MackCollier.com

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Fans aren’t just for Rockstars: A Framework for helping companies connect with their advocates and vice-versa

Warning: This is an uncharacteristically long post for this blog, but it’s a topic that I am pretty passionate about: Helping companies better connect with their brand advocates and customers, and vice versa.  If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, you know how I often use the Rockstar analogy to explain how Rockstars have fans, while companies have customers.  This post attempts to address this point, and provide a framework for how companies can better connect to their customers and advocates.  And vice-versa, with the end goal being that both the customer and the company better understand each other, and the financial benefits that the business will enjoy as a result.

The best post on social media that you have likely never read is this one from Hugh in 2005.  In it, Hugh makes the case for corporate blogging (remember this was a year before Twitter was launched and the Goliath of the social media arena at the time was MySpace), and talks about the conversations that companies have internally, versus the one their customers are having externally.  The idea being that a corporate blog makes it easier for the customer to bring their external conversation to the company, and the company can more easily bring their internal conversation to the customer.

Ideally, both groups would become more closely aligned, as a result of better understanding each other.  As the customer’s external conversation begins to be heard and understood by the company, then the company’s internal conversation changes a bit.  And that change likely moves it closer to the external one, and in theory, as each group better understands the other, the two separate conversations will gravitate toward each other.  This is what I was talking about in my post on the promise of social media for businesses lies in FEWER conversations.

I was recently talking to Liz Strauss about this concept, about how businesses need to better understand the external conversation their customer are having, and how it will change the internal conversation. The idea is that businesses should be connected to their customers, especially their advocates, and bring that external conversation to the company, so they can better understand and connect with their customers.  And at the same time, find a way to connect with the customer so they can better understand the internal conversation the company is having, and the company itself.  Liz asked a very good question: “What’s the process for that?”

Uhhhhh…..

So I decided to come up with a process to do just that.  This is rough and I’ll no doubt be editing it constantly as time goes by.

To better understand what I’m suggesting, let’s look at a fictional B2C company, Carl’s Soda.  CS is middle of the pack in a crowded industry, and like most companies, can tell you their customer demographics, but doesn’t have a lot of direct interaction with their customers.  They have average customer satisfaction (avg to the beverage industry) scores, yet like most companies, do have their customer advocates.  Though the company does little to engage this group.  The majority of its marketing and advertising is done via traditional channels, with the pre-requisite experimenting being done online, especially with social media.

In short, they are pretty much lost in the shuffle in a crowded industry.  We want to see if we can change that by better connecting the company to its customers, and its customers to the company.

What we need to do is find a way to help CS get a better understanding of their customers via the external conversation that its customers are having about the brand.  At the same time, we need to take the internal conversation that the company is having about itself and its customers, and take that to its customers, in an effort to not only build brand awareness, but to also help its customers better understand the brand.  Because once both groups better understand each other, that’s going to facilitate more communication between both groups, which will increase understanding, which will lead to trust.  Which will move CS from middle of the pack, to the front of the pack.  As Steve Knox said:

As you’ll see as this process is fleshed out, it’s going to not only embrace and empower CS’s existing brand advocates, but cultivate new ones as well.

Step One: Creation of a Customer Insights Team

Responsibilites:

  • This group will be responsible for not only monitoring online and offline product and company mentions, but for preparing findings and providing them to relevant departments within the company, such as marketing, PR, customer services, product development/design, etc.
  • Additionally, this team will closely track changes in the volume of online mentions, as well as the sentiment.
  • Responsible for internal education of customers and interacting with them online.

Step Two: Creation of a Brand Ambassador Program for Carl’s Soda

As stated above, Carl’s Soda has its share of brand advocates, but really hasn’t done anything to engage them.  That starts with this program, which will be invitation-only and cap membership at 100.  This will give Carl’s Soda the ability to not only connect directly with its most passionate customers, but a mechanism to give them the tools to spread their love of Carl’s Soda to other customers.  If you’re looking at an existing model to compare this to, look at what Fiskars has done in creating The Fiskateers movement.

Step Three: Creation of an Internal Social Networking Site for Carl’s Soda’s employees

This would be a way for employees to learn more about each other, and share ideas and feedback.  This would also give employees a way to give feedback on the working environment, and suggestions for improvement.  Unlike the brand ambassador program, this should be open to any employees that want to participate.  Similar corporate models could be Best Buy’s Blue Shirt Nation, or Dell’s internal IdeaStorm for employees.

Now we need a mechanism in place to facilitate the flow of the external the customers are having to the internal walls of the company, and a separate mechanism in place that will facilitate the flow of the internal conversation that the company is having about itself and its customers, to the customers.  This leads to Steps Four and Five:

Step Four: Creation of a Brand Advisory Council

This will be a 6-person council comprised of 4 brand advocates for the company, and 2 customer advocates (who are company employees).  The 4 brand advocates will be chosen from the membership of the brand ambassador program.

Responsibilities:

  • The Brand Advisory Council will be over the Brand Ambassador Program.
  • The Brand Advisory Council will work with the Customer Insights Team to ensure that Carl’s Soda has the most accurate information about its customers
  • Will meet quarterly with key executives at Carl’s Soda to give them greater insights into the company’s customers and advocates.

Step Five: Creation of a Customer Advisory Council

This will be a 6-person council comprised of 4 customer advocates (who are company employees), and 2 brand advocates, who are also members of the Brand Advisory Council.

Responsibilities:

  • Will be over the internal social networking site for employees as detailed in Step Three.
  • The Customer Advisory Council will be responsible for bringing the internal conversation that the company is having about itself and its customers, to its customers.  This could be done via meetups, or even social media by highlighting employees and their thoughts via posts, video, etc.
  • Will meet quarterly with key executives at Carl’s Soda to give them greater insights into the company’s employees and the internal conversation they are having about the company, and its customers.

Now as I stated above, this is a rough draft and I will no doubt be altering this several times in the future.  But the entire reason for this process is based on this truth: Participating in a conversation changes that conversation.  This process is about finding a way to better align the external conversation that customers are having about the company, with the internal conversation that the company is having about its customers.

The benefits of this process include:

  • A better understanding of its customers, which leads the company to more effectively and efficiently market to its customers.  Which lowers marketing costs.
  • As the company better understands its customers, and vice versa, customer satisfaction improves.
  • As the company’s employees have a mechanism in place (internal socnet) to connect with each other and provide feedback on the company itself, employee satisfaction improves.


Why I think this is so important

Several times I’ve written here and elsewhere about how rockstars connect with their fans, and more or less have the same conversation.  Some companies, such as Harley-Davidson, have many brand advocates, and as a result, the internal and external conversations aren’t that far apart.  Harley-Davidson loves its products and brand for many of the same reasons its customers do.

But many companies have difficulty with this because the conversation the company is having and the one the customers are having about the company, are usually quite disjointed.  This process attempts to address that, and bring the two conversations more closely together.

At the end of the day, companies cannot afford to ignore their customers any longer.  Customers now have the tools available to them to mobilize and communicate with themselves far faster than the company can communicate on its own behalf.  Recent PR trainwrecks like Motrin Moms and Kenneth Cole’s #Egypt tweets on Twitter attest to this.  Companies have to not only be aware of what their customers are saying, but find a way to bring that conversation into their walls, and vice versa.  This process helps them get started along that path.

What have I missed? And there is a TON I have missed, trust me.  Does this make sense?  Again, it’s the starting point, the execution side hasn’t really been addressed yet.  What would that look like?

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#Blogchat schedule with Ann Handley & C.C. Chapman!

Or “The one with so much smartitude we needed an extra co-host” 😉

Join Content Rules co-authors C.C. Chapman and Ann Handley as they co-host #Blogchat tonite at 8pm Central!  The topic is How to Create Engaging Blog Posts, and since these two smarties literally wrote the book on this topic, they are the perfect fit!

If you want to follow along with us, I suggest you use TweetDeck, and create 3 columns: One for all #Blogchat tweets, one for @MarketingProfs’ tweets, and one for @CC_Chapman’s tweets.  Also PLEASE make sure you follow Ann and C.C., even if you can’t join is today, as both are brilliant and super-helpful.  Also, make sure you subscribe to their sites(here’s Ann’s, and here’s C.C.’s) and of course check out their book, Content Rules.

As for the format, here’s what we’ll discuss:

1 – At 8:00pm, we’ll discuss how to create engaging blog posts.  So if you have any questions for Ann and C.C. on how to create more engaging blog posts, this is where you want to be!

2 – At 8:30pm we’ll shift to talk about how to ‘re-imagine’ content, as Ann and C.C. describe it in Content Rules.  That is, how to take one piece of content, such as a webinar or white paper, and also get a blog post(s), an interview, or whatever.  I know that one of the issues #Blogchat participants are constantly struggling with is how to create more content, so the tips here from Ann and C.C. will be a big help!

As always, make sure you take a LOT of notes 😉

If you’ve never joined #Blogchat and want to know what it’s all about, click here.  The general rule is that we are all here to learn from each other.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask, #Blogchat has an amazingly helpful community, and we’ll be happy to help you if we can, so just ask!

And a final reminder, if you’ll be attending SXSW, Ann and C.C. will be one of FIVE amazing co-hosts at the LIVE #Blogchat in Austin!

Thanks again to C.C. and Ann for agreeing to join us!

 

 

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My SXSW schedule

social media training, brand evangelists

This time next week, my plane will (hopefully) just be landing in Austin.  I’ve never been this excited about attending SXSW and I have a ton of events I’ll be attending, so I wanted to list everything here, so hopefully we can connect.  I’ll be at SXSW from next Friday through Monday afternoon.  The majority of my time on Friday and Monday during the day will be devoted to meetings, and I’ll be in the Austin Convention Center for the most part.

If you are a company (Especially big brand B2C) that:

  • Needs Social Media Training
  • Needs Social Media Consulting or Advisement
  • Needs help launching a brand ambassador or blogger/influencer outreach program
  • Want to discuss sponsoring a future #Blogchat or sponsoring a LIVE #Blogchat event

Then please email me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs.  I’ve already got some meetings scheduled during Friday and Monday, but if you want to discuss how we can work together, I’ll make sure we get a chance to connect.

As for Saturday and Sunday (and Friday night), I am going to spend those days connecting with my old and new friends.  Here’s the events I will be at:

Friday Night: Ignite Social Media Party, starting at 7pm.

Saturday: Tequila Now party for the Now Revolution from 1:30 – 3:30pm.

Saturday Night: Either Wiley book party, or Frog Design’s Opening Party (which would be better?)

Sunday: #AllHat3 from 12:30 – 3:00pm

Sunday: #Blogchat LIVE at SXSW from 3:30-6:00pm (YES!)

Sunday Night: #Blogchat on Twitter from 7pm-9:30pm (probably from the Hilton lobby ;))

So if we haven’t met let’s please do so at SXSW!  Feel free to email me and we can get together and I can shake your hand, at least 😉

 

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40 Dead Simple Ways to Get More Comments on Your Blog

Want more engagement and interaction on your blog?  Yeah, most of us do, here’s 40 tips to get you started:

Blog Design:

1 – Put your picture on the front page and the About page of the blog.

2 – On the About page write who you are and why you are blogging.  Both #1 and #2 make it easier for readers to connect with you, which makes them more likely to interact with you.

3 – Highlight commenters.  Remember to always reward the action that you want to encourage.

4 – Use the Comment Luv plugin on your self-hosted WordPress blog. Again, when someone comments, they get an extra link, which encourages more comments.

5 – Add a form to subscribe to your blog via email.

6 – Add Feed/RSS subscriber buttons to your blog.

7 – Add a link to contact you directly, by email at least.  Or add a Contact Me page. Remember, not everyone is comfortable commenting on your blog, they may want to use email.  Getting an email exchange going can convince them to start commenting.

8 – Create a blogroll or ‘Favorite Reads’ page highlighting your favorite blogs and add blogs from your regular contributors.

9 – Write a comment policy. Tell your readers exactly what is expected of them when they comment.

10 – Don’t moderate comments.  Nothing about the words ‘Your comment is awaiting moderation’ encourages a reader to comment more.  Nothing.

11 – If you do moderate, approve comments as quickly as possible.

Writing posts:

12 – Take a definite stand. Tackle a heated issue and firmly state your opinion/beliefs.  Notice how Beth Harte did that in this post on Social Media ROI.  Notice how some commenters are agreeing with her, and how some are disagreeing.  But by taking a stand, she got a conversation started.

13 – Close your post with ‘What do you think?’ Possibly the 4 words that get more interaction than any other.  Chris Brogan often ends his posts with ‘Your Turn’.

14 – Link to other bloggers that are creating valuable content.  Notice this post has 5 links to other bloggers.  Those links will help my readers find valuable content, and it also increases the chances that my readers as well as the writers I linked to, will comment here.

15 – Be personal.  Lisa Petrilli probably does this better than anyone, and note that her readers respond in kind.  It makes it much easier to share your personal thoughts when someone else does first.

16 – Get on a regular posting schedule.  We talked about this yesterday.

17 – Write in a conversational tone.  This is tricky, but what I try to do is write a post as if I am saying what I think first, and then I know you are going to make your point in the comments, and then we’ll continue the discussion there.  But in general, think of writing a blog post as if you are writing a letter to someone, not a memo.

18 –  Write posts based on comments your readers have left.  Did Jackie leave an amazing comment on your last post?  Did it spark you to write a long comment?  Why not take that long comment and turn it into a new post.  Then reference Jackie’s comment, and link to her blog as well.   Remember, reward the behavior that you want to encourage.

19 – Add great comments to your post.  If you don’t want to do the above, then you can add a comment to the end of your post.  Add an UPDATE at the end, mention the comment and person who left it (with a link to their blog).  This ALSO encourages everyone to read the comments, since you just alerted them to the fact that there’s some serious smartitude happening there.

20 – Write about breaking news.  Especially controversial news, my recent posts on Groupon’s Super Bowl ads and the Kenneth Cole Twitter PR snafu got a lot of interaction, because I wrote about them right after they happened.  If I wrote about either topics today, there would likely be MUCH less interest.

21 – Write passionately. Don’t sell me your ideas, tell me why they are going to change the world.  Make me understand why you are so passionate about your ideas, and that increases the chance that I will get excited about them, and want to respond.

22 – Encourage readers to promote themselves and share more about what they are doing.  Becky McCray’s Brag Basket is a wonderful example of this.

Responding to comments:

23 – Refer to your commenters by their first name.  Remember when I said to write in a conversational tone?  This is a perfect extension of that.  Notice how the HomeGoods bloggers do this at the Open House blog?  Looks like they are writing letters, not comments, doesn’t it?

24 – Respond to comments.  Back to Lisa Petrilli’s blog, she usually has double-digit comments on every post, and she’s responsible for about half the comments on her blog.  See the connection?

25 – Say thank you.  Seriously, common courtesy isn’t as common as it should be.

26 – Ask a commenter to elaborate on a point.  If Tom makes a good point but you want to hear more about his reasoning, ask him to expand on his thoughts.

27 – Leave comments on other blogs.  The best way to grow your blog, is to leave it.

28 – Leave comments on the blogs of your commenters.  Again, you want to reward the behavior you are trying to encourage.

Other Social Media Sites:

29 – Promote great comments AND the commenter on other sites.  Often I will tweet a link on Twitter to my latest post, but will link to the actual comment that someone left.  And if I know what their Twitter name is, I will link to it as well.  Such as ‘Love the comment that @SWoodruff left on my post about building a blogging team’.  That way Steve gets acknowledged as well.

30 – Participate in discussions on other sites.  I have left a ton of comments on blogs after ‘meeting’ that blogger at #Blogchat.

31 – Promote other people.  All this does is encourage more people to check out your site, and comment.

 

But Mack, you promised us 40 tips, where are the other 9?!?

You have to figure out the other 9 for yourself.  Actually, after you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ll discover a few dozen more tips (at least) besides these for getting more comments and interaction on your blog.  These ‘tips’ and ‘How-to’ posts are always popular because people want to direction.  They want to know what the ‘rules’ are.

But if you want to be a truly great blogger, here’s the best rule to follow: Make your own rules.  Don’t look at the above as being the ONLY 31 tips that exist for getting more comments.  Look at it as 31 tips to get you STARTED.  Figure out how to add to this list, then share what you’ve learned, so it becomes your 50 tips for getting more comments.

What works for you that I didn’t list?  Help us find the 9 missing tips 😉

 

UPDATE: Aaron reminded me of a great way to encourage comments: Thank 1st-time commenters with a custom page.  I use this plugin so that the 1st time you leave a comment here, you are taken to a special page that thanks you for commenting!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jonathan left this fabulous tip in the comments for leveraging Facebook to get more comments on your blog: “One tip that I have found helpful is to get a discussion going on our Facebook page telling my readers that I am writing a post on it. I include their comments to the discussion in my post and then share the link to the post in the original Facebook comment thread. It really has helped me build our community.”

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How to create a posting schedule for your business blog

If you are wanting to build traffic, interest and awareness for your business blog, one of the biggest factors is posting regular content to that blog.  When I say ‘regular’, I mean that you have a schedule for how often you post to your blog.  If you can only post once a month, then you post a new post every single month.  If you can post once a week, then every Wednesday, you have a new post up.

So here’s some quick tips for creating a posting schedule for your business blog:

1 – Figure out how often you can post to the blog, and shoot for a minimum of once a week.  And give yourself a range, and go with the low end.  It’s better to commit to one new post a week and then bump that up to 2 posts a week, than it is to start out posting twice a week, then have to back that down to once a week.

2 – Post on the same days every week.  Not everyone subscribes to blogs, and the ones that don’t will want to know when they can expect new content on your blog.  If they know for sure that every Wednesday means a new post on your company blog, then that greatly increases the chances that they will visit on Wednesday.

3 – Organize posts by content.  This is a great way to get more posts on your blog.  For example, if you are subscribed to industry sites and blogs, collect the interesting news and articles you find throughout the week, then on every Friday, write a post sharing 3-5 links, and write a brief summary of why the article is important.  Not only does this give your blog an extra post, but by sharing links with your readers, you are helping to keep them informed, which has real value for them.  If you only publish one new post a week to your blog then start doing this, you’ve instantly doubled the new content you create on your blog.

 

What would this look like in practice?  Here’s an example with a company that has a 3-person team creating content for their blog:

Monday:  Jessica writes a thought leadership article designed to help establish the company’s expertise.

Wednesday: Laura writes a post answering a reader-submitted question.

Friday: Kevin writes a post sharing links to industry news.

By following this simple posting strategy, the company has found a way to create content that builds its brand awareness, helps it better connect with its customers and improve satisfaction, plus draw new readers.

If you are part of a blogging team for your company, how did your team create its posting schedule?  What did I miss?

 

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Ann Handley & C.C. Chapman to Co-Host #Blogchat on March 6th!

One of the most requested topics from #Blogchat participants is how to create engaging blog content.  So I thought why don’t we tackle that topic next week with the two people that literally wrote the book on creating amazing online content?  That’s right, on Sunday, March the 6th, Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman will be co-hosting #Blogchat!  The co-authors of Content Rules will be walking us through how to create content on our blogs that engages your readers, and creates value for your business.  Oh and here’s a tip: If any of you are would-be podcasters, make SURE you bring your questions for C.C., who is one the true podcasting pioneers.

BTW as a bonus, here is a review of Content Rules by #Blogchat superstar @MargieClayman.  So make sure you are here Sunday night at 8pm Central to snag some smartitude from Ann and C.C. on how to create amazing posts and content for your blog!

But that’s only half of the great news…

As a ginormous bonus, both Ann and C.C. have agreed to join us in Austin on the 13th to co-host #Blogchat at SXSW! That means #Blogchat at SXSW will happen on THREE floors at the Social Media Clubhouse, and your SIX co-hosts are Ken Lingad, Richard Binhammer, Shannon Paul, C.C. Chapman, Ann Handley, and myself.  Here’s all the info on #Blogchat LIVE at SXSW.  Unfortunately, tickets are sold out, but you can still get on the waiting list by registering here.

See you this Sunday!

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If you use FeedBurner for Email Subs then DON’T DO THIS!

If you’ve read here for any amount of time, you know that I am often breaking stuff and screwing up, and then you get to benefit from my dumbassery.  Last week, David Wood was kind enough to share with me this screenshot of how my emails from MackCollier.com look in his inbox:

EVERY day when the latest post from MackCollier.com arrived in David’s inbox, it showed up in the same format:

Sender: MackCollier.com     Subject: MackCollier.com

Seriously?  I was mortified when I saw this screenshot!  I assumed (first mistake) that Feedburner was making the title of my post as the email Subject, but that clearly wasn’t the case.  Apparently, Feedburner by default picks your site URL as the email subject.

Thankfully, it’s a dead simple change to make, and here’s how you can change your email subject so that it’s the title of your blog post:

1 – Log into your Feedburner account.

2 – Click the Publicize tab at the top (If you have multiple feeds being managed by Feedburner, you’ll want to login and then click the feed you want to change and THEN click the Publicize tab)

3 – Click Email Subscriptions on the left.

4 – Click Email Branding.

5 – In the Email/Subject Title: box, put this: ${latestItemTitle}

6 – Click Save.

Now for an example of how big this change can be, before I made this change, last Thursday’s blog post showed up in the inbox of email subscribers with the Subject: MackCollier.com.

After I made the above switch, it showed up as Subject: How is Twitter Impacting SEO and Search? Here’s the (Visual) Proof

Which email Subject do you think would get more opens?

This leads to another important point: Subscribe to your own feed.  I was already subscribed via RSS, but I should have subscribed to my own Email feed as well, so I could have seen how the emails were showing up for subscribers.

So hopefully that helps you, if you’ve been using Feedburner for a while, what do you like best about it?  What could be better?

 

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#Blogchat is coming to SXSW!

UPDATE: #Blogchat LIVE at SXSW is officially SOLD OUT.  If you are on the waiting list please come anyway as this is SXSW and no one’s schedule is set in stone.  We’ll get in everyone that we have room for.  The location of the Social Media Clubhouse is 601 Brushy #107, between East 6th and 7th (one block East of Highway 35). The meet and greet with attendees and sponsors starts at 4pm, and the official #Blogchat will start at 5pm.  Please arrive as soon as you can so you can pick the floor/co-hosts you want to join, and to get a good seat!  I am SO excited about this and cannot wait to see y’all!

I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited to write a post as this one.  Two years ago #Blogchat started by accident, and now it’s coming to the largest Social Media conference/event on the planet: South By Southwest Interactive.

Next month in Austin, on Sunday March the 13th, #Blogchat will be LIVE at SXSW.  From 4pm – 6pm we’ll have a live #Blogchat at the Social Media Clubhouse.  This event is made possible because of two amazing sponsors, and I wanted to introduce both of them to you now:

Main Sponsor of #Blogchat at SXSW: 1680PR

1680PR is a specialized firm that provides advice in the particular fields of Public Relations and Strategic Marketing: positioning, branding, and imaging. Departments of State and government heads; music, film, and television personalities; entertainment industry executives; Native American Tribes and native enterprises; non-profit organizations; and entrepreneurs continue to benefit from the expertise of its consultancy.

The firm commands a distinctive presence in the global arena, leveraging the interdisciplinary strengths of no less than eight departments under the 1680 brand: Public Relations (PR), Social Media (SM), Talent, Motion Pictures, Digital Entertainment, Creative, Entertainment, and Artist Management.  They have offices in Albuquerque, Atlanta and Los Angeles.

You can learn more about 1680PR by visiting their website, blog, YouTube Channel and PLEASE follow them on Twitter.

Technology Sponsor for #Blogchat at SXSW – Dell

For more than 26 years, Dell has empowered countries, communities, customers and people everywhere to use technology to realize their dreams. Customers trust Dell to deliver technology solutions that help them do and achieve more, whether they’re at home, work, school or anywhere in their world.

Additionally, Dell is a corporate Social Media pioneer, with arguably the largest new media footprint of any brand on the planet.  You can learn more about Dell’s Social media efforts by following its Direct2Dell blog or on Facebook or YouTube.

The #Blogchat LIVE at SXSW Format

What we’ll do is have a live discussion at the venue about this topic: What can company blogs learn from personal bloggers?  Think about the ways that personal bloggers develop community and content on their blogs, for example, and how company bloggers could take these lessons and apply it to their own efforts.  If you’ve attended SXSW before and are familiar with the Core Conversation sessions, the format will be similar to that.  Just a bunch of smart people in a room together conversating and learning from each other.

#Blogchat will be held at the Social Media Clubhouse, which will be located in a 4-story(!) townhouse just a few blocks from the Austin Convention Center.  Special thanks to Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells and the good folks at Social Media Club for helping us promote this event.

Now the Social Media Clubhouse will be a fabulous venue for #Blogchat, but there were a couple of considerations.  First, due to its capacity, attendance for the event has been capped at 100.  So if you want to attend, please make sure you register here ASAP!  Second, the max capacity for any floor is about 40, so that means we’d have to spread the conversation out over 2-3 floors!  Which also means that I can’t be the only host here, I need some help!  So without further adieu, here are your FIVE co-hosts that will be joining me to lead the conversations for #Blogchat – SXSW:

Ken Lingad – The driving force behind 1680PR, Ken is referenced in the global media arena as a “visionary impresario.” Ken Lingad (Isleta Pueblo) is overwhelmingly acknowledged as the sole “architect” behind the most successful public relations and strategic marketing campaigns ever fielded in Santa Fe’s Contemporary Native Arts arena.  And he gets to work with clients in the film, music and entertainment industries.  Yeah, I want that job!  You can learn more about Ken here.

Richard Binhammer – Besides being a Senior Manager at Dell, Richard is one of the most influential people in the corporate Social Media world, and since 2006 he’s been helping Dell’s Social Media and Digital teams connect with Dell’s customers.  And he’s played no small role in Dell being an amazing case study in how corporations can use Social Media effectively.  As he likes to say about Dell’s efforts, ‘We’re Listening’.  Oh and he’s a helluva nice guy to boot.

Shannon Paul – Shannon currently manages Social Media for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.  Before that, she was the Social Media Specialist for Peak6 Online, and the New Media Manager for the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings.  Additionally, she is a former #Blogchat co-host, and remains one of the most popular and requested co-hosts #Blogchat has ever had.  And besides just radiating smartitude, she’s also one of my favorite people on the planet, and one of the nicest people you will ever meet.

C.C. Chapman – C.C. is truly one of the pioneers of social media.  He’s been immersed in using these tools for years, and was one of the first podcasters on the internet.  But that’s on the personal side of social media.  Additionally, he’s worked with some of the largest brands on the planet, such as Coca-Cola, HBO, American Eagle and Warner Bros to help them use New Media to connect with their customers and brand advocates.  He also co-wrote Content Rules with Ann Handley, the definitive book on creating amazing online content.

And we’ll be announcing one more co-host at the event!

From 4:00-5:00pm, we will have a meet and greet, just like we do every Sunday night at 7pm for an hour before the actual #Blogchat starts.  And here’s a hint: You’ll want to connect with Ken, Richard, Shannon and C.C. especially to learn more about the work they are doing.  Maybe you bloggers could even try to snag an interview with them?

Then at 5:00pm the fun starts and we’ll have conversations happening on 3 different floors of the Social Media Clubhouse, with Ken Richard, Shannon C.C. and myself leading the discussion on each floor.

So the schedule is:

Topic – What can company blogs learn from personal bloggers?

Meet and greet with sponsors, co-hosts and attendees – 4:00-5:00pm Central

#Blogchat LIVE at SXSW – 5:00-6:00pm

So please run (don’t walk) to the EventBrite page and register for #Blogchat LIVE at SXSW!  Remember, space is limited to the 1st 100 people, so please get in ASAP!  And if you can’t join us in Austin, don’t worry, Ken and I will be pulling double-duty on the 13th, and we will co-host #Blogchat on Twitter at its regular time starting at 8pm Central, covering the same topic, What can company blogs learn from personal bloggers?

Finally, let me close with this.

Thanks to all of you.  The past two years of #Blogchat have been a truly amazing experience.  It’s been truly humbling to see all of you embrace the idea of creating a place on Twitter where we can all come together and learn about blogging from each other, and together, create something larger than ourselves.  #Blogchat coming to SXSW is a testament to the power of your combined smartitude, and the size of the community that all of you have played a role in creating over the last two years.  I will miss every single of one you that can’t join us in Austin next month, but know that there will be more Live #Blogchat events in the future.  And I will also be bringing more amazing co-hosts and sponsors to #Blogchat that will help us all continue to grow what is the largest weekly Twitter chat on the planet.

All because of you.  Thank you.

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How Is Twitter Impacting Search and SEO? Here’s the (Visual) Proof

Yesterday’s post on Social Media Crisis Management was a bit of experiment to see how highly I could rank for the term “Social Media Crisis Management”.  I also wanted to share my results with you, so you can hopefully learn a bit more about the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

First, I picked a fairly specific term, in “Social Media Crisis Management”.  I checked prior to publishing yesterday’s post, and there were just a shade under 29,000 Google results for that term.  This is important because you need to pick the most specific term as possible, because this will result in less competition, and (if you’ve picked the right term for you) it means you will be more likely to get the ‘right’ kind of traffic.

Second, I made sure the term was in the title and mentioned a couple of times in the post.  I also made the term “Social Media Crisis Management” at the front of the post title, I originally had the title as “A No-Nonsense Guide to Social Media Crisis Management” but Amy wisely suggested that I flip it so the term I was targeting was at the front of the title.

Now, a note about keywords and phrases: You do need to pick and target specific keywords and phrases, but you also need to incorporate them into the post in a way that makes sense to the reader.  I only used that term in the post twice, because that’s all I felt it needed.  It might have helped the results to get it in there once or twice more, but I felt I would have had to compromise the flow of the post’s structure to do it, so I didn’t.  You always have to remember that you are writing for people, if the post doesn’t make sense to them, then it really doesn’t matter if it does well in search results.

So, when I published the post yesterday at 12:20pm, there were 28,900 Google results for the term “Social Media Crisis Management”.  I tweeted a link to it at that time.  Fifty minutes later at 1:10pm, the post was already showing up on the 3rd page for a Google search of #Social Media Crisis Management”:

Social Media Crisis Management, Twitter I tweeted out another link to the post around 2pm, and then at 2:30pm, it moved a bit further up the results on the 3rd page:

Social Media Crisis Management, TwitterThen 15 minutes later at 2:45pm I checked again, and 2 hours and 25 minutes after being published, the post is now on the 1st page of results for the term “Social Media Crisis Management”:

Social Media Crisis Management, TwitterAs you can see, the post was now at #7 on the internet for that term.  I searched one more time at 3:40pm, and the term had risen up to #6 on Google, and above the fold (barely):

Social media crisis management, Twitter

As of this writing it has settled back to #7.  But the interesting part is that all of the above screenshots were taken by me searching with Google with results for EVERYTHING, and when I was NOT signed into Google.

So at 3:20pm, I decided to check the Latest results for “Social Media Crisis Management”, and this is what I saw:

Social Media Crisis Management, TwitterTHIS is huge.  The Latest results factors in real-time linking behavior, so it is picking up all the tweets where my post was being RTed, and as a result, the top half of the Latest results for the term “Social Media Crisis Management” were completely devoted to MY post.

And this is what the same search showed me this morning at 9:20am:

Social Media Crisis Management, TwitterI couldn’t get all of the results in one screenshot but EVERY result from the above was about my post.  Every result in the latest column on the left, the Top Link on the Right, and the Top Updates under it.  My post owned the 1st page of Latest search results for the term “Social Media Crisis Management”.

That’s a perfect example of how Twitter and Facebook sharing is now impacting Google results.  And it’s also a wonderful illustration of the value of being active on Twitter.  I tweeted a link to that post several times yesterday and this morning, which was a big reason why it moved up the Google results so quickly, and a big reason why it dominated the Latest results for that term.

So those of you that are trying to sell your boss on why they should use Twitter, you just got another argument in your favor 😉

But there are two things I want you to take away from this:

1 – This was very basic SEO stuff that any of you can do.  It was simply a case of targeting a specific phrase, and inserting it in the post.  Now as far as my having a large and engaged Twitter network and readership here (thanks guys!), that definitely played a big factor in the post moving up the results so quickly.  But at a basic level, everything I did from a SEO perspective is what you can do with every post.  And you should.

2 – You can best learn by breaking stuff.  There are a gazillion ‘How to’ and ’10 Steps to…’ articles about using social media, and I have certainly written my fair share of these.  But the best way *I* learn is if you can show me the first 1 or 2 steps, then leave me alone and let me figure out the remaining 8 or 9 steps for myself.  Don’t just blindly follow my social media advice or anyone else’s.  Use the advice as a guide for how you can get started.  But there is no one RIGHT way to use social media.  Never forget that.  I can tell you what works for me and my clients, but you still need to tweak any advice so that it is perfect for you.  SEO geeks will no doubt see a ton of things that I could have done or altered in this experiment to get even better results.  And moving forward, I am going to continue to tweak and ‘break stuff’ in order to better figure out how all the moving parts work together.

So go forth, be social, and keep breaking stuff 😉

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Social Media Crisis Management: A No-Nonsense Guide

Past Social Media dramas involving The Red Cross, Groupon and Kenneth Cole are good reminders of the importance of having a solid social media crisis management plan in place.  At its very basic level, the proper handling of a social media crisis should consist of two thing:

1 – A quick response

2 – A proper response

Let’s look at both areas:

Responding quickly to a social media crisis

If you look back at many of the social media dramas that have played out for companies over the past couple of years, many of them were exacerbated by a slow response from the company or organization.  The delay in responding meant the people that were upset had more time to voice their displeasure with the company, to other people.  Which raised awareness of the problem, and made it far worse.  The Motrin Moms episode could have likely been defused very quickly, if Motrin and its agency had been proactive in responding to complaints on Twitter about one of its commercials.  But since the crisis occurred on the weekend, when the brand and agency weren’t monitoring Twitter, it was allowed to grow and fester.  By Sunday, most people were complaining more about Motrin’s lack of a response, than they were the commercial itself.

So you can’t respond quickly, unless you know what you are responding to.  That means you need to aggressively monitor your brand’s online mentions.  There’s no excuse for any company that conducts business online, to not monitor online mentions.  Even if you are a small company with a limited budget, there are still free tools you can use to monitor social media.  If you are a mid-sized to larger company, you should seriously consider investing in a premium monitoring suite that will track not only mentions, but trends and sentiment as well.  But the point is to know what is being said online about your company or organization.  Remember, when did Noah build the Ark?  Before the rains came, not after.

So now that you are monitoring online mentions, then you can see what is being said about your brand in (more or less) real-time.  This also means that when a situation arises that needs to be addressed, that you can quickly mobilize and formulate a response.  We’ll talk more about the tone of your response in a second, but another key benefit of monitoring is that it tells you WHERE you need to respond.  If there is a potential crisis developing on Twitter, then that’s where you need to respond.  If it’s on a single message board or forum, then you need to find a way to respond there.  The point is, you need to go to the source of the complaints, and interact with people there.

Responding properly to a social media crisis

So if you have identified a potential issue that you need to address, how should you respond?  Here are 4 common sense tips for handling complaints or negative online feedback:

1 – If someone is leaving negative comments about your company, respond. Even if they are intentionally attacking your company (or ‘trolling’), then invite them to please contact you directly so you can help them with their issues.  And remember, if someone is leaving comments that personally attack your employees or customers, or that contain profanity or inflammatory language, you should delete them.  Now if they are simply saying that they think your company sucks, deleting these type of comments will tend to draw more of the same.  People can see when someone has crossed the line with the tone of their comments, and they won’t fault a blogging company for deleting comments in this case.

2 – Be thankful and polite. Nothing escalates a negative comment into a full-bore flamewar faster than an ‘Oh yeah?!?’ reply from the company.  You have to always remember that the person commenting thinks their complaint is warranted.  And many times, they are right.

3 – If you are in the wrong, then apologize.  And mean it.  The two most magical words in putting out a social media crisis are ‘We’re sorry’.

4 – If commenters are jumping to the wrong conclusion about your company, kindly correct them with the proper information.  Just as you don’t have to accept profanity or attacking comments on your blog, you shouldn’t feel that you have to accept if a blogger or commenter is posting inaccurate information on another site.  But again, remember to correct the misinformation with a respectful tone.

5 – Thank them for their feedback, and encourage them to provide more. Leave your email address so they can contact you off the blog, if they choose.  This communicates to everyone that you WANT engagement and want to communicate with them.

Now for the elephant in the room

Even if you respond quickly and appropriately, you still have to fix the problem.  People are upset for a reason, and you still need to address that reason, and correct the problem.  It might not be a quick fix, but you need to let people know how you are handling the issue, and what steps will be taken to correct the problem.  This is where you can use your social media presences such a blog or Facebook page to communicate to customers and supporters what your plan is for handling the crisis.  But you need to have a plan, you need to communicate that plan (not every detail, obviously), then you need to execute it.

Does this help?  Also, to get another real-world example of social media crisis management, check out this video from @GaryVee on how he handled a social media crisis he found himself in.