MackCollier.com

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Every piece of content you create should have a specific goal

A friend teased me yesterday that the posts I wrote on Monday and Tuesday here hadn’t gotten as many comments as most of the posts here do.  I told her that I wasn’t writing the posts for comments, but for search engines.

What?  Yes, the primary goal for my post on creating a Social Media policy on Monday, and on Blogging policies on Tuesday were designed to do as well as possible for a specific search phrase.  Monday’s post is now the #2 Google result for the phrase creating a social media policy, while Tuesday’s post is now the #1 Google result for the phrase creating a corporate blogging policy.  And my own blog analytics show that Monday was a record day here for search traffic, and then I broke that record with yesterday’s post.

But I wanted to focus on the search value of those two posts because I knew that they were covering topics that companies have real questions about and need direction around.  I knew these were topics that people are looking for help with, and doing so via search engines.  So I made a point to optimize those posts to do well in search engines, and it’s worked very well.

Does that mean I didn’t want comments on those two posts?  Of course not, but my thinking was that those posts were ones that readers here would be more likely to bookmark and save for future reference, rather than comment on.  Other posts, such as my recent post on why introverts love social media WAS written primarily to get a discussion started in the comments, and it worked beautifully.

The point is, you need to give thought to what you are trying to accomplish with every post you write.  For me, it doesn’t make sense to write EVERY post to win a specific search term, just as it doesn’t make sense to write every post in an effort to get 50 comments.  For me, I need a balance, because I benefit from having higher search traffic as well as more interaction here.

This can help you as well, go back and look the posts you wrote in March, and make note of the primary reason why you wrote that post.  Some examples could include:

  • To generate comments
  • To do well in search rankings
  • To generate email contacts
  • To send traffic to the company website
  • To generate sales/leads

Now go back to your primary goals for your blog, and see how those goals compare to the goals for the content you have created.  For example, if the top goal for your blog is to improve search rankings for company-specific terms and you haven’t written any posts with that goal in mind since March 1st, then that sounds like a disconnect.

This approach will help you stay focused on what your larger goals are for your blog, and help you track if the blog posts you write are helping you reach those goals.

 

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Creating a Corporate Blogging Policy? Here’s Six Areas to Consider

Creating a blogging policyYesterday we talked about considerations when creating a social media policy for your company or organization.  But if your company or organization is planning on launching a blog, you also need to consider what policies and guidelines (both internal and external) will be in place for your efforts.  Here’s six areas that you should consider when creating a corporate blogging policy:

Internally

1 – A formal blogging policy.  Similar to your broader social media policy, the blogging policy should govern specific issues associated with your blog, and be relevant to the blogging team and the content created there.  It should be governed by your social media policy, which should be governed by your employee guideline/code of conduct.

2 – A blogging schedule and guidelines for writers.  This will communicate to bloggers what is expected from them as far as output and timing, and also the focus of the content and the tone that they should use.

3 – Comment policy for bloggers.  This will let the bloggers know exactly how to respond to comments from readers.  A framework should be provided to bloggers on how to respond to comments, and the Air Force has an excellent flow chart for how to handle comments.

 

Externally

1 – A solid About Page.  This communicates exactly what the focus of the blog is to readers.  It can also reinforce to the bloggers what is expected of them.  A wonderful example of this is Patagonia’s About Page for The Cleanest Line.  It not only tells what the blog is about, but gives the blog’s comment policy, and outlines exactly how readers can contact the bloggers, and even how to submit posts if they want.

2 – The blog’s comment policy.  This should always be included on a blog so that there can be no confusion later on.  The comment policy should clearly communicate to readers what type of comments are acceptable, and which ones are not.  If comments will be moderated, that should be mentioned as well.

A great (and lengthy) example of the guidelines for readers commenting is on the Code of Conduct page on HomeGoods’ OpenHouse blog.

3 – Bios and pictures for all bloggers.  The blog should have a bio and pictures available for all bloggers.  This helps the readers connect with the bloggers and literally helps put a ‘human’ face(s) on the blog.  Here’s how SouthWest collects the pictures of their bloggers all on one page on their blog, and you can click on each picture to read that blogger’s bio.

 

These six areas will help you flesh out your company blogging policy.  If your company has a good example of a blogging policy, what does it look like?  Please share with us in the comments.

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10 Considerations When Creating a Social Media Policy

social media policy, blogging, twitter, facebookMore and more companies are adopting the Nike philosophy of ‘Just Do It’ when it comes to social media.  And while there is value in jumping in the water, companies and organizations are increasingly seeing the need for a social media policy that will help employees understand how these tools should be used on behalf of their employer.  If your company or organization is considering creating a formal social media policy, here are 10 areas to consider:

1 – Defining what ‘Social Media’ is to your business.  You can ask 10 different people what the term ‘social media’ means, and gets 10 different definitions.  Your employees are no different, you need to define exactly what sites/tools/etc fall under the ‘social media’ umbrella for the purposes of your policy.  For example, most people consider Twitter and Facebook to be social media, but what about email?  Your blog?  Your website?  See how clarity can help?

2 – Make employees aware of any special communication considerations involving your industry.  The pharmaceutical industry, for example, has strict guidelines as to what company representatives can and cannot say to current/potential customers via social media channels.  Make sure your legal team is involved to make you aware of what the boundaries are.

3 – Define what ‘acceptable behavior’ is for your employees via social media.  What language can they use?  How does their tone and the way they respond reflect on the company’s branding and culture.  Will what they post on the personal Facebook account impact their employment?  Spell everything out so there can be no confusion later.

4 – Define what employees should and should not disclose.  For example, employees should always disclose their affiliation with the employer when posting content to social media sites, and shouldn’t disclose financial information about the company that ‘isn’t for public consumption’.

5 – Make sure employees understand the ‘chain of command’ and who owns what.  If different groups/departments should handle responses based on content, etc, then clearly spell that out so the intern in product design doesn’t respond when the manager in PR should be.

6 – Spell out copyright usage in content creation.  Make sure employees understand and respect copyright laws regarding the usage of other people’s content.

7 – Make sure that employees understand they are responsible for the content they create and the responses they make.  Remember these three words: ‘Google Never Forgets’.

8 – Create stand-alone policies for additional social media presences that the company maintains.  For example, if your company has a blog, it should also have a corporate blogging policy.  Different tools have different audiences and goals, and require a slightly different approach.  For example, the Air Force has a fabulous flow-chart for responding to online comments.

9 – Make sure all employees understand what your social media strategy is.  Help them understand what you are trying to accomplish via social media, and that will help them understand how their efforts feed into that ultimate goal.

10 – Make sure employees understand that their social media usage on behalf of the company will be monitored.  Also remind them of employee guidelines, and how their behavior using social media is governed by this.

 

So if your company or organization is ready to start creating your social media policy, these are 10 points to consider.  If your company or organization has a formal social media policy for its employees, what other areas should be considered?

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How do you know if it’s ok to use someone else’s picture on your blog?

Chris asked me a great question:

What’s a good policy on using photos from other sources when you blog?  Can you use other sources as long as you credit them?

I am no expert on copyright, so what follows is mostly ‘common sense’ advice.  What happens if you find an amazing picture on a site that would be perfect for your post?  Do you use it?

My advice is you should use the picture ONLY if you can find on the site where the owner has given you express permission to use their pictures.  If they don’t list this somewhere on their blog, look on their About page, or they may have a Creative Commons logo that will tell you if you can use the content on that site.

So if you can’t tell if it’s ok, assume it is not.  And if you DO use a picture, always make sure you include a link back to the source.  Even if the person doesn’t ask for this (they should).

Now, what’s the best source of pictures you can use on your blog?

My favorite is Flickr.  Flickr has hundreds of millions of amazing photos posted by its users.  When the user uploads the photos, they set whether or not everyone else can use their photos, and under what license.  Not everyone will give you permission to use their photos, but when you are talking about hundreds of millions of photos, the odds are you can find something that will work for you.

Each picture you find will list on the bottom right of the screen either ‘All Rights Reserved’ or ‘Some Rights Reserved’.  If it says ‘All Rights Reserved’, then you can’t use it unless the owner gives you explicit permission.  If the photo says ‘Some rights reserved’, then you can use it, but under the terms of its license.  You can click where it says Some rights reserved to learn exactly what those terms are.

Here is an explanation of the different types of Creative Common licenses:

Attribution: This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Attribution – ShareAlike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

Attribution – NoDerivs: This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution – NonCommerical: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution – NonCommercial – ShareAlike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution – NonCommercial-NoDerivs: This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

 

So how do you attribute works on Flickr?

The photo above came from Flickr, from a user that licensed the photo via the Attribution license.  That means I am free to use the photo, and could have also adapted it if I wanted to.  For example, if I want to later use it in a slidedeck, I could, as long as I added attribution.

How I attribute photos from Flickr is via this method.  I add the following at the end of the post ‘Pic via Flickr User (User’s name)’.  I then add two links to this, where ‘Flickr User’ is, I add a link to the CC license that covers the picture.  Where the user’s name is, I add a link to that user’s Flickr photostream.  Now you can do this, or link to the picture itself.  And for some pictures, the user will specify exactly what link they want you to use, and in that case you should if you use their photo.

So that’s where I go for amazing photos, what sources do you use?

Pic via Flickr user Life House Design

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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?

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6 Reasons Why Your ‘Online Community’ Stinks

community building, building an online communityIn 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? 😉

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How to Create Blog Content That Connects With Readers

Today I spoke in Birmingham, Alabama at the PRCA State Conference, in a session titled What’s the Big(ger) Idea? How to Create Blog Content That Connects With Readers.  Here are the slides from that deck:

 

What’s the big(ger) idea

View more presentations from Mack Collier.

Thanks to everyone that attended, I really do appreciate it!

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#Blogchat 4-3 Schedule, co-hosted by Liz Strauss!

I’m excited to announce that tonite’s (4-3) #Blogchat will be co-hosted by Liz Strauss!  Liz will be joining us to discuss How to Write for Multiple Blogs!  I know this is a topic that a lot of you are interested in if you are writing for multiple blogs currently, or if you are thinking about starting a new blog in addition to your existing one.

Here’s how the discussion will be organized:
1 – At 8:00 we will discuss Liz’s best tips for writing for multiple blogs.  Including how to come up with enough post ideas, etc.

2 – At 8:30 we can discuss How to Decide If You Should Have More Than One Blog.  I know a lot of #Blogchat participants have blogs where they write about their life, but that they also want to talk professional topics, and want to know if they should split it into two blogs.  If this is your situation, we’ll be happy to talk about it here!

To prepare for #Blogchat, first make SURE you are following Liz on Twitter.  And please subscribe to Liz’s blog, as it WILL make you a better blogger!

If you’ve never joined #Blogchat, here’s what it’s all about!  #Blogchat is tonite and every Sunday nite starting at 8pm Central.

And if you have some questions or topics that you want to discuss with Liz tonite, go ahead and leave a comment and we’ll make sure to talk with you about it during #Blogchat!

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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?

 

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

Reader engagement, more comments, interactionNext 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