MackCollier.com

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Here’s why you shouldn’t treat social media as being ‘free’

I fear conversations just like this are happening all over the country right now:

Employee: “Boss, I think we should launch a company blog.  Lots of companies have them now, even a couple of our competitors!”

Boss: “Yeah, I keep hearing more about companies using blogs. How much will it cost us?”

Employee: “Nothing, the ‘software’ is free!”

Boss: “Oh!  Wow ok, lets do it then!”

Second conversation:

Employee: “Boss I know we want to have the site redesign completed by the 1st of the year, but I really think we need to invest in having someone look at our site and make sure it’s optimized properly for search.”

Boss: “Yeah I have been hearing about how companies are investing in SEO when they redesign their sites. How much would it cost us?”

Employee: “I’ve gotten some estimates and the average figure is around $50,000.”

Boss: “Whoa, that’s a lot of money, what will we get for that?”

Notice that when the boss sees an upfront investment being necessary with SEO, then he automatically wants accountability for those efforts.  But if the blog is free, then cool, go for it.  There isn’t the urgency to measure and qualify the efforts that will go into the blog, because it’s ‘free’.  Yet with the SEO expense, you better believe the company will want to talk with the agency and will have to understand how they are going to benefit from that $50,000 SEO expense, before the boss signs that check.

Even IF you can launch a blog for your company and even IF the only expense is your time, you STILL need to quantify and measure your efforts.  You can’t fall into the ‘well it’s free so it doesn’t matter if we measure it’ trap.  Yes I have been harping on the topic of measuring your blogging and social media efforts a lot lately.  Because it’s damn important.

If you don’t measure your social media efforts and make them accountable, then no one will take them seriously.  Period.

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Chris Brogan will be joining #blogchat Sunday nite!

If you haven’t heard, @ChrisBrogan has agreed to co-host #blogchat tonite!  We’ll be discussing how to use other social media sites in order to improve and grow your blog.  I think Chris probably does this better than anyone, so I am thrilled that he’s agreed to share what he’s learned with us.

Now if you are a regular of #blogchat, you know how batshit-insanely fast the chat can get.  It can be danged tough to keep up with, even if you are a veteran.  Add in Chris co-hosting and bringing his 150K followers, and it could be a recipe for complete chaos.  Hopefully in a good way 😉

So in an attempt to make sure that everyone has a grand time, I wanted to try to have a little more background and structure to tomorrow’s chat.  As #blogchat regulars can tell you, #blogchat is pretty much a freeform discussion, and that’s honestly the biggest reason why #blogchat is the most popular chat on Twitter.  But if the volume picks up like I think it will, the ‘freeform’ flow could be too much for some (especially those that are new to #blogchat), unless we have a bit more organization in place.

With that in mind, keep the following in mind:

1 – The topic is How to Use Other Social Sites/Presences to Grow Your Blog.  Please try to keep your tweets on this topic.

2 – For the 1st 30 mins of the chat, we’ll discuss this particular question: “How do you decide which sites you should be active on in order to help your blog?”  I’m not talking about ‘Is Twitter better than Facebook?”, but rather we will be talking about your strategy for growing your blog, and what you are trying to accomplish.  In other words, we won’t be talking about specific tools so much, but rather what do you look for from the sites in order to see if they would be a good fit for what you are trying to accomplish with your blog?  Chris will walk us through his thinking here, and help us figure out which sites will work best to support our blogging strategies.  This area of the discussion will carry us through about 8:30 or so.

3 – At around 8:30, we’ll start talking about how to decide if one of the social sites you have a presence on should just be an ‘outpost’ for you.  Chris has written before about this, here and here.  Please take a few minutes to read these posts to familiarize yourself with the idea.

Now if you have some blog questions that are NOT related to this week’s topic, I would ask you to please join #blogchat after 9pm Central. Chris can likely only stay till around 9pm Central, and we want to make sure that we give as many people as possible a chance to connect with him.  Besides, if you have a question about the best WordPress theme, for example, if you ask it at 8:15, it will just get lost in the sea of #blogchat tweets anyway.  So please, as a courtesy to your fellow #blogchatters, please wait and join us around 9pm Central if you have non-topic questions.  We’ll be happy to help you with those if we can!

For the record, the most active #blogchat ever had a shade over 4,000 tweets in 2 hours.  And ironically, the topic was using Twitter to promote and grow your blog.  A similar topic to tomorrow nite, PLUS Chris Brogan will be co-hosting that topic.  So I wouldn’t be surprised to see tonite’s volume set the record.  Which is a big reason why I wanted to write this post, so everyone can work together so that we have organized chaos, not complete chaos 😉

Sound good?  If you have any questions, please feel free to add them in the comments!

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Having a strategy doesn’t make you social

Let me clear up front: If you are going to use social media, you absetively should have a strategy driving your efforts.  Totally.

But simply creating a social media strategy and executing it doesn’t mean you are using social media correctly.  I can create a blogging strategy for your company and tell you exactly what to do, but that still doesn’t mean you’ll have a successful blog.  You still have to follow-through.

Having a strategy isn’t enough, you still have to BE social.  You still have to WANT to connect with your customers.

So many companies today are resistant to communicating with their customers.  I think in most cases, it’s simply because they never have, and really don’t know how to get started.

But many companies fear blogs and social media because they fear that their customers will say bad things about them.  Or worse, that there will be a social media backlash against their brand.

Folks, social media backlashes don’t just happen, they are created.  Let’s look at a few examples:

Dell Hell – This is the original social media backlash story.  This centered around Jeff Jarvis endlessly blogging his problems with his Dell laptop and the in-home service he paid for, right?  It did, but the spark that lit the fuse of this episode was probably when Dell was contacted about its stance toward bloggers.  The company clarified that it had a ‘look, don’t touch’ policy toward bloggers, and added that if a blogger wanted to get their attention, they needed to contact them directly, cause Dell wouldn’t respond to their blog.  You can imagine that bloggers didn’t cotton to that stance, and that’s when this story started to spread like wildfire throughout the infant blogosphere.  If Dell had been proactive about reaching out to Jarvis via his blog from the get-go, this episode would have likely never happened.

Motrin Moms – Motrin put an ad on its website on a Saturday in late 2008 and some moms found offensive, and they took to Twitter to voice their displeasure.  Throughout the day, the discussion got more heated, and by the end of the day, it was the most popular topic on Twitter.  There was no response whatsoever from Motrin on Twitter, which played a BIG role in the backlash escalating.

The next day, a few bloggers figured out who the agency was that created the ad, and got them on the phone to ask what their response was to the growing backlash on Twitter about the new Motrin ad on their site.  The agency’s response? “What’s Twitter?”.  Apparently, the agency hadn’t been monitoring any of the online feedback to the new ad going up, and neither they nor Motrin had any idea what was happening.  As with Dell Hell, this episode didn’t just happen, it was created by a lack of response from Motrin.

Nestle’s Clash with Greenpeace – This was two-pronged.  First, Greenpeace put up a few videos on YouTube that claimed that the candy company was killing orangutans by harvesting forests for the palm oil that went into their Kit-Kat candy bars.  The videos DID make Nestle look very bad, but really weren’t getting many views on YouTube until…..Nestle stepped in and tried to get them taken down from YouTube.  Now that CONTROVERSY entered into the equation, the videos suddenly became a LOT more popular.

Then Greenpeace and its supporters started going to Nestle’s Facebook page and posting derrogatory comments and images, including those ripping off the company’s logo.  Again, Nestle didn’t handle this as well as it could, first threatening to remove such comments, and then their reps started arguing with commenters on their page!  Of course, these actions simply drew more negative attention to the unfolding episode.

In all three cases, the social media backlash could have very easily been avoided if the company in question had reacted differently.  But this goes to show that companies should understand that their customers aren’t just waiting to use social media to attack them.  These type of episodes don’t happen by accident, they are created by the company not responding correctly to a developing issue.

So how do you avoid a social media backlash and better connect with your customers?

1 – Monitor what is being said online about your company.  I’ve got an entire page set up just for articles on how to get started monitoring what’s being said online about your company.

2 – Start responding to bloggers.  Target ones that are critical of your company, and the ones that are praising your company.  You should leave a comment on their blog, but if you don’t feel completely comfortable doing this, email them directly.  Most bloggers have their contact information on their blog.  Or for extra-credit, do both.

If you can do those two things, you’ll be on your way.  Note that in all three examples at the top, that the company in question waited too long to respond, and when they DID respond, they said the wrong thing.  If you are proactively monitoring your online reputation, and proactively reaching out to customers that have issues, you’ll all but remove any chance of a backlash.

Plus you’ll be on your way to being social, via social media.  Awesome, I was able to tie it back to the post’s title 😉

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Making the business case for social media & getting buy-in from the boss

The majority of the work I do comes in two forms:

1 – Providing social media training/workshops/speaking

2 – Social media consulting

When I say ‘consulting’, I mean literally.  I’m one of the few people that bills themselves as a ‘social media consultant’ that actually goes in and evaluates what companies are currently doing with social media, and advises them on a future course of action.  I do very little content creation and implementation, simply because that’s usually not the best use of my time.

As part of my consulting, I am usually contacted by one of two sources:

1 – Someone in upper-management or the owner/CEO of the company.  Usually, this company has not started using social media yet, and wants me to tell them if it would make good business sense for them to do so.  There is normally a healthy bit of skepticism coming from this group about if this ‘social media stuff’ will work for them at all.

2 – Someone usually known as ‘the social media guy’ in the company.  Normally, they took the initiative and launched a blog/Facebook/etc presence for the company, and now they want me to evaluate their efforts and see where they can improve.  They understand the power of social media as a way to connect and interact with customers, but are having difficulty moving the business needle with their social media efforts.  Often it’s a case where the boss has told them to ‘show me the money’ from their efforts, or else their efforts are going to go away.

So if you are in the second group, you need to be able to convince the boss that social media will work for your company.  Which means you need to show him or her how your business will BENEFIT from using social media.  We’ve talked before about how your boss does not care about ‘the conversation’, s/he cares about bottom line impact.  So until you can either show that from existing efforts, or make a compelling case for adopting social media usage to impact the bottom line, then you’re likely not going to be doing much with social media.

So how do you get there?  First, you need to craft a solid strategy that justifies and explains which social media tactics are best for your company.  We’ve covered that before, so I won’t get into it again here.

Second, you need to be able to show the boss that your social media efforts are working in terms and metrics that SHE values and understands!

Let’s say the boss gave you the go-ahead on launching a blog 3 months ago.  You’re walking by her office when she calls out to you and asks you to come in her office.  Then she says ‘So how’s the blog doing?’

Here’s how you could answer that question:

A – ‘Pretty good!  We are getting a lot of interaction on the blog, comments on almost every post, and some really great discussions!  Also, traffic seems to be improving!’

– Terrible answer.  This shows the boss that the blog is your hobby and you aren’t taking it seriously at all.  Don’t be surprised if the blog doesn’t make it to the 4th month.

B – ‘Pretty good! We are averaging 5 comments per post, our number of feed subscribers is up 15% from last month, and traffic to the blog is up 22% from last month!’

– Not a terrible answer, but not a great one, either.  This shows the boss that you are paying attention to the numbers, but also that you are paying attention to the wrong numbers. (Note: Yes, interaction is terribly important on the blog. But most bosses don’t care so much about interaction, as they do the actual impact that the blog is having on their business. So to the boss, those are the ‘wrong’ numbers)

C – ‘Pretty good! Our number of email and feed subscribers is up 18% from last month, and traffic to the blog is up 22% during the same time frame.  Also, 10% of our daily traffic is now going to the website from the blog!  And of that referral traffic, 5% resulted in an email newsletter signup from the website!’

– Now we are getting somewhere.  Now you are showing the boss that the blog is working, but that it is also sending traffic to your website as well.  You’ve gotten the boss’ attention, and the blog will likely get to survive, assuming you can continue to build on what you’ve started.

D – ‘Excellent! Traffic to the blog has grown an average of 25% a month since launch.  Additionally, we are now sending roughly 10% of our daily traffic to the website AND 7% of that traffic is resulting in sales on the website.  Also, thanks to the posts on the blog, total online mentions of our company have increased by 27% in the last three months, with 64% of those additional mentions being positive!  Before the blog, 52% of all online mentions for our company were positive.’

– Excellent answer.  You are able to make a case for the success of the blog, and back it up with numbers and metrics that matter to the boss.  You’ve shown her that it can drive traffic to the site, and then get sales from that traffic.  She’ll likely want to talk to you about boosting that 7% sales from referral traffic number, but that’s a discussion for later.  Also, by pointing out the improvement in total online mentions and percentage of positive mentions, you’ve shown her the PR and SEO value of the blog.  But again, now that you have some numbers, she’ll want to see improvement in both.

At the end of the day, you’ve shown her that the blog has the potential to improve her business.  You might get a raise, and maybe more people to help you, as well.

So how do you get to this point?

Understand that the ultimate success of your social media efforts will hinge on two areas:

1 – Generating business (increasing sales)

2 – Improving the efficiency of existing business processes (lowering costs)

I’ll leave you with that to think about, and we’ll go into those areas in more depth in the next post.  But for those of you that are either wanting to pitch social media usage to your boss, or are currently managing a social media effort, view your social media efforts through the eyes of your boss.  What business impact is the boss looking for?  Again, being able to point to 5 comments per post is great, as long as you can make the boss understand why those comments HELP her business.  As long as you can show that value is being created as a result of that interaction, then you’ve got something.

But if you can’t, then in her eyes all you’ve got is a lot of ‘wasted’ time talking to people on a blog.  Something to think about.

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#FIRESessions 2010: My 24-hour glimpse of the future

Last week I got to spend a day in Greenville, SC.  I was exposed to a day full of fabulous conversations and presentations involving many of the topics covered at most social media events:

  • Community empowerment
  • The power of conversations
  • Why customer advocacy is so important
  • Creating something of value for customers, in order to earn their attention and business

But the interesting thing is, I wasn’t hearing all this smartitude at a social media conference.  In fact, I barely heard the term ‘social media’ uttered all day long by any of the presenters or attendees.  I had been invited by the Brains on Fire gang to live-blog/tweet their F.I.R.E. Sessions last Weds. (Disc – BOF paid for my travel to the event)  You can read my blog posts recapping the #firesessions over at their blog.

I’m lucky enough to be asked to speak at industry events on a fairly regular basis.  The best ones seem to give you an overview of what’s cutting edge right NOW, with a glimpse of what might be hot in 6-12 months.  But the #firesessions was the first event that really made me feel like I was seeing the future.  It’s wasn’t focused on smart social media tactics.  It was focused on smart communication tactics.  It was focused on a marketing world somewhere in the future when interacting directly with customers and having real conversations with them aren’t scary (or as scary) propositions.

One of my favorite quotes from the #firesessions was ““Victory in marketing doesn’t happen when you sell something, but when you cultivate advocates for your brand”. I loved the quote, but also loved WHO was saying it, Steve Knox, who is the CEO of P&G’s Word of Mouth unit, Tremor.  Folks, it’s one thing for marketing/social media consultants to talk about the importance of empowering and embracing your most passionate customers, but when one of the world’s biggest companies is singing from the same hymnal, then you’ve got something.

And that’s what I loved about #firesessions.  The speakers, the BOF gang, all approached the attendees as if they were smart.  We all knew the basics, we know that marketing has changed, we know that social media is big, we know that listening to the customer is paramount.  The theme seemed to be ‘How can we take the stuff we already know, and take it to the next level to create something meaningful?’  And perhaps more importantly, what IS that next level?

“The way to think big in this world is to create experiences without expecting anything in return, and customers will follow” – Max Lenderman

The bottom line is that this event left me energized and excited.  You can’t ask for much more than that.  If you are lucky enough to be invited to next year’s #firesessions, please make every effort to be there.

In closing, I want to point out how amazing the BoF gang was.  Everyone; Robbin, Geno, Eric, Elizabeth and everyone else made me feel like part of their family, as they did for everyone there.  Getting to attend the #firesessions confirmed everything about these people that I had suspected from reading their blog and interacting with them.  They are brilliant people doing brilliant work for clients that love them.  We should ALL be so lucky.

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This is Why You Don’t Bury Your Blog’s Gold

This morning I checked my blog’s traffic and discovered this:

Now that’s a pretty big spike from 5am – 7am.  So I checked my referrals and couldn’t really tell where the traffic was coming from.  I did see some referrals from a link shared via this FriendFeed user, but I couldn’t tell for sure if that had caused the surge.  So I went back to SiteMeter and checked out the entry pages, or the page that people are first landing on when they visit this site.  For example, if you find this page via a link shared on Twitter, Sitemeter will tell me that you entered my site via this post.

When I checked for entry pages from 5am-7am, I found this:

Almost every visitor during that time was landing on this post.  But that doesn’t make a lot of sense, since that post is a year old.  How are people suddenly finding this year old post?

Look to the far right of my blog, under the section on Search My Site.  See the Popular Posts section?  That’s a plugin that I added over the weekend that takes your 4 more popular posts (based on views, I believe), and links to them.  Notice that the Five Reasons Why No One Likes You On Twitter post is the first one listed.  That’s likely how the Friendfeed user found it, then he shared it on Friendfeed, and I got a nice 100+ extra visitors.

All because of a very simple change in my blog’s layout that took some of my more popular posts, and showcased them.  You could be doing the very same thing on your blog.  Another tip is to link out to 2-3 of your most popular posts every week on Twitter.  What I try to do is write 1-3 new posts a week here.  On the days during the week when I do not have a new post up here, I will pick one of my older posts that was popular with my readers, and I’ll share it on Twitter.  Yesterday I linked to this post on Lady Gaga’s efforts to connect with her fans.  The post is a few weeks old, but linking to it yesterday on Twitter got the post 15 more RTs and 108 more views.  Actually, that suggests to me that I should probably move the Popular Posts section above Search My Site so links to all 4 posts are Above the Fold.  Remember we’ve talked about the importance of that before?

Let’s face it, we all have too much content to sort through, and not enough time to find everything.  So anything you can do to highlight your best posts, is going to create value for your readers.  And this can also help you with your blog workload.  You don’t HAVE to write a new post every day.  Really.  If you can only do one post a week that’s fine, I’d much rather read 1 great post a week from a blogger, than 3 decent ones.  Instead of pressing yourself to write 3 great posts a week (seriously, how many bloggers can do that?), why not strive for one really great one, and then link to a couple of great posts you wrote a couple of weeks/months ago, on Twitter?

Companies, you can do the same thing, simply share your best posts in your newsletters that go out, or promote them to sites that cover your industry so they can feature the posts on their site.  The point is, don’t bury your blog’s best content, find ways to share it with your readers.  That can only help grow your readership and bring more exposure to your blogging efforts.

BTW if you are interested in the Popular Posts plugin I used, here is the plugin page, or you can find it by searching for WordPress Popular Posts plugin from your WordPress dashboard.

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Be VERY careful when letting other sites run your blog content

Last week I was contacted by Roula Amire, the managing editor at Ragan.com, who wanted to know if they could run my ‘5 smart ways to create additional content for your company blog‘ post on their site.  The email explained that they wanted to run the post, with my bio and a link back to here.

I was more than happy to do this, and replied telling Roula that they could use/link to any post I write.  I think this is where I made my first mistake, and I’ll explain more later on this.

I received an email yesterday afternoon (That I didn’t get a chance to read till this morning), that gave me a link to the article as it would run tomorrow (Monday), and added ‘here’s our edit of your piece’.  When I saw the word ‘edit’, I immediately got worried, because I never gave Roula or Ragan.com permission to edit the post.

I checked the link, and the title of the post had been changed, as well as the content.  Not drastically, but a few small edits here and there (NOTE: As soon as I saw the edited version of my post on Ragan.com, I emailed Roula asking her to change the title back and add a link to my post here.  While writing this post, she emailed me back to let me know she was making those changes, here is the post link she sent me – UPDATE, right before publishing this piece, I see that Roula has changed the title back and added a link here to the post at the end of the article.)   Obviously, by changing the title of the post and a few changes in the wording (and by NOT linking back to the original post), the site is making it appear that I wrote the piece for Ragan.com.  I did not.  And the kicker is, I know that many of my readers also read Ragan.com.  So they will likely read that post and remember the ORIGINAL post here that it came from.  And then they will think ‘Wait…so Mack is republishing his stuff on Ragan.com and changing the title so it looks like it’s a new article?’   So both Ragan and I end up looking bad.

This is an important lesson learned for me, and hopefully it will be for you as well.  I should have had Ragan.com CAREFULLY explain EXACTLY what they were going to do with the article.  And I should have made it expressly clear to them that they could NOT edit the content of the post.  Yes, that’s a no-brainer and they should have known better, but I should have also known better than to assume they wouldn’t do this.  I am asked to republish my posts on other sites from time to time, and the format always is that they will republish the post/article, with a link back to the original post/article.  I shouldn’t have assumed that Ragan was going to do the same thing.

So if you are contacted by another site about having your content republished there, here are some tips learned the hard way:

1 – Make sure the site understands that they MUST link back to your original post/article on your site, and that they MUST mention that ‘The original post/article can be found here – ‘, with a link to it.

2 – Make sure the site understands that they do NOT have your permission to edit the post/article (unless you say it’s ok, which I advise against) , and that it must appear verbatim as it does on YOUR blog/site.

3 – Contact other writers that have had their work republished on the site, and ask their opinions.  Ask them if it went as the site said it would, or were there any surprises.

4 – Take the time to pay attention to the request.  This is where the fault is all on me.  The initial email from Roula came late last week while I was in Memphis on client work, and I hurried through the email request to republish the article.  Then yesterday when Roula sent me an email explaining how the article would look on the Ragan site, I should have checked it then, but her email came as I was prepping for #blogchat, so I decided to check it out today.

But I think for sites that contact bloggers about republishing their content, please make sure there aren’t any surprises.  Please careful explain EXACTLY what you want to do with the content, and how it will appear on the site.  If you want to make edits to the content, explain that up front.  Send a final draft of how the post will appear on your site, and ask for the blogger to APPROVE the draft, before you publish it.

Well this was a learning experience for me, what has been your experience in having other sites republish your content?  Did you learn anything you can share with us?

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Understanding why Social Media works, in less than 3 minutes

Recently I saw a special on Pixar’s movies, and the documentary included the following scene from Toy Story 2:

After the video, the doll explained “You never forget kids like Emily and Andy.  But they forget you…”

The film’s director, John Lasseter, explained that if you saw this you didn’t think of these items as toys, but you believed they were real.  How easy is it to watch that video and think ‘Aw she got left behind!’

Pixar does a wonderful job of taking inanimate objects, and making them seem ‘real’ and more human to us.  This is a big reason why their movies work, because when it’s easier for us to view the characters as ‘real’, then it becomes easier to connect with them, and easier for us to become interested in the story that they are a part of.

And if you think about it, this is the exact reason why social media works for companies.  It makes companies ‘more human’.  Social media has the power to transform behemoth companies into an organization of people just like us.  When I was at #DellCAP a few weeks ago, I asked the group of ‘fans’ of Dell the reason why they chose to evangelize the company.  I explained that I wasn’t sure if I was an evangelist for Dell, but if I was, it wasn’t because of the products they sell.  It’s because of the people I have come to know that work at Dell.  And those connections have been formed via social media.  So if it comes down to my next computer being from Dell or Compaq….well thanks to social media, I already have several friends at Dell, and can’t name one person at Compaq, so guess who probably gets my business?

Just as Pixar makes inanimate objects ‘more real’, social media is making companies of all sizes ‘more human’.  Which makes them more like me, and easier to connect with, easier to trust, and easier to justify doing business with.

Not sure where all this fits into the ROI equation, but it’s a real benefit, right?

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5 smart ways to create additional content for your company blog!

How many of you have considered starting a blog for your company, but really have no idea how you could blog on a regular basis?  I get it, most bloggers have this problem, hell I constantly struggle with getting posts out on a regular basis and keeping the content fresh here.

But over time, many bloggers have learned how to either repurpose existing content, or to create new content that can be distributed via multiple social channels.  Here’s some ideas for taking content that your company is already creating, and using it on your blog.

1 – White papers.  Or case studies, or research papers.  You’re likely already sharing these with your non-blog audience, why not turn them into blog posts for your blog?  Did you write a white paper on ‘5 Ways the Cattle Industry Can Modernize For the Next Decade’?  Then why not turn that into a 5-part series of posts?  Maybe update the content a bit, add a tweak here and there, and you’ve gotten a couple weeks worth of blog posts right there!

2 – Internal Power Point presentations.  Some of these will definitely have content that you don’t want to share publicly, but if it’s fair game, add them to SlideShare, then embed them on your blog!  Each deck can be a separate blog post!  Just add a quick explanation, and there you go!

3 – Video interviews with company executives and customers.  This is how Robert Scoble made a name for himself at Microsoft.  He went around Microsoft interviewing the people that worked there, and blogged it.   The videos were remarkably effective in letting Microsoft’s customers ‘get to know’ the people that worked there.  You could do the same thing for your executives as well as customers!  The videos could not only be embedded into posts on your blog, they could also be housed on your YouTube channel!

4 – Industry events and conferences.  Oh you can create a TON of content at events that can benefit your blog and other social media efforts!  First, you can take pictures.  Those pictures can then be posted to Flickr, or Twitpic, or Facebook, or…..in a blog post!  Next you have video, you can create a ton of video about the event itself, and also you can interview company execs about the event, or thought leaders in the industry and speakers at the event!  Finally, you can write a blog post recapping the event itself!  THEN when you write that post recapping the event, you can also use the pictures and video you shot during the event!  Now you start to see why bloggers love attending social media conferences, eh? 😉

BONUS:  If you have a Twitter account, you can live-tweet the event!  Another favorite among conference attendees!

5 – Answer questions from your customers.  Many websites have a section or contact form where you can ask a question about the company, it’s products, or both.  Mine these questions for potential blog post ideas!  And when possible, mention the customer that asked the question you are answering, and link to her site or blog!  This just increases the chance that she will comment on your post AND promote the post to HER social network!

So there you go!  That’s 5 quick and easy ways to take existing content that you’re already creating, and use it for new blog posts.  Seriously, between these 5 ideas, couldn’t you get at least one more post a week up on your blog?

BTW if your company has been reluctant to start blogging simply because they aren’t sure where to get content from, show them this post.  Then I bet you can start brainstorming and come up with even more ways to leverage existing content your company is creating, into additional blog posts!

I want to thank CK for this post idea, and if you are a B2B company that needs help with social media and/or mobile marketing, definintely check out CK’s blog!

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Number of Twitter followers is the most overrated metric in social media

Seriously, it’s total bunk.  I know because I spend WAY too much time tracking my referral traffic from Twitter, and the people that send that traffic here via tweets and RTs.

Two examples of how # of followers can be deceptive:

1 – Several months ago a member of Twitter with 70K followers tweeted a link to one of my posts.  I got a grand total of 3 visitors from that tweet.  I checked, and the guy was following 80K people.  When you try to follow everyone, you usually end up following no one.

2 – Last year, @ShannonPaul RTed a link to one of my posts.  Shannon had around 10K followers at the time.  Her RT led to an additional 600 visitors to my blog that day.  After Shannon’s tweet, a ripple affect started, as people within her network started RTing her tweet, which led to more RTs in their networks.  But the chain reaction started because Shannon was well-connected to her network.  They trusted her and the content she linked to (like my post). So even though Shannon’s network was 14% the size of the guy with 70K followers, her network sent 600 referral visitors, while the guy with 70K followers only sent 3.

This is why I think there is WAY too much emphasis placed on number of Twitter followers that a person has.  Especially when attempting to determine that person’s level of influence.  From what I’ve seen, it’s far more important to see how closely connected a person is with their Twitter network.  If you have a Twitter network of 150 close friends, your effective reach is likely much larger than a person that has 10,000 strangers following her.  I know that when certain people, like Shannon or @BethHarte RT a link to my blog, that I am about to get a flood of traffic.  Because Shannon and Beth are both highly connected to the people they follow.  Roughly 66% of their tweets are replies, so they are constantly interacting with the people that follow them.  That leads to stronger bonds and connections.

So if # of followers doesn’t count, how do you define influence and authority?

Look, I’m not saying how many followers or subscribers or friends you have is totally worthless in determining how much influence a person has.  But it shouldn’t be the only metric you examine when trying to decide if someone has established trust and influence with their network.

For example, last year I worked with a client to create and execute a blogger outreach strategy to promote a webinar that client was producing.  In deciding which bloggers to reach out to, we looked at two key areas:

1 – Total readership of the blog.  This could include number of subscribers, or number of visitors.

2 – Level of interaction on the blog.  How many comments is the blogger getting, and is she replying to those comments?

We placed a far greater premium on the level of interaction, when deciding which bloggers to reach out to about being involved in the webinar.  Because we wanted bloggers that had actually connected with their readers.  I remember in one case we purposely did NOT contact a particular blogger that had almost 100K subscribers, because there was almost no interaction on their blog.  And in another case, we reached out to a blogger that had a far lower number of subscribers, but there was constant interaction on their blog.

The end result was that signups for the webinar exceeded the client’s goal by 100%.

Really when you boil it down, level of interaction and how connected you are to your network almost always trumps the SIZE of that network, when it comes to determining influence via social media.  Over a year ago I had a well-known blogger ask me why my blog posts always got more comments than his (despite him having 10X the traffic of my blog).

I told him “Because I can tell you the first name of almost every person that comments on my blog, the name of THEIR blog, and what they do for a living. Oh, and I thank them. And they know I mean it.”

Numbers of followers/friends/readers matters, but in my opinion how connected you are to them is even more important in determining influence and reach.