MackCollier.com

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Sheila Scarborough Co-Hosts #Blogchat Tonight Discussing Blogger Outreach Programs!

Here’s tonight’s #Blogchat transcript, click Transcript on the left!

I’m thrilled to announce that Sheila Scarborough will be joining #Blogchat tonight (10-6-13) to teach us about how to create and execute effective Blogger Outreach programs!  #Blogchat starts tonight at 8pm Central, and is sponsored this month by AllergEase!  Please make sure you are following both Sheila and AllergEase on Twitter!

Here’s the schedule for tonight’s #Blogchat discussion on Blogger Outreach programs starting at 8pm Central:

8:00-8:15pm – How to get started with a blogger outreach program

8:15-8:30PM – How to decide who you are targeting with your outreach program

8:30-8:45PM – How to structure the outreach if a product is involved

8:45-9:00PM – How Blogger Outreach campaigns can generate more WOM and product reviews, and how to encourage these

 

It will be a fabulous discussion tonight, and I hope you can join us!  I’ll be posting the transcript here when the chat ends.

Also, as part of AllergEase’s #Blogchat sponsorship this month, they are offering a special product giveaway just for #Blogchat members!

1 – Go to Aedrops.com, and add the AllergEase 3-pack into your cart.

2 – Enter code AEBLOGCHAT.

3 – This will reduce your order and shipping total to $0.00 and you will receive a free pack of 21 AllergEase lozenges!

Each pack has 21 lozenges, and by entering the code AEBLOGCHAT you’ll get 21 lozenges for free, and AllergEase will even cover the shipping, so there’s no risk for you!  I don’t deal with allergies, thankfully, but my sister does and she tried the lozenges and said they really did work!

So please take advantage of this special offer that AllergEase has for us, and claim your free pack of 21 AllergEase lozenges.

Hope to see you at #Blogchat tonight!

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AllergEase is #Blogchat’s Sponsor For October!

AllergEaseLogoI’m thrilled to announce that AllergEase is the #Blogchat sponsor for October!  AllergEase makes an all natural allergy lozenge that’s designed to help relieve the affects of seasonal allergies.  You can learn more about their products here.

As part of their sponsorship, AllergEase has come up with a special product giveaway just for #Blogchat members!

1 – Go to Aedrops.com, and add the AllergEase 3-pack into your cart.

2 – Enter code AEBLOGCHAT.

3 – This will reduce your order and shipping total to $0.00 and you will receive a free pack of 21 AllergEase lozenges!

Each pack has 21 lozenges, and by entering the code AEBLOGCHAT you’ll get 21 lozenges for free, and AllergEase will even cover the shipping, so there’s no risk for you!  I don’t deal with allergies, thankfully, but my sister does and she tried the lozenges and said they really did work!

So please take advantage of this special offer that AllergEase has for us, and claim your free pack of 21 AllergEase lozenges.

Now as for #Blogchat this month, here’s the topics we’ll be covering:

This Sunday (October 6th) we’ll be covering Blogger Outreach Programs with a special co-host, Sheila Scarborough!  Sheila is a long-time friend of #Blogchat and will have a ton of great advice for us on how to properly craft and execute blogger outreach campaigns.  I’ll have more information on this topic coming up here this Sunday.  For now, if you aren’t already make sure you are following Sheila on Twitter!

October 13th we’ll be chatting about how to find and connect with niche bloggers.

October 20th we’ll be chatting about the issues involved with marketing to a specialized or narrow group online via social media.  Such as connecting with children, what are the issues involved, etc.

October 27th we’ll have OPEN MIC!

I’m so excited to have both AllergEase sponsoring #Blogchat this month and Sheila joining us on Sunday!  Please make sure you take advantage of AllergEase’s offer of 21 free lozenges! And make sure you follow them on Twitter!  See y’all on Sunday!

PS: Want to sponsor #Blogchat? November’s sponsorship is on hold but December’s is still available, here’s price plus details.

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I’m Still Not Sold on Klout

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I stopped checking my Klout score/profile about a year ago because I simply can’t understand how the score is calculated.  Plus, my score seems to always stay in a range of 74-78 when I do check it, so I stopped looking.  I got an email from Klout about a week ago telling me that my score had just gone up, so of course I clicked to check it.  It seems my score had been 74, but had suddenly jumped up to 78.  No explanation why, and a quick scan of my scoring history shows this had happened often.  A couple of days later I get a second email from Klout telling me my score had again gone up.  Whoa, it might be 80 now, I think!  I click over and it shows that my score has gone ‘up’ to 78.  It seems that right after Klout sent me the first email saying my score had gone up to 78. that the next day it fell back down to 74, then a day or so later it bounced back up to 78.

With no explanation for why any of that happened.

Klout was social media’s ‘it’ company a couple of years ago.  The promise was that Klout would accurately measure your level of influence online.  The promise for brands was that it would allow them to connect with true influencers.  The promise for users was that it would let brands that created products that you are influential and passionate about connect with you and give you free stuff.

It’s now almost 2014 and we are still waiting for Klout to fulfill on its promises on either the brand or user end.  Despite promise and claims to the contrary, Klout has never effectively measured online influence for the average user.  Instead it attempts to measure online activity, and correlate influence to that level of activity.  A shaky conclusion to draw at best.

As a Klout user, Klout says my score is 78.  IOW, Klout thinks I am pretty influential.  So as such, Klout needs to understand that I won’t promote its service to other people (that Klout says I have influence over) until the service is relevant to me.

Klout can become relevant to me by seeing that I get Perks that are relevant to me.  The last Perk I received was, I kid you not, a Kobe Bryant poster.  I have left 80K tweets on Twitter since 2007, and I would be shocked if a combined 0.000001% of my tweets were about Kobe, the Lakers, and the NBA.

That’s the last Perk I got.  The last Perk I wanted was to see my last 3-day Enterprise car rental be bumped up to a full week based on my high Klout score.  Or to see my coach ticket get upgraded to first class, for the same reason.

That would have been relevant to me.  That would have led to me positively promoting Klout as well as the brands that leveraged the service to connect with me.  Unlike Kobe and the NBA, I am constantly tweeting about travel.  I am constantly tweeting about driving or flying to an event or for client work.  How Klout can’t see my ‘influence’ on those topics and connect me with travel brands but can see that I am influential about Kobe Bryant is a complete mystery to me.

If Klout wants to become relevant to me it needs to do two things:

1 – Accurately identify products/people/ideas I am not only influential about but passionate about as well
2 – Tie perks to those products.

That’s it.  Until then, my Klout score is just another social media number that bounces up and down that I have no seeming control over or understanding of.

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Sponsored Post: CCF Introduces ‘The Conscious Consumer’

Note from Mack: This is a sponsored post from #Blogchat’s sponsor in September, Clarity Coverdale Fury.  Check out their blog here, and please follow them on Twitter.  Here’s their new post, How Brands Can Win With Conscious Consumers.

 

“My consumption impacts myself, my family, my community and the world at large. I consider issues of health, environment and social responsibilities when I make decisions.” – The Conscious Consumer

More and more people are adapting habits and behaviors that are based on shared values versus the “winner take all” mentality of our not-so-distant past. They are considering how their actions impact others and the world around them. What was once a small percentage of the population is now at a tipping point. This notion of “conscious consumption” and a more Conscious Consumer is no longer on the fringes but is heading mainstream.

American consumers who are practicing yoga or meditation, shopping organic or at Whole Foods, eating vegan or vegetarian are no longer in the millions, but rather the tens of millions. As we wrote in our definition of Conscious Consumer (you can read it above) they are being more mindful. More mindful of not only their own health and personal wellness but how their actions impact the world around them.

As we’ve written about this over the past year we have discovered a lot. Not only are consumers taking action but many companies are as well. In our backyard, General Mills has created Small Planet Foods, an offshoot that houses brands such as Food Should Taste Good, Cascadian Farms and Larabar. LifeTime Fitness has gotten into the business of conducting running and biking races by expanding on their triathlons with nationwide events like Commitment Day held on New Year’s Day. They have also purchased others like the famed Leadville series in Leadville, Colorado. And by doing so, have given themselves a platform to sell other services to an audience of fit-minded individuals. You can visit our blog and read more at blog.claritycoverdalefury.com.

To learn more we recently completed a study with Mintel. It shows just how much momentum there is behind Conscious Consumerism. Over the past month and through November we are releasing a large part of this data in a series we are calling Think. Every two weeks we issue a new Think report highlighting information and insights from the study. You can access the reports here.

Please feel free to use the information in your posts, presentations or articles.

We believe the momentum is there. The question for us is how entrepreneurs and marketers will leverage this momentum. And how consumers will take to manufacturers and service providers who adapt along with them.

We’ve enjoyed the journey, including our sponsorship of #Blogchat. And we hope that through this data we can provide you with some insights. Or maybe more importantly, some inspiration.

For more insights on the Conscious Consumer, follow us on our weekly blog.

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The Science of Happiness; What Makes You Happy and How Rock Stars Knew This All Along

I recently saw this video thanks to a share by Amy Taylor.  The video talks about a scientific study into one of the key drivers of happiness: Sharing gratitude.

As soon as I saw this, I immediately recalled Katy Perry’s Firework Video Contest.  Katy asked her fans to create a video telling the world who their ‘Firework’ was, someone that inspired them and that made them a happier person.  Basically, these were videos that thousands of Katy Perry fans created showing gratitude to the most important people in their lives.

And each video ended with the person talking about how important Katy was to them.  Katy gave her fans a way to show their appreciation for the people they care most about, and as a result, Katy gave her fans another reason to care for and love her even more.

So now we have the scientific reason why rock stars tell their fans that they love them: Because it makes them happy.  And if giving gratitude is a key driver of happiness then no doubt receiving gratitude is as well.  And I don’t know about you, but I find it easier to promote and gush about people and ideas that make me happy.

We’ve already established that connecting with your fans will help drive business growth and improve things like customer loyalty and make your marketing more efficient.  Now we have scientific proof that it will make you a happier person as well.

Sounds like a winner to me!

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How Blogs Impact Purchase Decisions, Tonight’s #Blogchat Topic!

Here’s tonight’s #Blogchat transcript (Click Transcript on the left).

Tonight (9-22-2013) at #Blogchat we’ll be chatting about how blogs impact purchase decisions.  All month long #Blogchat is sponsored by CCF.  Tonight’s topic ties into CCF’s latest blog post about the role of brands in easing the mind of consumers.  CCF also references Chiptotle’s viral video The Scarecrow, which is embedded here:

Here’s the flow for tonight’s topic, which begins at 8pm Central:

8:00-8:20 pm – When researching a purchase, are blogger reviews more or less credible than reviews from ‘professional’ site?

8:20-8:40 pm – Have you ever influenced someone via social media to buy a product? If so, what did you do?

8:40-9:00 pm – Are certain products or services easier to sell via a blog? If so, which ones?

BTW a sidenote:  CCF’s team selected this week’s topic as they did last week’s.  Last Sunday night’s #Blogchat was one of the biggest chats in the 4-year history of #blogchat.  It was a very interesting topic and discussion, and I think tonight’s chat will be equally engaging.  Please check out CCF’s newest post to help reference tonight’s topic.

So make sure you are following CCF on Twitter, and also follow Rob, who will be joining in as well.

You can follow #blogchat right here:

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3 Reasons Why Social Media Isn’t Saving Your Business

IreneFacebook

This Thursday for the first time I’ll be speaking in two states on the same day (yeah it sounded pretty cool when I scheduled it months ago).  Thursday night I’ll be in Nashville  speaking to the Social Media Club chapter about Think Like a Rock Star.  But earlier that day I’ll be speaking at the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association’s annual meeting in Huntsville.

In Huntsville I’ll be talking about getting started using social media and how to start creating a social media strategy.  Despite what you hear in the ‘social media fishbowl’, many companies aren’t using social media and even fewer are doing so effectively.

If you want to start using social media effectively, there’s three things you need to focus on:

1 – Understanding how the people you want to reach are using social media.  The majority of people use social media as personal communication tools and to discover and share content.  Not as channels to receive marketing messages.  So if you want to connect with potential customers via social media, you need to adjust how you use social media to make it consistent with the experience your customers want and expect.    Most Social Media Marketing doesn’t fail because the brand doesn’t understand the tools, it fails because the brand doesn’t understand how its customers are using the tools.

2 – Focus on strategy, not tactics.  It’s not about using Twitter and Facebook correctly, it’s about creating a plan that helps you reach defined goals.  When I first meet with clients, one of the first things we talk about is what their goals are for using social media.  I ask them to answer this question: “What needs to happen in order for this to be a success”  If you want to launch a blog, what needs to happen in 90/180/365 days in order for you to see that the blog is ‘working’?  Asking these questions helps you decide why you want to use social media, and more importantly, what you want to accomplish via social media.

3 – Measure what matters, not what’s easiest to track.  If you start a Twitter account and you are measuring number of followers gained as your way of quantifying that your Twitter account is ‘working’ then #URDoingItWrong.  Don’t measure the metrics that are easiest to track, measure the metrics that lead to desired outcomes.  If you want to see Twitter drive sales, then figure out which metrics indicate either increased sales or an increased likelihood to buy, and track those.

 

If you want to use social media then you need to invest time in creating a solid plan and understanding the customers you want to connect with.  This is something that applies to any marketing initiative you want to begin.  What else do you think companies should focus on before they start using social media?

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Where Do You Find Rich and Valuable Content For Blogging? Tonight’s #Blogchat Topic!

Here’s the transcript for tonight’s #Blogchat, click on Transcript on the left!

Hey y’all tonight we will be discussing where we find rich and valuable content for our blogs.  Thanks again to CCF for sponsoring #Blogchat in September!  You can check out their blog and learn more about their new report on The Conscious Consumer called THINK.

#Blogchat starts at 8:00PM Central tonight (September 15th, 2013). We’ll be covering four areas with tonight’s topic:

8:00-8:15PM – What content sources do you use as research for your blog posts?

8:15-8:30PM – What makes content more valuable and trustworthy to you?

8:30-8:45PM – How do you balance facts/evidence with sharing your opinion?

8:45-9:00PM – How do you feel about corporately sponsored content?

So make sure you are following CCF on Twitter, and join us on Twitter at 8PM tonight!  Or you can follow along below!  The best part about following the chat here is I’ve filtered out the spammers so their tweets aren’t cluttering up the stream 😉

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Embracing Your Fans Shouldn’t Be a Campaign, It Should Be Your Business

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Over the last couple of years there’s been a pattern of brands running campaigns designed to ‘show our fans how much we love them’.  Typically this involves the brand surprising the fan with some sort of free gift, the fan(s) is thrilled, and this is all filmed and turned into a commercial, then promoted in case studies at conferences, white papers, etc.  The basic format is a commercial or video that says ‘We found 10 fans that love our brand, and we decided to show them how we love them right back’.

It’s great that brands are connecting with their fans and rewarding them for being fans.  It really is.  But brands should be smart enough to embrace their fans all the time, not just when the cameras are rolling.

Your brand shouldn’t embrace its fans because it could lead to good publicity, you should embrace your fans because you want to.

Fans don’t want to hear from you just when its convenient to you, they want a relationship with you.  They want constant contact and interaction.  So if you launch a ‘campaign’ designed to connect with them once or twice then disappear, you are actually hurting that relationship with your fans and making them less likely to promote you.

As I said Wednesday in #Rockstarchat, the most successful brands are the ones that make the transaction secondary to the person.  These brands want to connect with their customers and create a better experience for them and a deeper connection.  With the understanding that doing so will lead to more sales.

Your fans love you and view your brand as being their brand.  Which is why they want you to connect with them, they want you to ask them how they can help you and when they give you advice on how to make your brand better, they want you to act on that advice.

This isn’t rocket science, folks.  This is about building relationships.  Think about when someone likes you, if you only initiate contact with that person when you want to see them and if you only want to do the things that you like with them, how would that person react?  They probably wouldn’t like you for very long.  You want to show that person that you are willing to do some of the things that they like to do as well.  It can’t be only about you, there has to be some compromise.

It’s the same thing with connecting with your fans.  You can’t do it only when you can make a commercial out of it and get positive publicity.  It has to be because you love your fans, and want a closer connection with them.

That closer connection takes time and energy and a plan to develop, but its so worth it for your brand.  And before you say that you have no idea how to create a plan for connecting with your fans, remember that I wrote the book that shows you exactly how.

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How Do You ‘Activate’ Your Brands Fans?

That’s today’s #Rockstarchat topic on Twitter, and you can join in below in this very post!  Feed readers click here.

For example, think of all the brands that you would consider yourself to be a fan of.  And it could even be extended to being a fan of a TV show or a rock star.

Now think about the ones that you tell others about, and more specifically, think about the brands/shows/rock stars/teams that you are a fan of that you don’t tell others about.  What prompts us to talk about some of the things we are passionate about, and not others?

Is it that some brands give us a more interesting and compelling story to share?  Do they give us better tools to promote the brand to others?  Do they do a better job of connecting with us personally, thus giving us an extra incentive to talk about them to others?

What do you think?  Those are the points we want to talk about today during #Rockstarchat, and you can follow along right here in this post, the discussion will start at 1pm Central!