MackCollier.com

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Use Google Reader’s Shared Items for post ideas

Veteran blog readers have probably already discovered that Google Reader is a great way to keep up with the blogs you are subscribed to.  But one of the features I get a ton of value from is the Shared Items from my friends.  Think of it this way: Everyone else is subscribed to dozens of blogs and as they are going through their feeds, they are picking out the most interesting and valuable posts, and sharing them with their followers.  Which means I am exposed to a lot of great blogs and sites that I might otherwise never find.

And of course, this gives me a great idea for post ideas, because in viewing my friend’s shared items, I can see which topics and ideas are important to them.  Which gives me an idea of what I should be writing about.

And here’s another great tip: You can set up Google Reader to let you send interesting posts you find in Google Reader (Either your subscribed feeds or Shared Items from friends) directly to Facebook and Twitter.

First, click on Settings in the top right corner of the screen, then Reader Settings.

Next, click on Send To, the last option on the right.  You’ll be given a list of several services that you can send your posts to, including Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, Friendfeed, etc.  Click the services you want to share posts with, and that’s it!

Then when you see a post in Google Reader that you want to share, click the Send To option, and a small dropdown menu will let you click the service you want to send the post to!

So if you are using Google Reader, check out the Shared Items section, it’s a great source of inspiration and a wonderful way to discover interesting new sites and blogs!

BTW, if you want to see all the posts and articles I have shared in Google Reader (over 300), then click my Google Profile.

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Use TweetDeck to track who favorites your tweets

My pal Ian alerted me to a really cool feature in TweetDeck, the ability to see who is favoriting your tweets, and which tweets they are favoriting.  To the left is a screenshot of how this shows up in your Mentions column.

You might have to turn this feature on to see it, if so, click on Settings, then Twitter, then click on Enable Realtime Twitter Streaming, then click the option for Show in Mentions When People Favorite Your Tweets.  That’s it!

Why is this cool?  Because it tells me WHO is favoriting my tweets, and WHAT they are favoriting.  This gives me a great idea of which type of content I am creating that’s resonating with my followers.  Which means I can share more useful content with my followers, which means I will hopefully get MORE followers, and maybe more RTs of my content, when I share it.

Are you managing and tracking who is favoriting your tweets?  If so, what tool are you using to do this, is it TweetDeck, or something else?

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CMOs look to find revenue growth from Social Media in 2011

Ian Greenleigh, who heads up Social Media at Bazaarvoice, gave me a heads-up on a new report that the company has published on how CMOs use and view social media heading into 2011.  Long-time readers here will remember that I interviewed Ian here a few months ago.  You can receive a free copy of the report here.

Here are a few of the key takeaways I had from the report:

  • 40% of CMOs surveyed said they were able to tie some of their company’s revenue back to their social media efforts in 2010 (I am surprised the percentage is that high)
  • Site Traffic is the most popular metric used by CMOs to track the success of their social media efforts, followed closely by Page Views and number of Fans/Followers
  • Of the ‘Big Three’ Social Media tools (Blogs, Facebook, Twitter) CMOs feel they get the highest return on their investment for company blogs, followed by Facebook and then Twitter

At the heart of this report, I think it verifies that as companies are becoming more familiar with using social media and how these sites and tools function, they are getting a better idea of how to measure the effectiveness of their efforts.  The fact that most CMOs look to Site Traffic and Pageviews to gauge the effectiveness of their social media efforts suggests that when they launch their efforts (a blog, for example) that they are assuming that the same/similar metrics that they use to judge if their website is working, will work for social media.  I also think this is partly why CMOs feel that they have a better handle on the value created by blogs, simply because companies have been using blogs as a tool to connect with customers for longer than they have Facebook and Twitter, for example.  As the knowledge of the tool/site increases, so does the efficiency in which the company uses that tool/site.

Of course, traffic and page views aren’t worth very much unless that traffic performs certain action(s) on the site.  I believe companies are starting to realize this, and THAT is why you will begin to see companies being able to quantify real ROI from their social media efforts.  I also think the report addresses this, as the 2nd most popular metric that CMOs are expecting to use to gauge their social media efforts in 2011, is conversion.

So thanks to Ian and the folks at Bazaarvoice for creating this report, and you can download your free copy here.  Also, on February the 2nd (Next Wednesday), Bazaarvoice will have a free webinar where they will do a deep-dive into the findings of this report, with several top CMOs.

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‘Be Awesome!’ is not a social media strategy, it’s a soundbyte

How many times have you heard this advice for having a great blog or social media presence?

‘Be Awesome!’

‘You have to join the conversation!’

Or my favorite advice, on how to get more Twitter followers, ‘Be worth following!’

The bottom line is that social media isn’t quick and easy.  If you want to REALLY have a successful social media program, you have to get your hands dirty.  You have to track, measure, tweak, compare, experiment, and break stuff.  I’ve been blogging here for two years, and still can’t tell you what the exact ROI of my efforts here are.  But during those 2 years I have been constantly searching for the answer, and my efforts here have improved dramatically.

Of course, if I’d listened to the ‘rockstars’ in this space, I would have known exactly what I had to do:

1 – Write great stuff

2 – Write every day

3 – Write short posts 300-500 words

That’s all there is to it, if you listen to some people.  The business reality is that every company is going to have to invest time and energy into a successful social media program.  It won’t be easy, but as Ian added, most important things are hard.

And if anyone tells you that all you have to do is ‘Be Amazing!’, then they aren’t trying to help you, they are trying to get retweets.

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How to overcome your boss’ objections to using Social Media

In the last post, we talked about some ideas for selling your boss on why your company or organization should use social media.  But if you are having to ‘sell’ the boss on social media, that probably means she is skeptical, and probably has a set list of reasons why she does NOT think social media is a good option.  You need to address those concerns head on, and here’s how to tackle the objections you are most likely to hear:

1 – We don’t have time for social media. Social media is a big time requirement, but most companies don’t have to start from zero.  Often, you can take existing content and repurpose it for your blog or even Twitter and Facebook presences.  For example, if you have any whitepapers, or articles, or interviews, or even videos that you’ve created, these can be used as content sources for your social media efforts.

2 – Social media wouldn’t work for us, since no one is talking about us online. This is a big misconception that many companies have, especially smaller ones.  If no one is talking about your company online, that is often a POSITIVE, not a negative!

Think about it, if you are a big brand, then part of your social media efforts involve monitoring and responding to hundreds if not thousands of daily brand mentions online.  So that big brand is having to REACT to an EXISTING conversation that it’s customers are creating about and around the brand.

But a smaller company that doesn’t have any online mentions can CREATE the online conversation about them.  They don’t have to react to the conversation that their customers are creating.  So while the big brand is responding to and attempting to reframe the existing conversation, the smaller company has the advantage that they are the ones creating that conversation.

3 – Our current marketing efforts are just fine. If done smartly, your current marketing efforts, especially online, can be enhanced by social media.  For example, a blog can help drive qualified traffic to your website, which can increase sales, as we discussed in the last post.  Also, content you create for your blog can help provide inspiration and content for your email newsletter.

4 – We don’t know what to do or which tools to use. Here’s where you will need to do a bit of research, but you can often take your cues from how your current and potential customers are using social media.  If they are mostly on Twitter, then it’s a good indication that make your company should have a presence there as well.  And once you launch your social media efforts, as you are monitoring your online mention, you can track WHERE these mentions are happening.  Are they coming from blogging customers, or maybe message boards?  This gives you a great idea of which tools you should be using, and where you should be spending your time.

5 – Social media is just a fad. Social media has been around for 20 years, at least.  Even in the late 1980s, I was creating content on message boards on local BBSes, then in the 90s on online services such as Prodigy and AOL.  I think the main difference in the current version of these tools and sites is that it’s now easier than ever for individuals to create content, and it can be on their own site (blog) or even pull content from a centralized site (Twitter) to their site, via widgets.

As more customers get more advanced smartphones, these social media tools are following the phone, which means customers now have the ability to create content on the go.  Such as quickly taking a picture and immediately posting it to Twitter or their blog.  So social media has been around for a while, and isn’t going away any time soon.

So there are some ideas for countering possible objections to social media that your boss might offer.  If you have a specific question about how your company can convince your boss to use social media, either leave a comment for all of us, or email me and I will be happy to help!

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How to sell your boss on using Social Media

Ready to have ‘the talk’ with your boss?  The one where you make your case for why it’s time for your company to start using social media (what talk did you think I meant?!?)?  Here’s some tips for helping you make your case:

1 – Don’t talk buzzwords, talk tangible business benefits.  Only mention things like comments, Facebook Likes and Twitter followers IF you also explain how they relate to things like sales, conversions and leads.  Make your case for why your company should use social media by showing your boss how it will help your company generate sales, and/or lower costs.

2 – Point out how social media can help your company build its awareness.  A lot of people focus on ‘the conversation’, but using social media is a wonderful way to increase search placements and traffic.  For example, yesterday I wrote a post titled How to write good blog content.    Here’s a screenshot I took of the Google results for the term “How to write good blog content” right before I wrote this post:

The #1 Google result just a few hours after publishing the post.  Not too shabby.  And this perfectly illustrates how blog content can help your company’s search results.  Maybe even to the point where your company can lower or eliminate its SEM budget?

3 – Social media can make your marketing more effective.  Look at your existing online marketing efforts and how success is judged.  Show your boss how social media can compliment those efforts, making them more effective and efficient.

For example, a blog will help drive qualified traffic to your website.  Let’s say you provide lawn-care services, and you write a post entitled ’10 Steps to Having an Insect-Free Lawn by June’, and someone arrives at that post by Googling the term ‘getting rid of insects in my lawn’.  And let’s say that in that post, you give wonderful advice about ridding a lawn of insects, and add a call to action inviting the reader to visit your website if they want to schedule an appointment with you.  Anyone that arrives at your site from visiting that post is probably going to be a potential customer, or qualified lead.  So the blog is enhancing the website’s ability to sell your services.

So those are some quick tips to helping you convince your boss to use social media.  The problem is, your boss is likely to have a few objections to using social media.  We’ll talk about how you can address and counter your boss’ objections to social media, in the next post.

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How to write good blog content

During the last #Blogchat, at one point the discussion shifted to writing good content on your blogs, and what defined ‘good’ content.

Most of us seemed to fall into one of two camps: People that said that good content created value for your audience, and people that said that good content created value for the blogger.  With the general consensus being that if you are a business blogger, that your content was written for someone else.  And if you are a personal blogger, you are writing for yourself.

Then I got to thinking about my blogging here.  Ultimately, this blog is a business development tool for me.  I use it as a tool to grow my business and get more consulting and training clients.  But I also want and am very thankful for those of you that leave comments here and contribute to the conversation.  So while the actual comments and conversations we have might not have as much of an impact on my business as the content itself, it has an impact on ME.

Which I think is an important issue to consider.  Even those of us that are business bloggers need to get a sense of personal fulfillment from our blogs.  It keeps us motivated and inspired.  Sure, getting money from your blog is always inspiring, but making personal connections with people and creating value for them via your content, is also very rewarding.

In my mind, the best bloggers are the ones that create their content with a specific audience in mind, but they also have a personal attachment to their readers.  As a result, even their ‘business’ blogs aren’t stiff and boring, they are even personable and inviting.

What do you think?  Should your blog content and approach combine personal and professional elements to be more effective?  Or should your blog’s focus be completely one or the other?

How do you write for your blog?  What’s your approach?

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Will there be a LIVE #Blogchat at SXSW?

One of the most frequent questions I have gotten in the past few months when I attend or speak at events is ‘Have you ever thought about doing a live #Blogchat?’

In fact, I have.  And what I would like to do is find a smart company that wants to sponsor a LIVE #Blogchat during SXSW.  In looking at the SXSW schedule, we could even do it on Sunday nite, March the 13th.  That way, we could have a live #Blogchat in Austin, but also have the regular #Blogchat on Twitter during the same time.  Which would mean we could also take points raised and questions asked on Twitter by #Blogchatters, and incorporate them into our live conversation at SXSW.  Additionally, we usually start mingling and networking an hour before #Blogchat starts each week, at 7pm Central.  We could do the same thing at SXSW, this would give the people that are going to join us live in Austin a chance to meet each other, and the sponsor as well.

For participants, I think it would be an amazing learning experience, and a great way to meet so many people we’ve probably already connected with during past #Blogchats.

For the sponsor, I see several key benefits:

  • Minimum of 2 hours exposure with some of the true leaders in the social media space, both at the event, and on Twitter.
  • Since it will be the 1st LIVE #Blogchat, I will be promoting it on Twitter and my blog for the next 2 months, which will only draw a bigger crowd.
  • You’ll get a TON of useful advice from some of the smartest minds in social media.  This alone would pay for the sponsorship.
  • Sponsoring the event would bring a good deal of positive exposure to the sponsor.

Also, if it makes sense from the sponsor’s point of view (especially if they are a blogging company), I’d like to have a representative from the sponsor join me at SXSW and co-host the live #Blogchat.

And to be clear, I’ve already talked to a few potential sponsors who have expressed interest in this idea, but no one has committed yet.  So if this idea sounds like something your company or organization is interested in learning more about, please email me.

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5 reasons why companies should spend LESS time listening to social media experts

If you work at a company and are passionate about social media, and passionate about getting your company to use social media, then you are probably spending a lot of attention to the supposed social media experts.  The most influential bloggers and Twitter users.  The ‘rockstars’.

Here’s 5 reasons why that’s probably not a good idea.

1 – Social media experts gravitate to shiny things.  If you are active on Twitter especially, then you have probably heard about the shiny social media site of the moment; Quora.  Quora is basically a Q&A site that despite having functionality similar to most other Q&A sites, seems to suddenly have everyone buzzing.

The problem is, ‘shiny’ doesn’t always equal ‘useful’ when it comes to social media for companies.  What you should do with Quora is monitor company mentions.  You should already have a monitoring system in place (even if it’s just Google Alerts, which you can set up in 5 mins), and this will let you track company mentions on Quora and other sites.

With most ‘shiny’ social media sites and tools, it’s best to be aware, but to not jump in headfirst.  Why?  Because often the ‘buzz’ around a shiny social site is driven by hype more than utility.  In general, it’s best to let the hype die down then see what happens.  If the value is there, people will stick with it.

And before anyone comments, I am not slamming Quora.  I have plenty of friends that love the site, and to be honest, I have barely spent an hour with it.  My only point is, I tend to tune out and wait when I see sites like Quora suddenly getting super-hyped.  I did the same thing with Identica and Kwippy, and yes, even Twitter.

2 – What works for social media experts might not work for your company.  Most social media experts will tell blogging companies that they must have as many comments as possible.  That interaction and engagement is all that matters.  They probably get a bunch of comments on their blog, so they tell companies they need comments as well.

Guess what?  Most companies could give a rat’s rump if they ever get a comment on their blog.  They want LEADS and BUSINESS from the blog.  But most social media experts have difficulty explaining how companies can get leads and business from their blogging efforts, so they talk about things they know: such as getting comments and RTs.

3 – There is no one-size-fits-all solution to social media.  Twitter is the textbook example of this. I have literally changed the way I use Twitter a dozen or more times in the last 4 years.  I used to follow more people than followed me.  Then I followed almost no one, now I follow anyone that interacts with me on Twitter, or that I have met.

The point is, there are few, if any, social media rules that apply to EVERY company’s efforts.  For example, many social media experts will say that a blogging company should try to blog every single day.  And at minimum, they should write 3 new posts a week.

And confession time, I used to think this as well when I started blogging almost 6 years ago.  The a funny thing happened: I started getting so busy with consulting work that I couldn’t blog every day.  I had to make the choice between blogging every day, or working on client work every day.  Guess which one won?

The solution is: Pick a posting schedule that works for YOUR situation.  My best advice is to pick a schedule that you can stick with.  If you *think* you can write 2 new posts a week, start out shooting for once a week, then build up to 2 a week if you can.

4 – Social media experts often write for each other, not for companies.  How many times have you read a well-known social media person write a blog post or a tweet just ripping another well-known social media person?  It happens far too often.  So why does it happen?  Because almost every time there is an ‘I’m calling bullshit on…’ post, it gets views.  And comments, and RTs.  And traffic.

But does it get them business?  Maybe it does, but the next time I hear a social media consultant tell me they got a project because they ripped one of their peers, will be the 1st time.  But I often hear of companies that have specifically NOT hired an expert or consultant based on something they said online.  Good manners matter, and no amount of RTs or pageviews or comments make up for a lack of civility.

5 – Social media experts are using social media in a way that works for THEM.  One person.  So obviously, attempting to mimic the way one person uses social media and applying it to the social media efforts of a Fortune 500 company, might not be the best course of action.

This is not to say that you can’t learn from how the experts and thought leaders are using social media.  Because you can, and yes I am being slightly self-serving when I say that.  But you should never assume that you should use social media in a certain way, simply because someone you read or follow, does.  Maybe their method for using a particular site or tool can work for your company as well, but you shouldn’t blindly adopt using the site or tool the same way simply because that’s how they do it.

Don’t blindly adopt, but don’t blindly dismiss either

Your company should be aware of what the leaders and experts in this space are saying and doing.  But you shouldn’t do anything simply because they are, nor should you dismiss their methods simply because you believe that ‘social media experts’ are all ‘snake oil salesmen’.  Look for trends, ways that most of the leaders in this space are using social media, or what they are teaching, and look critically at their lessons and if they can apply to your company’s efforts.  Don’t view them as a ‘cheatsheet’ for using social media, but rather as another resource for your company.

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#Blogchat topic for 1-23

Ok guys I’ve created a poll for tonite’s #Blogchat topic!  Vote for your favorite, the poll will close at 7pm Central, or an hour before #Blogchat starts!

And if you’ve never joined #Blogchat, here’s what it’s all about.