at MackCollier.com

April 6, 2011 by Mack Collier

Want to know what’s next in social media? Listen to your customers

On Monday I was lucky enough to speak to students and business owners from across the state of Alabama at the PRCA State Conference in Birmingham. During my second session (here’s the slides), an attendee asked me ‘What’s next? What will be hot in 5 years, or the hot tool in 5 months?‘

I answered by saying that she shouldn’t be focusing on the tools, but on how we use the tools.

Why did blogs rise in popularity? Because they gave us a quick and easy way to create initially text-based content. Then, over time, the platforms evolved and new functionality was added. Then we could more easily add pictures, and video, and then widgets. The concept of the blog itself evolved, now businesses could use the tool as a more traditional blog, or as a website. Or some could combine elements of the two.

But at its heart, the blog gave us a tool to more easily create content. That content might be our thoughts and opinions on a personal blog, or it could be our marketing and promotions on a business blog. Or a combination of the two.

Then add in things like RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and ReTweets on Twitter, and Facebook Like buttons, and all these ways we have to more easily distribute our content.

So that presents a new consideration: If everyone now can easily create and distribute their content, that means we all have a lot more information accessible to us, right? Maybe even too much, so maybe we now need filters and ways to better organize that information. We need sites like AllTop that will organize all this blog content by topic so we can find what we are looking for.

Then what about technology? Smartphones and continuing to become more sophisticated, as mobile networks are trying to meet users’ demands for more bandwidth. As the networks become more robust and even faster, that will change how we consume and interact with content while on the go.

So if you want to know what is next in social media, don’t focus on the tools, focus on why your customers are using the tools. Why do they like Facebook now, where they used to love MySpace? What is it about the experience or functionality of Twitter that they love? Don’t think about what the tools offer your customers, but think about what your customers get from using those tools.

For example, 3 years ago if I had a major customer service issue with a company and wanted to get their attention, past traditional channels (contact them via website, toll-free number, etc), I might blog about my issue. Now, I would go to Twitter. Why? Because I know that I can probably get their attention quicker via Twitter. But if another channel existed that would let me get a quicker response and resolution to my problem, I would go with that channel.

Because I don’t care about the tool, I care about getting my problem solved as quickly, easily and satisfactorily as possible. Whatever tool helps facilitate those outcomes, is the one I will use.

What do YOU think is next in social media?

April 5, 2011 by Mack Collier

6 Reasons Why Your ‘Online Community’ Stinks

In the past couple of years a lot of companies have tried to create an ‘online community’ of and for its customers. A lot of these efforts are really bad, and a most of the time they are scrapped within a few months, if not sooner.

If your company is wanting to launch a community site for your customers, here’s some pitfalls to avoid:

1 – You can create a site, but you can’t create a community. The ‘community’ half of ‘community site’ has to form organically, and from your efforts. Those efforts have to resonate with the people you want to connect with. Otherwise, all you’ll ever have is a lonely site, waiting for its community.

2 – Focus first on building a community, not on monetizing a community. There are few absolutes in the world of online marketing and social media, but this is pretty ironclad: Communities do not form around the idea of being monetized. There is no group of your customers that are biding their time and waiting for the day that you will create a community site that they can group and give you money. If you want to monetize a community site, then the monetization has to be a byproduct of the experience you create for the community members. Give the community an incentive to form, then the money will come.

3 – Value creation must be baked into the site from the get-go. Why are people going to come to your community site? What value are you creating for them? That will play a huge role in whether or not your community forms, and it will also play a huge role in your ability to monetize that community site.

4 – You need to give your members the ability to connect and have fun with each other. Also known as ‘Where do we account for the ability to throw sheep in this plan?‘ If you want a community to form on your site, you need to think about ways to give members to connect with each other. To learn more about each other, to have fun with each other. You want your members to instantly recognize other members when they see their names each time they return to your site. So much of the success of your community site won’t have anything to do with the functionality you offer members, but rather the connections that members make with each other. You want to think about adding ways to make the connection process easier for members.

5 – If your community starts to form, you MUST spotlight your advocates. As your community begins to form, some of your members will take on a leadership role, and will try to accelerate that growth. They will be the ones that are explaining to newbies what the site is for, what the rules are. They will be the ones trying to make sure that everyone finds the right information. They are the ones that have ‘bought into’ the community here, and want to see it succeed. These are your rockstars, and you should treat them with the respect they deserve (all your members deserve respect, but you must spotlight your advocates).

This is all about rewarding the type of behavior that you want to encourage. You want to see your members take on an active role in growing your community, and you want to communicate to the entire community that you appreciate the efforts of your advocates in doing this.

6 – Building a community is HARD work. Were you expecting a turn-key solution to your online community-building efforts? Bless your heart. You’re going to have to love the people in the community, and the ones you want in the community. You’re going to have to love the idea of creating something valuable for these special people. Because it really will be a labor of love, and that’s what will give you the incentive to stick with it.

So those are some pitfalls to avoid if you want your Online Community efforts to be a success. It won’t be easy, but then again you didn’t really believe that social media was all rainbows and unicorns, did you? 😉

April 1, 2011 by Mack Collier

The fallacy of trying to be ‘awesome’

First, I’d like to point you to this video:

Thanks to Robbin for the heads up on this.

Next, I’d like to share a quote from Kathy Sierra:

“Let other companies, brands, apps battle with one another over who has the most awesome product, while the REAL battle is over who has the most awesome users.”

This video and this quote go to the heart of what I think is wrong with 99% of the talk about being ‘awesome’ these days. All this talk about how you need to be awesome, how you need to create amazing content and how ‘awesome wins’.

Because most of that talk is focused on how YOU can be awesome. What YOU need to do to be awesome, and how if YOU create awesome content, then YOU are awesome.

Everyone that attended the World Science Festival with Bobby McFerrin no doubt left thinking HE was awesome. Why? Because he made THEM feel awesome. Note with Kathy’s quote, the focus is on who has the most awesome USERS (and it could just as easily be the most awesome customers, or blog readers).

The point is, don’t focus on how YOU can be awesome, focus on how you can make OTHER PEOPLE awesome. If you are blogger, how can you create content that’s going to help your readers do something they couldn’t do before? How are you going to help them solve a problem, or be more productive? What ability are you going to give them that they didn’t have before?

It’s not about putting a spotlight on yourself. It’s not about beating your chest and bragging about your accomplishments.

But empowering others…now THAT is awesome.

What super power will you give your readers?

March 31, 2011 by Mack Collier

10 Proven Tips for Getting More Engagement on Your Business Blog RIGHT NOW!

Next week I am speaking at the PRCA State Conference in Birmingham, on how to create engaging content. I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my presentation for this event, and wanted to share some of the tips with you here on how to increase engagement on your blog.

1 – Decide WHO you are trying to engage. It all starts here. Are you trying to reach customers? Potential partners? Potential donors? You have to decide who you want to reach before you can reach them. You should already have your blogging strategy in place that will tell you what group you should be targeting, and why.

2 – Decide WHAT type of activity you want your target audience to engage in. This is also critical. You need to first decide who you want to be reading your blog. Then once they are on your blog, you need to decide what action (or type of engagement) you want them to take. Do you want them to comment? Sign up for your email newsletter? Visit your website? Email you? If you don’t know what action you want visitors to take on your blog, you can bet that they don’t either.

3 – Give readers multiple ways to connect with you. Don’t just hope for more comments, give visitors an option to sign up for your blog’s feed (via both Email and RSS), and give them a way to contact you directly via email. And if you have a retail location especially, add your phone number. Believe it or not, not everyone is comfortable commenting on blogs, they may want to contact you privately, especially if they are interested in hiring you or buying from you.

4 – Reward readers that engage in the type of behavior that you want to encourage. Remember when I mentioned that Comment Redirect is a great plugin? It does exactly this, when you leave your 1st comment here, you are redirected to a page that thanks you for your comment. Why? Because I want readers to leave more comments. So when they do, they are thanked via that special page.

5 – Ask for the type of engagement that you want. If you want more comments, then ask for them. If you want more subscription signups, then add a footer to your posts asking readers to subscribe to your blog.

6 – Don’t moderate comments. Or if you must moderate comments, approve them ASAP. But let’s be honest, if most people spend even 30 seconds writing a comment and are greeted with ‘Your comment is awaiting moderation‘ then the odds are they won’t be back. For most new business blogs, comment moderation really isn’t necessary. As long as your blog has a way to block spam (such as the Akismet plugin), then the only moderation that will be necessary is for the content itself. For most business blogs it will take a while for your blog’s readership to grow to the point where you are getting frequent comments. So as long as you are proactive about checking new comments, you shouldn’t need to moderate.

7 – Respond to existing comments. This is very obvious, but a lot of business bloggers miss this. Last week’s post on Why Introverts Love Social Media currently has 89 comments, but 34 of them are from me. You have to write em to get em.

8 – Tailor your content so that it encourages the type of engagement you want. This goes beyond simply asking for comments or emails in a post. Think about what type of content would prompt the type of engagement you want. For getting comments, this is fairly easy. But what if you want more subscribers or even buyers, you need to create content that will move visitors toward that level of engagement.

9 – Interact with readers on other sites to drive interest back to your blog. Figure out which sites/blogs current and potential readers spend time on other than yours, and interact with them there. For example, find sites/blogs that cover your specific industry. The odds are that some of the people you want to reach via your blog, are already actively engaged on those sites. If you can go interact with them there, that can lead them back to your blog. Or maybe if you are a marketing and branding firm, a LinkedIn group on branding might be a good place to connect with people and drive interest back to your blog. And since you have already connected with these people OFF your blog, they will be more likely to interact with you when they come back to your blog.

10 – Publish new posts based on when people visit your blog. Check your blog’s stats, and note which days and times have the msot visitors. If you discover that peak traffic occurs every Monday-Friday from 10am-2pm each day, then there’s your likely window for when you should be publishing new posts. If you can give your visitors new content when they are on your blog and looking for it, that increases the odds of getting their attention, and getting them to interact with your content.

BONUS: Experiment. Use these proven tips as your starting point, but don’t assume that each of these are the only ways that YOU can increase engagement on YOUR blog. Good business bloggers are the ones that can take what has worked for others, and apply it to their own efforts. But the great business bloggers are the ones that can also create successful efforts based on their unique situations. Every blog’s readership and goals are different, and need a unique strategy and execution. Use the above list as your starting point for increasing engagement on your blog, not as the beginning and end.

Pic via Flickr user ausnahmezustand

March 30, 2011 by Mack Collier

Why do we apologize for wanting to make money?

There seems to be an unwritten rule in social media: “You don’t attempt to make money off the content you create via social media.”

I’m not sure who created this rule, but every time a content creator attempts to monetize their efforts, there is almost always a level of backlash. Chris Brogan is probably the poster-boy for attempting to monetize his content, and today he announced that he was accepting ads on his blog. That’s not what got my attention, what struck me was the almost apologetic tone of his post. A few of Chris’ readers picked up on this tone as well, and commented on it.

I’ve never completely understood why this is an issue for some people. To me, this is a win-win. If the content creator can earn some money from the content they create, then they can afford to spend more time creating that content. If I enjoy the content that the person is creating, then obviously, that’s a big WIN for me.

Still, some people are going to be upset by this. When I announced back in October that I was going to start taking sponsorships for up to 1 #Blogchat a month, I had a few regular participants say they were leaving and never coming back. I assured them that the #Blogchat experience would be almost exactly the same, that I would only accept sponsors that would make #Blogchat better, and that I was taking the sponsors so that I could afford to spend more time on expanding the offerings of #Blogchat so everyone benefited. Still, people left, and that’s their choice.

Let’s clear the air right now: No one is going to get rich monetizing their social media content.

Seriously, every time Blogger X attempts to monetize their efforts, there are wild rumors about how this blogger is suddenly making ‘big money’. Yes, everyone hears the same rumors, and they are so detached from reality in most cases that it’s laughable. In fact, that’s one of the only things I dislike about this space, the wild rumors, and most of them are associated with what people make.

But the unfortunate side affect of all this backlash and rumor-mongering is that we are sending the message to ‘new’ bloggers that attempting to monetize their content is a distasteful act. It isn’t. In fact, that’s how we all learn to improve our own efforts, by studying what is working for others. Have you noticed what Jason Falls is doing with Exploring Social Media? I love that, and it’s giving me a ton of ideas for expanding the educational element of #Blogchat, and possibly extending the live experience into a classroom setting.

What do you think about bloggers monetizing their content?

Does this bother you? If one of your favorite bloggers announced that they were taking ads or sponsors on their blog, would that be enough to make you stop reading that blog? If you monetize your blog content, what have been your results? Have your readers voiced their displeasure over this?

March 29, 2011 by Mack Collier

How I increased traffic to my blog by 145% in three months

Over the past 3 months, I’ve made a concerted effort to post more often here. During #Blogchat on Sunday night, a few people were asking me about my experiences, and I promised to do a recap post here, detailing what I have learned. First, as you might expect, traffic is up sharply. Here’s how traffic here has done over the past 6 months. As you can see, a huge spike in traffic starting in January when I started posting more. In fact, I found that the percentage increase in traffic almost exactly mirrored the percentage increase in number of posts.

From October through December, I averaged 8 posts a month.

From January through this month, I have averaged 21 posts a month. That’s a 163% increase.

From October through December, my average traffic was 6,363 visitors a month.

From January through this month, I have averaged 15,570 visitors a month. That’s a 145% increase.

Feed subscribers increased as well, here’s how my number of subscribers tracked over the past 6 months:

October 1st – 1,970

November 1st – 2,074

December 7th – 2,218

January 1st – 2,242

February 1st – 2,577

March 1st – 2,768

Today – 2,991

There you see the same thing, feed subscribers were growing at about 100 a month before I started posting more, since then, it’s up to 200-300 a month. So obviously, posting more often here has greatly increased my traffic, feed subscribers, and visibility. I really noticed this a couple of weeks ago when I was in Austin for SXSW. In my prior two visits to SXSW, a few people were kind enough to stop me and tell me they enjoyed my writings. What I noticed this time was that far more people were mentioning they enjoyed my writing, but they were also referencing individual posts I had written. Additionally, over the past three months I’ve seen an increase in work and speaking requests as well, so it’s obvious that by simply creating more content (that hopefully hasn’t fallen in quality), that I am getting on more people’s radars.

Now, the big question for you is, should you try to post more often? The big problem that many of you have (as referenced again by feedback from the last #Blogchat), is that most of you don’t have time to post more. Personally, my biggest problem was finding ideas to post about. What I did up till January was shoot for 1-2 posts a week here. So basically, my method for finding ideas was to basically wait for inspiration to strike, and hope that it hit at least once over the course of a week.

But when I made the commitment to post 4-5 times a week, it meant I had to start looking for new post ideas EVERY day. That changed how I looked at my interactions and the other blogs I was reading, and I realized I was leaving a LOT of post ideas on the table. In fact, at least one post I write here a week now comes directly from a conversation I have either participated in or observed on Twitter.

So what about the time issue? The other big surprise to me has been that my time spent writing each post has been slashed. Before, I would spend a couple of hours writing each post. Now, I spend 30-45 mins. The end result is that my output of posts has increased by 163%, but my overall writing time is the same as before, or slightly lower!

So if you want to try this experiment, here’s what I would suggest. Take the number of posts you are writing now every week. If it’s 1 a week, triple that to 3. If it’s 2 posts a week, double that to 4. If you are writing 3 posts a week, increase that to 5. Then whatever your new number is, commit to writing that number of posts next week on your blog.

This will FORCE you to do two very important things:

1 – Come up with more ideas for posts

2 – Write faster

Try that experiment for one week, and see what your results are. Then at the end of the week, you can decide if you want to commit to doing it for another week. And you really won’t begin to see big changes in your traffic, subscribers, etc, until you’ve stuck with it for at least a couple of weeks. So the longer you can stick with this method, the better results you’ll see. And also, pay close attention to the quality of your posts. You don’t want to increase your posting output if it means that your overall quality of posts falls. As I’ve already said, I found that ideas for posts were easier for me to come by, so I don’t think my post quality has fallen too much, in fact I’ve had many people tell me it’s higher now than it was last year.

So give this a spin, and see what you think! If you have any questions about what has worked for me, or how it do this yourself, please leave a comment or email me.

UPDATE: The key takeaway for me from this experiment hasn’t been the increase in traffic and other metrics, I expected that. What’s surprised me is that the content creation process has become much easier. This totally blindsided me, and this is why I think you should consider trying this as well, to see if you have similar results.

March 28, 2011 by Mack Collier

Two WordPress plugins to help convert new visitors into readers

According to Google Analytics, at least 25% of the traffic here is coming from Twitter and Facebook. Which is great, but the problem is that a lot of these visitors are here for the 1st time, and often they will only be here long enough to read the latest post, maybe leave a comment, and then they are gone. And they likely won’t be back unless someone in their network links to another of my posts. We are beginning to use our networks as our newstand, we quickly check out shared links, but bounce to the next one just as quickly.

So I started thinking, if there was a way to convert just 10% of those new visitors that were coming from Twitter and Facebook every day, that could make a HUGE impact on this blog’s readership! To help me do this, I’ve added two plugins that I wanted to share with you, to see if you can benefit from them as well.

1 – Comment Redirect. I can tell that this plugin has been a BIG hit with yall, as I get a few emails every week on how much readers love this. What comment redirect does is redirect FIRST time commenters to a page of your choice, after they leave their comment. On that page you can put whatever information you want. Since I am hoping to get first time commenters to become regular readers, my page thanks them for commenting, and then gives them a way to subscribe to this blog’s feed, and follow me on Twitter. Also, I have an area where they can learn about my services. Here’s where you can learn more about this plugin, or from your WordPress dashboard, go to plugins, and then search for it. Thanks to Amy for introducing this one to me. If you’ve never commented here before, you can leave one to see what my page looks like 😉

2 – WP Greet Box – I discovered this one on C.C.’s blog. What WP Greet Box does is target new visitors based on where they came from, and offers you the ability to give them a custom welcome message! For example, if you come here for the 1st time from Twitter, the plugin should notice that and offer a small message box above the post and welcome you. For Twitter, you are giving a window box that gives you the options to tweet the post to Twitter, and follow me on Twitter. You can learn more about the plugin here. Below is a snapshot of what the box would look like for a new visitor from Twitter to my last post on introverts and social media.

To be honest, I’ve just started using this plugin and I’m not 100% sold on it. It’s a good idea, but it’s also slightly intrusive at the top of the post. I think a similar message at the end of the post might be a better idea. I will track my number of readers/followers for a couple of weeks and see if there are noticeable changes.

But notice that for both these plugins, the idea is to focus on the type of behavior that I want to encourage. I want more comments, so the Comment Redirect plugin is there to make sure that first time commenters know that I appreciate them and how they are helping to make the content here more interesting. With the WP Greet Box, I want first time visitors to stay in touch with me, so I give them custom ways to do this, based on the site they came from.

What about you? What plugins are you using to help convert first time visitors into readers? What other options are there, or do you know of something similar to WP Greet Box? I would like to see what else is available. But I think the point is that it just makes sense to make it as easy as possible for new visitors to subscribe to your content, and to keep up with the new content you are creating.

March 25, 2011 by Mack Collier

Why introverts love Social Media

“Hello, my name is Mack, and I am an introvert.”

If you are an introvert that’s active in social media, do people that you meet find it difficult to believe that you are introverted? I get this often, so much so that I have on my Facebook page that I am “Online extrovert, offline introvert. It’s complicated.”

But for me, it’s much easier to be outgoing online, than it is offline. I think that’s why I love social media so much.

For example, one of the things that I hate is being in a room full of people where I don’t know anyone. I find it extremely difficult to introduce myself to anyone and talk to them, because I assume they don’t know me and don’t want to know me. It’s a terribly awkward situation for me, and if you’re an introvert you can probably relate.

But if I am in a group of people I don’t know on Twitter, I have little problem striking up a conversation with them. The anxiety over having to in-person introduce myself is all but removed, and as a result, it’s much easier for me to engage with people.

Here’s another example of an awkward offline situation. What if you have just met someone and are talking to them. What do you do when you reach that point where the conversation has died, and you need to politely break it off? I hate that! But again, if I’m online, then I can leave and no one really knows. So again, that awkward feeling is removed.

This is why I think it’s so easy for introverts to be extroverted online. I was talking to Liz Strauss and Kellye Crane about this at SXSW, and we all felt the same way. But the problem this creates for me is that since I *am* extroverted online, people that I meet offline expect me to be extroverted. And I’m almost always more reserved (even at SXSW), so I can give some people the wrong impression that I am ‘stuck up’, or not interested in talking to them. I’ve really tried to work on that, but it’s an issue.

What do the rest of you introverts say? Do you find it easier to communicate with people online versus offline? And if so, how do you handle meeting people offline? Do you think there’s a noticeable disconnect between how you act online, vs offline?

BONUS: My friend Lisa has a series of posts on introverts and leadership and business. Great reading!

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