MackCollier.com

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You Want to Have a Fan-Centric Brand

KathyQuoteI wanted to talk in very broad strokes today about why it pays to have a fan-centric brand.  And what I mean by that is a brand that places a premium on connecting more closely with its most passionate customers.

But before we get into this post, I want to start with a very simple and profound truth: When your brand participates in a conversation it changes that conversation.  Think about the online (and offline) conversation that your customers are having about and around your brand.  When you take an active role in that conversation, it changes.  When you interact with your customers and they with you, both groups have a higher level of understanding of the other’s POV.  This is why it floors me to see so many companies that are scared to death of engaging with their customers online.  Yes. it can be scary if you’ve never done so, but the opportunities are enormous.

This is why cultivating more interaction with your customers is so important:  Because interaction leads to understanding.  And without understanding there cannot be trust.  Think about the people that you trust.  Can you think of anyone that you trust even though you don’t understand who they are or what they stand for and believe in?  I bet you can’t, I know I can’t.

You want more interaction with your customers because that can lead to trust.  And without trust, you cannot have advocacy.

Then the process is: Interactions > Understanding > Trust > Advocacy

So then the starting point is to focus on having more interactions and engagement with your customers.  Social media helps with this as it gives you a constant way to monitor online conversations and respond.

But it has to be your focus to want to engage your customers.  Which is why I laid out this process because that level of engagement is the starting point for cultivating advocates/fans.

Now, if we are saying that you need to engage with your customers in order to eventually create advocates, then how do you explain the fact that Apple has such devoted fans?

This was truly the beauty of Steve Jobs and why he was such a visionary CEO.  Jobs had the ability to understand today, what products customers would want tomorrow.  For example, roll back the clock to 1999 or so when Napster was about to forever change the music industry.  Many artists, such as Metallica, saw Napster and peer to peer file-sharing as a huge threat to their business and a lost of income.  Jobs understood that Napster had changed our behavior, and as a result, we wouldn’t want to buy $17.99 CDs anymore just to get the 2-3 songs we wanted to hear.  We wanted a way to buy songs individually.

Enter iTunes.  And of course, we needed a way to store all these digital files and take them with us.

Enter the iPod.  Where the music industry saw the threat posed by file-sharing, Jobs saw the opportunity, and capitalized on it.  Because Jobs was the rare visionary CEO that had an uncanny understanding of his customers and what they wanted.

When did everyone decide that they wanted a smartphone with a scrolling interface? 2 seconds after they saw Jobs debut it on the iPhone in 2007.  Jobs understood Apple’s customers and what they wanted in his products.  Which is why his customers trusted Apple to create the products they wanted, and this is why the brand had such devoted advocates.

The odds are that your brand does not have a visionary CEO like Jobs.  So you do need to interact with your customers so they can understand you, and vice versa.  But that just means you have one extra step to take to create a truly fan-centric brand.

Oh and PS: Guess who’s blogging again? 😉

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Five Tips For Sharing Content Like a Pro on Twitter

TweetI’ve blogged before about how sharing content on Twitter can drive big traffic back to your blog.  It’s also a great way to network with others, and to find and share content that makes you and your network smarter.  I am a big believer in sharing content on Twitter and here’s five of my best tips:

1 – Share content from sources that people trust, and identify those sources.  I am constantly looking to see what CopyBlogger, Spin Sucks and Convince and Convert are writing because I know they consistently produce good content that helps other people solve their content marketing and social media problems.  I also let people know that the share is coming from these sites, because that makes them more likely to click the link.

2 – Tell people why they should click the link.  This one is sometimes tough with just 140 characters, but if at all possible I like to add why the link is worth clicking on.  A personal endorsement along with a link drives more clicks.

3 – Identify the author of the article or post.  You want to do this to let others know who wrote this awesome piece, but to also ping the author to let them know you are sharing their content.  Add via @username to your tweet.  BTW that also makes it more likely that this person will want to share YOUR content (Pro Tip).

4 – Participate in the conversations around the content you share.  Many people miss this but sharing content on Twitter is a GREAT way to network with others.  I purposely try to schedule most of the links I share with HootSuite ahead of time so I can be on Twitter and interact with people that comment on the links I share.

5 – Share your own stuff.   Self-promotion?  Oh the horrors!  Relax, if you are sharing useful content then you have every right to share some of your own stuff as well.  In fact, this is one of the biggest benefits from sharing OTHER people’s awesome stuff, it drives more clicks to YOUR content when you share links.  I’ve tested this but when I am sharing other people’s content and THEN share a link to my latest post, it drives more traffic here versus only sharing my post.  Try it for yourself and see what happens!

BONUS: Share content from the people that share your content.  Look for ways to put the spotlight on the people that are promoting you and your content.  Remember, reward the behavior you want to encourage.  Besides, saying ‘Thank you!’ is the right thing to do.

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Race your winners, stable your losers

SocialGraph“Own Your Network”

I heard that phrase several times this week in Birmingham at Y’all Connect.  It’s something I have been thinking a lot about recently.

Are we stretching ourselves too thin when it comes to social media, and are we spending too much time trying to cultivate new networks instead of maximizing the potential of our existing networks?

For example, I keep hearing that I need to be on Google Plus.  That I need to build a network there.  The obvious problem is, that takes time and energy.  Which also means that the time I take to build a new network on Plus is going to mean less time I spend on cultivating my established network on Twitter.

Networks are like gardens, they need to be cultivated and tended to.  One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to try to plant too many gardens.

We are always being told that we need to ‘be everywhere’ when it comes to social media.  I disagree.  I think you need to pick fewer social media sites to be active on.  But if you are active there, you need to be all-in.

For the next week, I am going to focus on my network on Twitter.  I won’t be on Plus, I won’t be on Facebook.  You will find me on Twitter or here (or possibly commenting on another blog), and that’s it.

Where will you be spending your time next week?

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Make Your WordPress Blog Mobile With WPTouch

I’ve written about how much I love WPTouch before, but I wanted to sing the plugin’s praises again here.  WPTouch optimizes your blog for viewing on mobile devices such as smartphones.  Those of us that use our smartphones to read blogs know how terrible it is to try to read a blog that hasn’t been optimized for mobile.

Case in point:  I love the big, bold picture of Katy Perry that went with the last post here.  A great picture really makes a post pop.  But here’s what this blog looks like on my iPhone without using the WPTouch plugin:

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That’s pretty much the actual size of what you’d be viewing.  It’s impossible to read with the type that small, so you’ll either start pinching and zooming, or leave (probably leave).  Either way, you won’t be impressed with how my blog looks on your phone.

Now here’s how this same post looks on my iPhone with the WPTouch plugin:

 photo (1)

Sigh…isn’t that a thing of beauty?  All of the sidebar and header crap that you don’t need is stripped out, and it’s only the post.  Just gawgeous.  Seriously, you do not realize how awful a blog that hasn’t been optimized for mobile looks, until you add this plugin.

Now, how important is making sure your blog is optimized for viewing on smartphones? I was curious as to this blog’s mobile traffic, so I checked.  So far this year, here’s the percentage of each month’s traffic that’s come here via smartphones:

January – 14%

February – 13%

March – 13%

April – 12%

May – 15%

June – 16%

July – 17%

As you can see, it’s slowly increasing.  Check your own blog’s traffic and see what you find.  BTW those stats are coming from Google Analytics, and don’t include tablets.

But adding WPTouch is a very simple way to instantly make your WordPress blog look ahhhmazing on smartphones.  There is a caveat that it doesn’t play nicely with some themes, but you can always download it and try it out.  The premium version is supposed to solve most of the theme-related issues.  Even if WPTouch can’t work for you, check your blog’s stats and see how your mobile visits is trending.  If you are seeing an increase in mobile visitors like I am, it might be time to go ahead and invest in a solution to make your blog mobile-friendly.

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Give Up Control to Get Control

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“I just said we gotta do this, this is at the heart of the brand.  We’ve got a real problem in losing control of our ability to talk to friends.” – Former Maker’s Mark CEO Bill Samuels Jr. on how he pitched the idea of launching a brand ambassador program to his Board of Directors.

I am in love with this quote right now.

Often when a business considers launching a brand ambassador program or even a fan-engagement strategy on a smaller scale, one of the key worries is a loss of control.  Companies fear giving more control over to their customers and letting these customers have any significant amount of say and control over the path that the program takes.

These companies can only see that they will be losing control.  They can’t see what they will be gaining.

In my book Think Like a Rock Star, I’ve included several case studies from where rock stars gave their fans control of a message, idea, program.  What do rock stars like The Donnas, Katy Perry and Jewel understand about their customers that your company does not?  Why would they give away control so freely to their fans and actually look for the opportunity to do so?

Because rock stars understand that when you give control to your fans, you get back their trust.

When you give up control, you gain trust.  And people advocate for brands and people that they trust.

In the Maker’s Mark example, the brand had always prided itself on having a one-to-one relationship with its most passionate customers.  Maker’s Mark truly embodied the rock star mindset of embracing your fans.  But as the brand grew beyond just a small Kentucky brand into a national brand, it meant that its network of fans became national as well.  So the founders realized that the brand had lost control of its ability to connect directly with its biggest fans.

The solution?  A brand ambassador program.  With a brand ambassador program, Maker’s Mark had a vehicle that let the brand connect directly with its biggest fans (its brand advocates), and by extension, it could then connect with all the customers that the brand ambassadors came in contact with.  By creating this program and giving up some control to its members, Maker’s Mark regained control of its ability to connect direct with its fans.  It regained the ability to connect with its fans that it lost when the brand went national.

Maker’s Mark understands what most rock stars do: That if you embrace your biggest fans, you will gain their loyalty, and their trust.  And they will work for you to help build your brand.

Sometimes it’s worth it to give up something small, to get something bigger in return.

Pic via Flickr user LunchBoxStudios

PS: Every week we discuss how your brand can create more passionate fans in the Think Like a Rock Star newsletter.  Click here to signup for free.

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The Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Blogging SEO

UPDATE: Here’s tonight’s #Blogchat transcript! (Click ‘Transcript’ on the left to view).

Well this is a topic I can definitely blog about, since I am no SEO expert!  We will also be discussing this topic tonight (Sunday, July 21st 2013) at #Blogchat on Twitter.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  Effectively, what you are doing is ‘helping’ search engines understand what topics you are writing about.

A great way to do this is to use keywords and phrases that tie back to your topic, in your blog post itself.  For example, notice that the phrase ‘Blogging SEO’ appears in this post’s title, as well as throughout the post itself.  By placing this phrase in the title and in the post itself, I am helping Google and other search engines to recognize what this post is about.

So when someone searches for a term related to blogging SEO, or blogs and SEO, this post will likely do better in search results as a result of me using those specific words.  This is why you’ll see bloggers often write their blog post titles in the form of a question.  Such as ‘So what’s the best way to use Twitter?’  Because if someone does a Google search for the term ‘What’s the best way to use Twitter?’ that post will rank higher in search results for that exact term!

So if you are just getting started trying to optimize your blog posts for search, think about which keywords you are using with every post.  And then focus on using those keywords in three locations:

1 – The post title.  Notice that for this post ‘Blogging SEO’ is in the title.  So if someone searches for ‘Blogging SEO’, that will help this post rank higher in the results.

2 – The post itself.  I have repeated the term ‘Blogging SEO’ several times in this post.  That further helps to impress on Google and other search engines that this post is about blogging SEO, and should be higher in the search results.

3 – The post’s URL.  This is a tip that a lot of blogger’s miss.  Notice that the URL for this post is https://mackcollier.com/blogging-seo  The keywords ‘blogging SEO’ are literally part of the post’s URL!  That also helps Google identify that this post is about Blogging SEO.

 

So those are some beginner tips for optimizing your blog content for search, and you’ll get a ton more tips tonight during #Blogchat, starting at 8pm Central time.

Finally, I know that #Blogchat has been hammered by a few spammers lately, so I have embedded the tweets here, and most of the spam tweets should be deleted from here.  So if you want please follow along with #Blogchat here!

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Are Your Owning or Renting Your Social Media Presences?

iStock_000015529331MediumThe last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about this.  It seems a lot of the free social media tools that we are ‘renting’ have come under fire, or disappeared.

Google Reader went away, disrupting how readers subscribe to and receive our posts.

Twitter suddenly changed its API rules or some such for 3rd party sites that many of us were using to follow Twitter chats such as TweetChat and TweetDeck.

Rumors are that Feedburner will go away soon.

It’s more important now than ever before to make sure that you are creating and distributing content via tools that you own versus rent.  This is a big reason why I have always preferred a self-hosted blog over Facebook or even Twitter.  Because you have control over what happens on your blog far more than you do on other social media sites.

For example, for the past few days, the #Blogchat hashtag on Twitter has been overrun with spammers.  My only option really is to ask Twitter to please do something about it.  Which I have, and still the problem persists.  Because it’s a problem that’s happening on a site that I don’t control.  I’ve already started thinking about ways that I can bring more of the #Blogchat conversation here, where I have more control over it.

With Google Reader going away and Feedburner likely following soon, I’ve shifted my focus away from trying to get subscribers of this blog, but instead to building my newsletter list.  I can own that list and have control over it.

So when you start using social media, especially as a channel to create content, think about the tradeoffs you are potentially making between reach, and ownership of that content.  It’s always a good idea to have your ‘homebase’ for your content be a space that you control, such as a self-hosted blog.

For the rest of you, what changes have you made in light of recent changes to Twitter and Google Reader going away?  Has it made you re-think where you invest your time with blogging and social media?

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How Do You Organize the Information On Your Blog?

UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from tonight’s #blogchat!

I am currently helping a friend launch their new website.  One of the things she’s trying to figure out is what information goes on the site’s homepage, and in what order.  You should be thinking about the same things on your blog.

For starters, ask yourself what are the top three things that you want someone to do once they visit your blog.  And prioritize your answers.

If I came to your blog right now, what’s the ONE thing you want me to do?

If I don’t that one thing, what’s your 2nd choice?  3rd?

For example, I am using my blog here as a way to create valuable content for current and potential clients.  So my blog is technically a way to get a relationship started with you where I provide you with content that’s valuable to you, that will hopefully lead to us doing business at some point down the road, or hopefully you referring me to someone that needs my help.

So notice that at the very top of my blog, next to the content, is my signup place for my TLARS newsletter.  That’s the ONE thing I want a visitor to do when they come here, is signup for my newsletter.  So I put it front and center.  If a new visitor doesn’t signup for my newsletter, I want them to at least read my post and comment.  So I also highlight recent commenters, to show readers that if they comment, they will get the spotlight put on their comments.  Also, I have Popular Posts listed at the top right, because I want you to find as much valuable information as possible, so you will want to keep reading my blog and tell others about it.

Now if I was launching my first blog today, my top goal for this blog would probably be to use it as a tool to directly sell my consulting services.  But over the last 4 years, I have tried repeatedly to use the blog to directly drive consulting sales, and I’ve had very poor results.  Through simple trial and error, I’ve learned that visitors here would rather connect with me, build a relationship with me, and then do business with me.  So now the focus of my blog’s organization is geared toward us staying in contact and building that relationship.

Want to discuss this more?  You’re in luck, we are going to discuss this topic tonight at #Blogchat, starting at 8pm Central!  If you have some points or comments you’d like to make before the chat, feel free to leave a comment here, and we’ll chat up your point.

And after the chat ends, come back here to continue the discussion, and I will post the transcript here as well!

Also, here’s the #blogchat tweets for this week:

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How Can Employers Help Their Employees Become Advocates For Their Brand?

Today’s #RockStarChat topic will focus on how companies can cultivate brand advocates and fans from their own employees.  Seriously how can a company hope to excite its customers if its own employees aren’t excited about working for the company?  We’ll discuss this at 1pm Central today, and luckily a few members of Dell’s Social Media and Digital team have volunteered to stop by and talk about how Dell does just this.

Basically, I think the process for creating fans among your employees is similar to creating fans among your customers.  First, you need to focus on ways to connect directly with your employees, and they to you.  There needs to be some way for employees to voice their thoughts, ideas and concerns to the company, and understand that their voice is being heard.

Second, there needs to be an effort made to connect employees to each other.  Many companies have started creating internal social networks that allow employees to connect with each other and ask work-related questions, help each other, or just talk about their life and interests.  These channels are vital to the employees as it lets them help each other (boosting productivity) but also hits them boost morale and their connection to their fellow co-workers.  If you already have a copy of Think Like a Rock Star, I talk about doing this in Chapters 7 and 8.

Those are just a couple of quick thoughts as I’m far more interested in hearing what y’all have to say about today’s topic.  But I do think that before any company can think about launching any type of program to cultivate fans or connect with brand ambassadors, it needs to invest in creating channels that connect their own employees.  To each other, and to the company they work for.

See y’all at 1pm Central, follow the #rockstarchat tweets on Twitter.

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Mitch Joel is Co-Hosting #Blogchat tonight!

Mitch Joel

UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from our chat with Mitch!

I’m super-pumped to announce that Mitch Joel will be joining #Blogchat tonight at 8pm Central!  Mitch will chat with us about how he does blogging, as well as his new book, Ctrl-Alt-Delete!  Here’s the schedule:

1 – 8:00-8:15PM – We talk about where Mitch gets his blogging ideas from.  I always find it fascinating to see where bloggers such as Mitch that have been blogging so well for so long get their ideas from.

2 – 8:15-8:30PM – We talk about Mitch’s view of responding to commenters.  Many bloggers are told that you should respond to commenters, but Mitch typically does not, and he’ll tell us more about his thought process behind this.

3 – 8:30-8:45PM – We talk about some of the most important lessons Mitch has learned from blogging.

4 – 8:45-9:00PM – We’ll close out #Blogchat by talking about Mitch’s new book, Ctrl-Alt-Delete!

 

It should be a great and VERY fast-paced chat with Mitch, so make sure you are following him on Twitter, and reading his excellent blog, Six Pixels of Separation!  See everyone at 8pm Central tonight!

PS: Want to sponsor #Blogchat in August?  Here’s details on what you’ll get, email me to discuss pricing!