MackCollier.com

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How I Increased My Blog’s Monthly Search Traffic By Over 100% in 2011

As you know, I am always experimenting with my blog, especially when it comes to traffic and traffic sources, and I always like to report back to y’all what I learn.  One of the areas I wanted to focus on this year with my blogging was increasing my search traffic.  At the start of the year, search traffic had accounted for roughly 14% of the traffic over the life of this blog, at the time.  I wanted to see that percentage get up to at least 33%, preferrably 40% or higher.

So in January I took the advice of my friend Amy, and started posting more, to see what impact it would have on the volume of search traffic here.  From January through July, I averaged 3-5 posts a week here, where before I was posting here once or twice a week.  And not only did I post more often, I tried to focus more of my writing efforts on targeting specific search keywords and phrases, especially in post titles.

The results have been pretty successful.  Up till Jan 1st of this year, search traffic accounted for 14% of total traffic here.  So far this year, search has accounted for 30% of total traffic here, and is up to 35% for the lifetime of the blog.  This is significant, because overall traffic has doubled this year, with the increase in content creation.

Here’s the monthly results for my search traffic for the lifetime of this blog, through November:

As you can see, up until the 1st red X on the graph, there is slow and steady growth in search traffic volume.  That first red X was search traffic for January of this year, when I ramped up my posting schedule to start posting 3-5 times a week, on average.  Note that immediately, the angle of the growth of search traffic volume increases.  This suggests that more content but also content that was better optimized for search engines was increasing search traffic volume.

But notice the 2nd red X on the graph.  That’s search traffic for June.  I wanted to mark that, because starting in July, my posting frequency slipped a bit, from an average of 3-5 posts a week before, to 1-3 posts a week.  For the last 4-5 months I’ve been traveling a lot more and have had to spend more time on client work, so I had to scale back my posting schedule a bit.  But as you can tell from the graph, even though I was posting less, search traffic volume continues to grow.  In fact, it seems to be growing at about the same rate now, as it did earlier this year when I was posting about twice as often.

Now look at this graph for the year’s monthly traffic:

blog traffic, search traffic, increasing search traffic

The red X is June, and that’s the point at which I started posting less here.  Note that from that point forward, overall traffic starts tapering off slightly each month.  But now let’s do something really interesting: Let’s take this same graph, but add in referral traffic and search traffic.  Here’s what we get:

referral traffic, increasing search traffic, strategies for building blog traffic

This is overall monthly traffic here for 2011.  The red X is June.  The green bar is referral traffic, and note that it more or less mirrors overall traffic: When overall traffic goes up, it follows, same thing happens when overall traffic goes down.

But note the orange bar; That’s Search Traffic.  Also note that in June, Search and Referral Traffic were almost the same, there was slightly more referral traffic.  That’s when my posting frequency began to slip, and referral traffic from June through November, continued to fall.  But search traffic continued to grow.  Now if I start posting more often here, referral traffic will go back up, but that extra content will also increase my volume of search traffic as well.

So that’s what I did this year to increase my volume of search traffic by over 100%.  The main thing is I posted more often, and I paid special attention to focusing on at least one keyword or phrase in every post, especially in the post title.  Another thing I did with my posts was think about what someone would search for.  A lot of times when we use search engines, we are looking for the answers to problems or questions.  That’s why ‘How To’ posts work well.  For example, I could see someone searching for ‘How to increase search traffic’ and finding this post (in fact I just greatly increased the chance that will happen by adding that exact phrase ;)).

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How to Increase Participation in Your Twitter Chat or Any Online Community

Interaction and participation.  It’s something many community sites and managers struggle with and focus on increasing.  Engagement is the lifeblood of many online communities, and yet, so many struggle to reach that ‘critical mass’ of participants.

When #Blogchat started in early 2009, participation wasn’t an issue.  Even in those 1st few weeks where we’d only have a few hundred tweets, there was plenty of engagement.  But even then, I noticed some problems.  It seemed that there were a core group of really smart bloggers that were, for the most part, answering the questions of everyone else.  So the core group of smart bloggers were mainly talking to each other, and fielding questions from everyone else.

If you think about it, you see this in a lot of online communities, especially knowledge-based ones.  You have the ‘newbies’ and the ‘experts’.  And early on, that’s what we saw with #Blogchat, the ‘newbies’ were asking questions of the ‘experts’.  And there’s nothing wrong with that, but the problem is this: If you’re not a ‘newbie’ or an ‘expert’, how do you participate?

What started happening is that I would talk to people that follow #Blogchat, and when they told me they lurked, I would invite them to participate.  “#Blogchat is so much better when more people participate so we can all learn from each other!” I would tell them.  Almost every time, they would reply by saying “Oh no! I don’t have anything to add, I’m not an expert!”

I hated hearing that.  So I added a new rule for everyone in #Blogchat: No experts allowed.

That’s not to say that smart people can’t and shouldn’t participate, but I wanted to communicate to everyone that they should feel comfortable participating.  #Blogchat works best when everyone is comfortable sharing what they know.  Does that mean that some people make some points that are completely off the wall?  Yep, but that also leads to new discussions, because others feel comfortable questioning and debating those claims.

But if your community only has interaction from the experts and newbies, you’re going to be ignoring everyone else.  Kathy had a great point about this several years ago, and her point is the same as mine, that you need to communicate to your community that everyone should participate, and help them feel comfortable doing so.  For #Blogchat, when they hear ‘No experts allowed, we are all here to learn from each other’, it puts everyone at ease.  Most people are smarter than they give themselves credit for, they might not believe they are ‘qualified’ to join a discussion, but they almost always have something they can share that can benefit the group.

One of your key roles as a community manager is to get everyone to a place where they are comfortable contributing as they can.  And remember that when people start participating in a community, they begin to take a sense of ownership in that community.  That greatly increases the motivation they have to help you grow that community, and make it more valuable for everyone.

This starts by finding ways to get everyone more interactive.  Not just newbies asking experts questions, but everyone asking and answering questions.  This will generate more discussions and more value for everyone.

If you want to get more discussions and participation among your community, consider these steps:

1 – Encourage involvement from lurkers.  As I am watching #Blogchat’s stream, it’s obviously moving way too fast for me to catch even a fraction of the tweets.  But if I see anyone tweet that they are joining #Blogchat for the 1st time, I *always* go back and thank them for joining.  Nothing makes a lurker feel more welcome than announcing to the group that they are joining for the 1st time, and immediately getting a thank you tweet from the moderator.  Additionally, other #Blogchat members have started doing the same thing, which only increases the chance that this lurker will move to being a participant.

2 – Understand that statements are NOT discussions.  Often, I will notice that a member of #Blogchat isn’t directly engaging with anyone, but rather they are tweeting out general statements like ‘Blog from the heart!’ or ‘Make your post as long or as short as it needs to be!’  These tweets will probably get a lot of RTs, but by themselves, they don’t often generate a lot of discussion.  If I see someone that’s constantly leaving tweets like this, I try to engage them.  I’ll ask them questions about their statements, and hopefully get a discussion started with them.  Then, others have an opportunity to join in.

3 – Encourage all members to be helpful.  When I first started #Blogchat, I asked regular contributors to please help me by welcoming new participants, and to help them with any questions they have.  The #Blogchat regulars do a wonderful job of being helpful to everyone.  Now I tell everyone that if they are new to #Blogchat, to feel free to ask any of us any questions, that we will be happy to help.  And I am constantly seeing others tweet about how helpful and friendly the #Blogchat community is, so I think the #Blogchat regulars view it as a badge of honor.  At least I hope they do, because I do 😉

4 – Clearly spell out for all members how they can participate and what is expected of them.  All it takes is a simple post listing out the purpose of your community and any guidelines.  This is important, because if someone stumbles upon an established community, it can be a very daunting thing, and a ‘road map’ can definitely help put them at ease.

5 – If you are active in your community (as you should be), then make sure you are following your own rules.  For example, when I participate in #Blogchat, I am usually asking questions of other participants.  I try to avoid always making statements, and I use the words ‘I think….’ a lot.  If I am asking questions as the ‘moderator’ of #Blogchat then it sets the tone of everyone else to the same.

 

Remember at the end of the day if you can reach a point where community members are creating value for themselves, then everyone wins.  A great way to do this is to increase the level of participation within that community.

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What Rockstars Can Teach You About Creating Kick-Ass Online Content

Think about it, Rockstars are amazingly effective content creators.  They create content (music) that we are not only willing to pay to get, but we also pay to view and hear them creating that content (concerts)!  And then there’s all the merchandise we purchase as well that celebrates them as content creators.

So as you are looking to rev up your content creation efforts, take a closer look at how Rockstars create amazingly compelling content that not only resonates with their fans, but delights them.

1 – Rockstars always play their Greatest Hits.  If you go to an Eagles concert, it wouldn’t be complete without hearing them play Hotel California.  Likewise, if you load up the Little Monsters and go to see Lady Gaga perform, you can’t wait to hear the ‘Ra ra ah ah ah…’ that tells you Bad Romance is the next.  Likewise, if you are a content creator, there are going to be certain types of content, certain topics you cover, that simply resonate more with your audience.  These are your Greatest Hits.  These are the topics you love to talk/blog/tweet about, and this passion you have for these topics means you create better content, that your audience wants more of.  So know what your Greatest Hits are, and feel free to cover these topics regularly, because this is what your fans want.

Now there is a slight caveat to this:  Often with Rockstars, their DIE HARD fans don’t want to hear their ‘mainstream’ hits as much as they do their more obscure songs.  For example, up until about 10 years ago (or around the time she lost her mind and started playing country music) I was a HUGE Jewel fan.  But I wasn’t really a fan of her mainstream hits, I was a fan of her more obscure songs.  Mainly, because I had already heard all of her hits before.  So when I heard her perform in Birmingham in 1999, I didn’t care if she played You Were Meant For Me, I wanted to hear I’m Fading (The K-Mart Song, not the popified Wal-Mart version she’s done since).  So if you are a content creator, what this could mean for you is that if you have die-hard fans, they might be willing/wanting to pay you for more exclusive/unique content.  If it’s content that only THEY have access to, even better!

Tip: Check your blog’s analytics and see what your Top 10 posts are all-time ranked by views, and comments.  Also, check your keywords and see what terms people are searching for that are leading them to your blog.  This will give you a great idea of what your most popular content is.  If you see that every time you write about X topic, that your audience responds, then that’s a BIG hint that you’ve found one of your Greatest Hits!  Don’t be afraid to blog about the same topic more than once!  The next time writer’s block has set in, dig into your analytics and archives and see if you can resurrect a past hit and post about it again!

2 – Tell a story with your content that connects with your audience.  Rockstars are great storytellers.  They find a way to write songs that touch listeners.  That stir emotions within us and make us believe that this song was written JUST for us.

For example, the next time you hear a Taylor Swift song playing on the radio, actually stop and listen to the lyrics.  There’s a reason why millions of teenage girls absolutely love Taylor: It’s because she is singing about THEIR lives!  She’s talking about their hopes, their fears, their failures, and their dreams.  They connect with her because she’s singing about everything they are experiencing right now.

You want to do the same thing with the content you create.  You want to tell stories that help you illustrate your points and make them more relevant with the audience you are trying to connect with.  If you’ve ever seen me speak, you know I do this in all of my presentations.  I make a point, then I use an example/case study of a business that has executed that point that I’m trying to illustrate.  I do this because I want to make the content relatable to the audience.  It’s one thing to talk to non-profit marketers about how they can use social media as a crisis communication tool, it’s quite another to tell them the story of how the Red Cross is doing just that.

Tip: Use case studies or even personal examples and stories to illustrate the points you are trying to make.  Any advice you are attempting to share with your content is always easier to understand if you can share a story of how someone else has already done what you suggest.

3 – Be memorable.  There’s so many songs I remember for just one or two lines:

“Many is the word, that only leaves you guessin’.  You guess about a thing, you really oughta know…’ Led Zeppelin, Over the Hills and Far Away

“I’d like to fly, but my wings have been so denied…” Alice in Chains, Down in a Hole

“Where did the Angels go? Cigarette smoke is all that’s left. I traded my wings in for a string of pearls, and the string’s all I’ve left…” Jewel, I’m Fading

“All and all, you’re just another brick in The Wall” – Pink Floyd, Another Brick in The Wall

Rockstars do a great job of giving us that ‘hook’ in their songs that make them memorable.  You can do the same thing with your content and blog posts.  It could be the headline of your post.  It could be the infographic or picture that grabs attention.  It could be the key stat that drives home the point you’re trying to make.

Tip: When creating content, whether a blog post, a video, even a tweet, think about what the ONE key takeaway you want people to have.  Look at what would make the most impact, is it a picture, a stat, what?

4 – Be real.  Rockstars do an amazing job of creating songs that are raw, emotional, and strip all the bullshit away to get to what’s real.  Look at this amazing music video for the song Hurt by Johnny Cash.  Look at how Johnny sings about living a life of regret, then it shows an old home video of Johnny standing in his yard with a contemplative look on his face.  Or notice how as Johnny sings, June looks on with a worried look.  All of this does a fabulous job of relating to us that Johnny is singing from his soul.

Tip: Don’t be afraid to speak with your own voice when you create content.  How often have you seen someone write a short blog post that says something like, “I think Chris Brogan and Shannon Paul are onto something, check out their posts here and here.”  We’ve probably already read what Chris and Shannon think, I want to hear what YOU think!  Don’t just parrot what another blogger says, share your own opinion, especially if you have a DIFFERENT take on the issue!  Sharing your own voice is a great way to build your following and audience because your voice is unique and distinctive!

5 – Turn a negative into a positive.  Up until 1993, Sarah McLachlan was very well-known in her home country of Canada, but not internationally.  All that changed with the release of the LP Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, and her first breakthrough mainstream hit, Possession.  The lyrics to Possession were very stark and even haunting, a definite break from what we’d heard of Sarah’s catalog up until this point.  “Into this night I wander, it’s morning that I dread.  Another day unknowing of the path I fear to thread.  Into the sea of waking dreams I follow without pride. Because nothing stands between us here, and I won’t be denied!”  

After the song’s release and international popularity, it was revealed that Sarah had endured multiple stalkings just prior to writing this song, including letters being sent to her regularly.  One of her stalkers even sued Sarah, claiming that the lyrics to Possession were taken from his letters to her.  This person later committed suicide.  But Sarah found the strength to take these traumatic events and focus her energy into her music, and the result was a hit that took her from being a celebrity in Canada, to an international superstar.

Tip: Incorporate setbacks into the content you create.  Obviously, your examples don’t have to be (and hopefully won’t be) as severe as what Sarah endured, but maybe you could offer a Lessons Learned post from what went wrong with a Social Media campaign, or how you handled what could have been a potential negative for your brand, and turned it into a positive.  Case in point, check out this wonderful video by Gary Vee on how he turned a potential PR disaster, into a positive experience:

Remember, don’t just focus on creating useful content, create remarkable content!  Content that others want to share and talk about, and build upon.  Your goal should be to create content that inspires others to build content as a result.

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Planning for 2012: Which Social Media conferences should your company attend?

Hopefully your business is like mine, knee-deep in planning for 2012.  One of the areas you’ll probably be deciding upon is which social media conferences and events to attend next year.  While you are putting together your list, keep these points in mind:

1 – Send only those people that are in a position to act on anything they learn.  You want to send your Social Media Manager or Marketing Manager instead of the new hire in the office that ‘gets’ social media.  Unfortunately, most companies send someone at the entry-level with the advice to ‘learn all you can, and report back to us’.  What happens is this person gets to the event, and spends the entire time taking copious notes, which are then deposited on the desk of their boss upon arrival back at the office.

The problem is, this person was too busy taking notes to actually learn much at the event.  And they wanted to take a lot of notes so their boss would see that they got their ‘money’s worth’ from the trip.  It makes much more sense to send a manager there that actually manages your social media marketing efforts, and who can implement any ideas they learn about during the trip.

2 – Ask questions, not just of the speakers, but talk to your peers.  This is where you’ll need to do some research to try to figure out exactly who will be attending each event.  Also, you want to attend events where the speakers don’t just hop back on a plane as soon as they get done.  You want to make time to talk to both the speakers, and fellow attendees.  This way, you get the best of both worlds, you get to talk to the experts, as well as your peers that are facing the same issues with their social media strategies as you are, or will be.

3 – Don’t go to national events unless you have to.  Granted, if you live in certain areas (like the state of Alabama), you will probably need to attend a national event because there aren’t a lot of local options.  But if you live in a bigger city like NYC, LA or Atlanta, you can probably find plenty of local events, plus a couple of bigger national conferences will probably come to your city during the year.  A good compromise would be to focus on one national event, then stay home for the rest of the year.

4 – Put a priority on events that cater to your space or industry.  As the Social Media conference space matures, events are being offered that focus on certain types of businesses or industries.  For example, Marketing Profs caters to B2Bs, and there are many events that are aimed at small businesses or enterprise social media usage.  You might have to pay a bit more for these events, but it’s usually worth it since the content will be more relevant to you, and the networking with speakers and attendees will be better since they will be coming from a similar background as your own.

5 – Which is better, South By Southwest, or Blog World?  Oy.  It seems anytime I am asked about which social media conferences to attend, this question always comes up.  The thing to realize about both events is that they are aimed more at individual bloggers rather than companies looking to improve their social media efforts.  SXSW especially so.  If you are a small business, I think you can get value from attending Blog World, not as much from South By Southwest, which is basically a circus.  If you are a publisher/blogger that monetizes their blog, then it makes sense to attend either, especially Blog World.  But if you are a large company, you can probably make better use of your money at other events.  Even so, if you live in one of the cities/areas where Blog World will be, it makes sense to attend.

6 – Remember that you get out of these events what you put into them.  It takes time to prep and try to connect with attendees before arriving, but it can make a big difference.  Talk with attendees, learn about the speakers and their styles so you can get a better idea of which sessions you should attend.  And ask questions.  If you don’t feel comfortable asking a question during a session, catch the speaker out in the hall and ask them there.  But remember that you’ve paid good money to attend, you deserve to ask questions.

So please keep these tips in mind as you are planning which events to attend.  And if the travel budget isn’t there, consider attending online webinars, or many of the larger events now offer paid and free streaming, so check into that as well!

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Join @LisaPetrilli co-hosting #Blogchat tonight on How Introverts Can Use Blogging to Boost Their Careers!

I am very excited to announce that tonight’s #Blogchat will be co-hosted by my good friend Lisa Petrilli!  Lisa will be joining us to discuss how introverts can use blogging to boost their careers!

If you’ve been following Lisa’s blog over the past year, you know that she’s written several extremely popular posts on how introverts use social media.  As an introvert herself, Lisa understands how we communicate with others, and how we use social media.  Plus, she launched her blog last year, which has become incredibly popular in a very short time, and has opened up many career possibilities for her as a result.  So she’s the perfect person to lead this discusson!

Tonight’s #Blogchat (Sunday) will start at 8pm Central.  Here’s the topics we’ll be discussing:

1 – What it means to be an introvert.  What I love about Lisa is that she does a great job of explaining what our introversion means.  What we often view as weaknesses, can actually be strengths!

2 – How a blog can boost your career.  We’ll talk about how introverts can use their blogs to help them get a job, everything from getting an interview, to doing well on it, to getting the job!  We’ll also talk about how introverts can leverage their blogs to help get promoted and lead others after getting that job!

3 – Finally, we’ll close with talking a bit about how introverted CEOs can blog and use it as a tool to communicate with and lead others.

All this awesomeness will get started at 8pm Central tonight, so please make sure you are following Lisa on Twitter, and also check out her post covering it!

 

Now tonight’s #Blogchat is special for another reason, as this will be the official launch party for Lisa’s new ebook, “The Introvert’s Guide to Success in Business and Leadership!”  This is a project that Lisa has been working on for a LONG time, and I’m happy that #Blogchat can help others learn more about this ebook.  Lisa was kind enough to give me a copy of the ebook, and I have to say that if you’re an introvert, or if you work with or lead introverts, you will love this ebook.  What I love about Lisa’s approach is that she understands that introverts have certain advantages, and she always explains the situation in a way that makes sense to introverts.

For example, I am an introvert, but thanks to social media, I can be much more extroverted online!  I have talked to many other introverts about this, and all of you have told me the same thing, one of the reasons that we love social media is that it makes it easier for us as introverts, to comfortably connect with others.

But for me, this can present a problem because most people only know me ‘online’ and via social media, so as a result, many people assume I am an extrovert.  But since I am actually an introvert, when I attend conferences and events, this can be a disconnect for others.  I actually struggled with this a bit at Blog World, because I went out to a few parties and I felt very uncomfortable trying to ‘network’ with strangers.  Yet at the same time, I realized how this could be ‘hurting’ me if I am not as social offline as I am online.

So I was thrilled to see that Lisa addresses how introverts can network in her ebook.  I won’t give away her secrets, but she explains exactly how she does it, and looking back, I realize now that if I had used the methods she described, Blog World’s networking events would have been a lot more comfortable for me.  I will definitely use her advice at the next conference I attend!

Please do join us for tonight’s #Blogchat with Lisa, as it will be a fabulous discussion!  And if you would like to purchase Lisa’s ebook, ““The Introvert’s Guide to Success in Business and Leadership,” you can click here to buy it on Amazon.  Or if you click here and buy it from Lisa’s site, you can enter in code BLOGCHAT and get a 50% discount so it only costs $3.99!  But please hurry, that code expires at Midnight tonight, Pacific time.  And please note the ebook does include sections on how introverts can use social media, especially blogging, to succeed in business!

And in case you were wondering, no, Lisa isn’t paying me anything for all this gushing about her or her ebook or co-hosting #Blogchat.  I am doing it because Lisa is a great friend and wonderful person, but also because I really do believe that she has created a wonderful ebook and that SHE was the person to write this ebook.  Lisa has been a very wonderful and supportive friend to me and so many other people, and I believe that she deserves to see her good efforts rewarded.  I know many of you think the world of Lisa like I do, and understand what I am saying 😉

See you all tonight at #Blogchat!

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Turning Blog Comments Into Customers and Clients; Tonight’s #Blogchat Topic!

Thanks to the suggestion of Rick, tonight’s(Sunday night’s) #Blogchat topic will be How to Turn Commenters Into Customers.  Rick wrote a post on this topic, and also referenced one written by Marcus.

One of the great unwritten rules of blogging is that if your posts get comments and interaction, then they are successful.  But if you are blogging for a business or organization, you can’t survive on comments alone.  You need to convert those comments into something of real value to your business.  In other words, getting more comments is NOT the end goal of your blogging strategy.  You want your blog to generate more sales, or leads, or donors, or awareness, or SOMETHING else besides comments.

Now that’s not to say that comments don’t have value, because they absolutely do.  But the point is that YOUR company or organization has to decide what value comments have in relation to YOUR blogging strategy.

Let’s assume that you blog for a company that sells Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters.  If your blogging strategy is focused on sales, then if you are going to invest time in cultivating comments on your blog posts, those comments need to lead to sales, either directly or indirectly.  Here’s a snazzy diagram I drew to outline this simple process:

Now the problem that many blogging companies have is that they work to encourage blog comments on their posts, but they don’t do anything to leverage those blog comments to help them reach their ultimate goal of generating a sale.  Many people will read a blog post, then comment on it, and then nothing happens to move them closer to a sale.

Let’s look at how we can correct this, first starting with the approach that we want comments to DIRECTLY lead to sales.  Or in this case, we want our commenters to buy something.  If that’s the case, then obviously we need to give them the OPTION to buy something.  Think about it, if you want your blog to directly generate sales, how can this happen if you don’t offer goods for sale ON your blog?  It can’t, the best you can hope for is that the commenter will contact you and ask how they can buy something from you.  But if you want your commenters to buy something from you, you need to give them that option.

Now the other option is the one that far more of us likely employ, and that is using comments to indirectly lead to sales.  In this scenario, we need to understand that since comments won’t be leading directly to sales, they need to lead to people taking some OTHER action that eventually WILL lead to a sale.

For example, in my own blogging case, I want to encourage comments here, but I know that they will likely INDIRECTLY lead to sales for me.  I know that the more comments I have here usually leads to more RTs and sharing of my content online, which means I have higher visibility, and am more likely to be viewed as a ‘thought leader’ when it comes to how companies and brands can better use social media.  This increases the likelihood that I will be hired as a speaker, a trainer or consultant.

But also notice that I have pages here dedicated to my speaking, training and consulting.  So if someone does comment here, and is interested in hiring me, I have given them information on how to do that.

This is the one area where many blogging companies (or even solo bloggers that want to monetize their blog) fail: They don’t focus on calls to action and closing the sale.

If you want to use your blog as a way to generate sales, either directly or indirectly, then you have to help your visitors get to that point.  If you want the blog to directly generate sales, then you need to give them an option to buy on the blog.  If you want your blog to indirectly lead to sales, then you have to figure out what Action A and Action B is above, and how to move them along the cycle toward a sale.

And that’s what we’ll be discussing tonight at #Blogchat, how to convert comments into sales/clients/donors/etc, either directly or indirectly!  Hope you can join us starting at 8pm Central tonight on Twitter!

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The missing ingredient of the Influencer vs Fan debate: The passion of your biggest fans

At Blog World, Matt Ridings and Chuck Hemann led a great discussion on Online Influence.  At one point, Chuck made the point that if he wanted to reach gardeners, it would probably make more sense to reach out to his mom, who is a gardener, vs Michael Brito, who has a much larger online reach, but isn’t a gardener.

That makes sense to most of us.  But I asked what if Michael WAS a gardener.  Then it becomes a more apples to apples comparison, but what if Michael was a ‘casual’ gardener, whereas Chuck’s mom absolutely LOVED gardening?  At what point does the fact that Chuck’s mom has more passion for gardening outweigh the fact that Michael has a much larger online reach?

Another example: Let’s say you are In N Out Burger and you’re trying to develop a Social Media Outreach campaign for the brand.  You aren’t sure if you should appeal to Influencers, or your Fans.  Let’s also assume that the Influencers have an average Twitter following of 50,000, whereas your Fans have an average Twitter following of 1,000.

But let’s also assume that your Fans are the people on this video:

Who has a more vested interest in promoting your product, the Influencer with 50,000 Twitter followers that you sent a free gift card, or the woman at the 1:20 mark of the video that is literally crying because she loves your brand that much?

In my opinion, this is the one area of the Influencer vs Fan debate that we miss: The passion of your most loyal customers.  If I was creating an outreach campaign for In-N-Out Burgers, I wouldn’t need to know what the online reach was for the customers in the above video.  All I would need to see was that they literally love this brand, so much so that they are willing to drive for hours and then stand in line for hours just to be one of the first people to order your product when the store opens.

And then they cry with joy when they get it.  If you think it’s better to connect with ‘Influencers’ over Fans like this, then you’re probably in the wrong line of work.

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Think Like a Rockstar is coming to MPU on Wednesday!

I’m super excited to announce that tomorrow I’ll be presenting Think Like a Rockstar as part of Marketing Profs’ Content Marketing Crash Course!  Here’s the description of the session:

Engagement and interaction are key elements of a successful social media strategy. That’s why so many companies want more participation on their blogs and stronger connections with their customers via social media. Still, so few truly get it.

What lessons can we learn from rock stars about converting customers into fans? How do rock stars ignite passion? And, more to the point, can you take these lessons and use them to build a community around your business’s social media efforts?

You will learn:

  • How rock stars convert customers into fans
  • How to create content that will encourage interaction and engagement from your customers
  • How you can apply the lessons learned from rock stars to your business’s social media efforts
  • Examples of companies that are adapting these lessons to their own social media efforts to build fans and create communities

As everyone knows, this is by FAR my favorite presentation to give and topic to discuss.  This session is one of 14 courses that Marketing Profs is offering as part of the Content Marketing Crash Course, with sessions by smarties such as Jay Baer, Jason Falls, CK, Joe Pulizzi, Nancy Duarte, and many more!  The entire course is $595, and my session will begin tomorrow at 12:30 Central, with Q&A immediately after that!

If you would like to have me present Think Like a Rockstar at your conference or company event, here’s information on that.  Hope to see you tomorrow!

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The promise of Social Media isn’t in leveraging your customers, it’s in better understanding them

Geno Church tapping into the mindset of far too many marketers at the FIRE Sessions

The company found Social Media and thought it was glorious to see, “I can use this tool to help them talk about me!”

I saw this update on Facebook from Toby: ‘BIG pr agency VIP “our job is no longer control in social media; job is to arm fans with talking points to spread wom thru their social graph.” Sigh Is the “social” of social media gone forever?’

When I saw this, I realized that this thought had been bubbling up with me for a while: Most companies aren’t trying to leverage how their customers use social media to better understand them, they are trying to leverage how their customers use social media to create a new promotional channel for the company.  I noticed during last Friday’s Blog World keynote with Ford’s CMO Jim Farley that he kept talking about how powerful social media was because it let Ford spread its message through its customers.  I heard similar stories in other sessions and from other companies.

Good companies/organizations of Planet Earth, please understand that the promise of social media isn’t that it will let customers tell your story, but it will help you to better understand their’s.

At the Live #Blogchat at the FIRE Sessions in September, John Moore made a fabulous point: “In a way, it can be so easy and yet so difficult to engage with customers using social media.  Easy meaning it’s a tool we all have at out disposal to use.  Big companies, small companies, they’re using the same tools.  This allows you to scale the conversation, but just because you can scale the conversation, doesn’t mean you should scale the conversation.  The theme we have here today is ‘Let’s Get Dirty’, meaning hands-on…Doing it dirty, getting dirty is going in and understanding the passion and motivations behind the individual that is tweeting, blogging, updating, whatever….The ‘Easy’ part is the blast, the difficult part is to get your hands dirty, getting hands-on, and getting to know people.  That takes time.  Social media, for many of us, makes us lazy….Social media is so easy, but yet so difficult.  We’re losing the personal touches of getting our hands dirty and taking the time to truly and individually connect on a personal level.”

John’s right.  The promise of Social Media for many companies is that it provides them with a new promotional channel to reach their customers.  Or better still, to connect with their customers and help them promote the brand.  There is a shift in the idea of embracing a brand’s advocates, but as I told Toby on Facebook, what brands need to understand is that their advocates don’t love them for their talking points.  There is some common thread that runs through the brand, that binds them.  Figuring out what those ties are and truly understanding your advocates takes digging and work.

The great promise of social media is that it can help brands better communicate with, and understand their customers.  With a higher level of understanding comes more effective and efficient communication, which leads to even more understanding between the brand and its customers.  At some point, both groups begin to trust the other a bit, and that’s when advocacy on behalf of the customers can come into play.  The end result is the brand can use social media to better understand its customers, to build trust and advocacy with them, and improve their marketing and communication efforts, making them more efficient and saving the brand money.  All while improving customer satisfaction, growing customer retention rates and lowering customer acquisition costs.

Or companies can go on thinking that the beauty of social media is that it allows them to use their customers to RT their press release.

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Review: Blog World and New Media Expo, Los Angeles 2011

Somehow, I had never attended a Blog World until last week in Los Angeles.  I came close a couple of times, but couldn’t make it work until this time.

Overall, it was a great event and I’m going to make every effort to attend the next one in June of 2012.  Inevitably, Blog World draws a lot of comparisons to South By Southwest.  While SXSW is easily 10 times bigger in scope, I found the networking at Blog World to be better, because most of the same people were there, but in a much smaller space.  For example, I got to catch up with Chris Brogan and Scott Monty at Blog World, even though they had been at previous SXSWs, and I’d missed them.  Other vets of both conferences told me the same thing, that you’ll meet more people and have better conversations at Blog World.  They were right.

One thing that I really appreciated from Blog World was offering free shuttle service from all 4 partner hotels.  This alone probably saved me $100 or more on cab fees.  And on top of that, @YouCast offered one of the smartest sponsorships I’ve ever seen at a social media conference: They offered FREE shuttle rides from LAX to all 4 hotels, then return service from the hotels to LAX when attendees left.  This saved me another $100, and guess what, You Cast is one of the few sponsors I remember from Blog World, and the only one I am blogging about.  Bobby and the team did a great job with this.

The Sessions: Sometimes More is Less

If there was one area where I think Blog World fell short, it was the sessions.  Not the quality, but there was simply too much to choose from.  The sessions I did attend were all pretty good, in fact several of them were great.  But attendance was low in almost all of them.  When you walk into a room that seats 200, and 15 people are in the audience, you cannot help but form opinions about the topic and presenter even before the session starts.  What made matters worse was that I began to notice that about 20 mins into every session, attendees started leaving.  My guess is that they had at least 2 sessions they wanted to see at that time, and if the one they picked wasn’t amazing to them, they left to go to their backup choice.

Another problem with having so many sessions running at once is that you need a LOT of rooms to hold them all.  That means that you literally need a tour guide to find some of the rooms.  For example, the room where the Live #Blogchat was held was at the end of a LONG hallway and then wrapped around a corner.  There were no signs and it was really isolated.  We still had a great turnout, around 70 people, but I tweeted several times exactly where the room was.  Another session I attended had 10 people, and as soon as I walked in, I could tell that the panelists looked totally dejected at the low turnout.  I get what Rick and the Blog World team were trying to do, they were trying to make sure that they had all the blogging topics covered, as there were a ton of niche blogging areas/topics featured.  But when there are only say 30 people interested in a particular niche at an event, and you give them 14 other session options in the same time slot as their niche, well you are going to have a low turnout.

The Parties Were a Very Pleasant Surprise

In keeping with the comparison to SXSW, I have to say that I absolutely HATE most of the parties at SXSW.  Usually, these are held at a bar with loud music and a few hundred geeks standing inches from each other screaming as they try to have a conversation.  It is painful to watch, and a miserable experience.  But the parties at Blog World were far better.  I missed the closing party, but attended the opening party and the one on Friday night.  In both cases, there were a ton of nice comfy chairs and couches to sit at.  There was loud music, but it wasn’t TOO loud.  It added a nice sense of background, but you could still be standing next to a group and have a chat.

Overall, I think Blog World was a great event

No, it wasn’t perfect, but I think the experience as a whole was a good one.  And even with the issues I did see, such as way too many sessions at the same time, I think Rick and his team had the best of intentions.  If you want to spend a couple of days having amazing conversations and attending a few excellent sessions and parties, then Blog World is the place for you.  And who doesn’t want that? 😉

If you attended Blog World, especially if it was your 1st one like it was mine, what did you think?