MackCollier.com

by

Ten Questions Your Company Should Ask Before it Starts Blogging

BlogIs your company about to launch a blog?  Great, but before you do, make sure you have asked (and answered) these ten questions:

1 – Why start a blog? Why not join Twitter, or set up a page of Facebook, or do nothing at all?  Before you launch a blog, make sure that it makes sense for your unique situation.  You need to be able to give an answer to this question based on your findings about your customers, your company, your competitors, and your industry.  Saying ’cause everyone is launching one’ is NOT a viable reason.

2 – Who will do the blogging? Will your marketing department handle the writing, or will it be spread out over several areas of your company?  How many writers will you have?  It’s a big job for one person, 2-3 writers is much better.  Or will you let your customer evangelists write the blog for you?  This is a gutsy move but often results in a far more interesting blog.  But training time must be considered.  Make sure you know who and how many people will be writing for your blog.

3 – What will be the focus of your blog? ‘Well we’ll blog about our company, of course!’  Stop for a minute and think about how interesting that would REALLY be to your customers.  Think about how you can create content around/about your company’s products and services, instead of the product/service itself.  Don’t blog about cameras, blog about photography, don’t blog about dog shampoo, blog about pet grooming.  The point is, make sure your blog will create valuable content for your readers.  Get your focus set before your start.

4 – What will be your blog’s comment policy? Get this down so your readers will know what’s expected of them, and when their comments will appear.  Will you moderate comments, or let them go through immediately?  If you’ll moderate, who is going to approve comments, and how will you ensure that it’s done in a timely basis?  What specific terms will go into your policy?

5 – How will you measure the effectiveness of your blog? What metrics will you track to determine if your blog is a success?  It could be traffic, or traffic sent back to your website, or reader engagement such as comments and/or links.  But find some way to hold your blog accountable.

6 – Can you devote time to interacting with readers OFF your blog? This is almost never considered, but is vital to growing your blog.  Once you figure out the amount of time that you will need to spend on your blog (writing posts, moderating comments, replying to comments) you need to spend at LEAST that much time off your blog reading other blogs and commenting on other blogs.  Don’t sell yourself short here, as the more time you spend connecting with your readers in their space, the quicker your blogging efforts will succeed.

7 – Will your blog be on your main website, or have its own URL? Two or three years ago, I would have strongly advised you to put your blog on a seperate URL away from your website.  This was because in 2006 or so, blogs hosted away from the company’s main website were seen as being more credible than those hosted on the company’s main website.  Today, this isn’t as big of a concern.  If you host the blog on your website, you’ll get a bit of a traffic and SEO benefit, while if you host your blog seperately, it will likely be seen as a bit more credible, but your website won’t get as much of a traffic or SEO benefit.  So it’s up to you, and feel fine choosing either alternative.

8 – Which blogging platform will you choose? When you ask this question, also consider if your company can handle setting up your blog and working with the coding.  Most larger companies have a web team on staff that can handle this easily, but a smaller company/business might have to outsource this.  In general, consider if you want to have a blog that you ‘launch and forget’ or if you want to customize your blog to add functionality for your readers.  Certain platforms, like Blogger and WordPress.com are more of the ‘plug n play’ variety, while ones like WordPress.org and Movable Type offer you the ability to greatly customize the blogging experience, assuming you have the staff in place to get the blog set up correctly for you.  If not, this will be an expense you’ll likely have to outsource.

9 – Will you need to outsource in order to get your blog off the ground? If you need to hire a firm/consultant to help you launch your blog, make SURE that the firm/consultant provides your company with training on what they will be doing to help you get the blog off the ground.  They should train you on how to craft content, write compelling blog posts, respond to comments, interact with readers on other sites, everything.  Don’t outsource the actual blogging to others, instead have them TEACH YOU how to do this.  This is exactly why I stress teaching in the blog consulting services I provide.

10 – Ask yourself if you are ready to launch a blog.  After you’ve answered the first nine questions, you need to stop and ask yourself one last time if you are really ready to launch a blog.  This way you’ve done your homework, and know that a blog is right for you, instead of just launching one because of the hype.

Good luck, and remember if you need some help along the way to consult the Blogging 101 section of the Social Media Library. If you have questions about getting your company’s blogging efforts off the ground, please email me.

by

How to Launch a Successful Blogger Outreach Program in One Day

Using Google to connect with bloggersFor any company that is looking to leverage the blogosphere in its marketing communications efforts, here’s all you need to do:

9:00 am – 11:00 am: Go to Google Blog Search and search for people that are talking about your company. Make a list of at least 20 people that have blogged about your company within the last 2 weeks. Concentrate on bloggers that appear to be evangelizing your company, but also add some bloggers that are critical of your efforts.

11:00 am – 2:00 pm: After you have your list of at least 20 bloggers that are talking about your company, go back to every blog and respond to the blog post where your company is mentioned. Clearly identify yourself, and your position with the company. Address only the topics presented, and any relevant information. Invite replies from readers. Thank the blogger for the comment, and then go back and email them thanking them for their comments, and let them know that you are available for a short phone discussion or interview, if they are interested.

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm: Subscribe to the feeds from all the blogs you commented on, as well as their comment feeds, if available.

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Visit your list of blogs again, and read any new posts, and also reply to any comments that were addressed to you, or relevant comments that other readers have left.

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Answer any emails from bloggers, and if possible, schedule times to discuss topics raised with blogger on the phone, or via interview.

This will get your blogger-outreach program off the ground. From this point, every day you should read the blogs via your feed reader. Also, at least twice a week, you should again check Google Blog Search for new mentions about your company, and repeat the process.

Why this will benefit your company:

1 – It will get you noticed in the blogosphere. This is a coordinated effort to reach out to bloggers and to engage them in their space. What you are basically saying is that ‘I respect you enough to take the time to respond.’ That’s HUGE!

2 – It will show bloggers that you are serious about starting a conversation with them. This is why you can’t do this once, you have to make it a habit to read blogs from your evangelists (and even detractors). This wins even more respect among bloggers.

3 – It will get bloggers talking about your company. It is still rare for companies to make a sincere effort to monitor and respond to bloggers as part of a marketing strategy. It also encourages bloggers to evangelize your company, AND, just as importantly, it encourages OTHER bloggers to evangelize your company. You are literally creating a network of bloggers that will be more likely to promote and evangelize your company.

4 – It will greatly improve your social media and marketing efforts. Simply talking to your customers and potential customers in their space in the blogosphere is a wonderful way to better understand them, but also to better understand how social media works. It’s one thing to hear about how quickly ideas spread in the blogosphere, it’s quite another to spend a few hours talking to bloggers on their blogs, and then to see how quickly other bloggers link to your actions.

5 – It means you stop wasting time on lame-ass mass email pitches to bloggers. These almost never work, and frequently backfire. Actually taking the time to talk to us in OUR space is MUCH more effective.

6 – It shows bloggers that ‘you get it’. This makes bloggers much more likely to pay attention to your company, and blog about you, your products, and marketing efforts. Which means the network of bloggers that are talking about your company is further expanded. Which doesn’t hurt your company’s Google Juice either.

Again, this program can be launched in a day, for free. Why not give it a whirl tomorrow?Using Google to connect with bloggers

by

Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by, let me give you a quick run-down of what you will find on this site. The information here is divided into three areas:

1 – My blog and social media consulting services. Click here if you want to learn more about my blog consulting services, or here if you want to learn more about my social media consulting services, or here if you would like to learn more about where I will be speaking, or how to hire me to speak at your event. Each page also has my prices for these services, and please email me if you’d like a custom quote, or want to discuss your particular needs. And don’t hesitate to email me if you have a general question.

2 -Social Media Library.  Here you’ll find some of the best posts I’ve written on social media over the last 4 years.  These were written as instructional posts to help you with your social media efforts, and are organized according to the following subjects: Blogging 101, Social Media Case Studies, Social Media Monitoring, and Twitter 101.  I’ll be updating these sections often, so please check back!

Thanks for stopping by!

by

Your Social Media Strategy Starts With Monitoring

If your company is ready to dive into the social media waters, which tools such they examine first? Blogs? Facebook? Twitter? Wrong. Try Google.

Before you can launch a successful social media strategy, you must begin monitoring existing conversations about your company. This has several advantages:

1 – It lets you be proactive in responding to complaints from customers. Want to impress a customer that’s blogged about a problem they are having with your product? Leave a comment 15 mins after their post goes up, then follow up with an email attempting to help them with their problem. If you are sincere in trying to help that customer, you’re almost assured of flipping her from being an angry customer, to a passionate advocate for you.

2 – It helps create evangelists for your brand. See above. Not only are you giving angry customers a reason to become a fan, but you’re validating to your existing fans why they love your company. If Bob is passionately promoting your company on his blog, but stopping by his blog and leaving a quick ‘Thank You!’ comment, you validate why he loves you to begin with.

3 – It increases your brand equity. By actively monitoring the blogosphere and other social sites, your company can develop a reputation of reaching out to and helping customers. Also, as you gain a reputation for being responsive, it helps set you apart from competitors that aren’t as responsive.

4 – It makes you more familiar with social media tools and sites. Once you begin monitoring the blogosphere and social media sites for company mentions, you’ll begin to better understand how ideas spread in this space, and how blogs work. You get a better understand of how your customers are communicating with each other and how those interactions change based on the site they are on at that moment.

 

Remember that monitoring what customers are already saying about your company and your space simply improves your chances of communicating effectively with those customers.

 

by

Ten Quick Tips For Growing Your Blog’s Subscribers and Comments

 

Subscribers and comments are two of the most popular metrics bloggers use to measure if their blog is a success or not. I’d like to share some ways that I have increased my blog’s subscribers and the number of comments I get per post. Your mileage may vary, but hopefully many of you can benefit from at least some of these tips:

Subscribers

  • Set up a Feedburner account. This should be one of the very first things you do when you set-up your blog.
  • Once you do, burn a feed for your blog, and then set up your account so all your different feed versions will redirect to your Feedburner feed. This is important because it then gives you a much better idea of how many subscribers you have, and how they are accessing your feed. Feedburner’s blog explains how to make the switch(for Blogger blogs). I saw my number of reported feed readers double overnight by doing this.
  • Ask for subscribers. Amazingly, asking for what you want really does work! Feel free to remind readers at the end of posts that if they enjoyed this content, to please subscribe to receive all your posts.
  • Give your readers the ability to subscribe to your blog’s posts via email. Feedburner can set this up for you as well. Always give your readers as many choices as possible for how they can receive your content.

Growing your number of subscribers and comments on your blog

Comments

  • Ask for reader feedback. One thing I figured out VERY early on in my blogging journey is that my readers are, as a group, always smarter than I am. Since I always learn from you guys, I want your feedback.
  • Take a definite stance. This is actually something I need to work on. But when you take a definite stance on an issue, it makes it easier for those that agree with you to chime in, and it makes it easier for those that disagree, to express why they do. And when you have contrasting opinions, that usually leads to a more robust conversation.
  • Put a ‘window’ on your comments, in your blog post. Let’s say that I write a post and it gets a couple of comments. Then Gavin leaves an incredible comment that sparks the exchange to take off and grow into a conversation. Why not go back and edit your post and add Gavin’s comment at the end of your post? And add a link to Gavin’s blog when you do. This is a great way to show your other readers Gavin’s comment, and it will likely prompt them to check out the comments section to see what the smart kids are saying!
  • Leave comments on and link to other blogs. I’ve said it a million times, but the best way to grow your blog, is to leave it. Make a point to comment on the blogs of your readers that comment on your blog, or at least link to their blog posts. This is why I love Twitter, cause it’s a great way for me to quickly and easily share links with my followers, and I try to share links from bloggers that comment on my blog, first.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from your social networks. This comes with a big caveat that you have to be careful about how often you do this, and you need to also link to other blogger’s posts. If the only time I see you is twice a week on Twitter asking me to please come leave a comment on your new blog posts, I probably won’t do it. But if I see you everyday on Twitter chatting and linking to other blog posts, THEN when you ask me to please read your new post, I probably will.

What did I miss? How are you growing your blog’s subscribers and comments?

by

Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans

Collier_cvr_alt

“Think Like a Rock Star is the rediscovery of the simple but powerful truth: the ability to acquire new customers depends on the ability to engage, ignite your existing customers and convert them into passionate fans.”

An Amazon Bestseller and the most requested McGraw-Hill publication ever submitted to NetGalley, Think Like a Rock Star is for any brand that wants to learn how to cultivate passionate fans that drive real business growth.  Every single chapter has detailed, step-by-step instructions showing you exactly how to create a fan-centric brand.  Tired of reading books that are long on ‘why-to’ and short on ‘how-tos’?  Then you’ll love Think Like a Rock Star.

Here’s some of the many areas covered in Think Like a Rock Star:

  • An entire chapter with detailed, step-by-step instructions showing your brand how to respond to customers online, especially customers that are leaving negative comments about your company online.  Including multiple case studies of businesses that correctly and incorrectly handled criticism from customers, this chapter shows you not only how to respond to angry customers, but to do so in a way that can actually convert them into fans of your brand.  
  • How to design a content strategy that focuses on The Bigger Idea and cultivates fans of your brand.  Creating compelling content is an area that many brands struggle with.  I show you what the three methods are to creating compelling content that your customers will find value in, and that will convert them into fans.
  • How to structure an Influencer/Blogger outreach program, and a detailed look at the advantages and disadvantages of these programs versus connecting with your fans.
  • The exact blueprint for creating a fan-centric brand.  Everything is covered, right down to internally and external staffing, core responsibilities of each employee position, everything.  Additional sections cover creating and launching a brand ambassador program, even a section on how to measure the ROI of your efforts.

 

Still not convinced? Check the reviews on Amazon and GoodReads.  Here’s what some of them are saying:

“THINK LIKE A ROCK STAR is so engaging, well written and useful that it should be required reading not only for marketing and PR professionals but for anyone who represents a brand, from the CEO to the sales team to the receptionist who takes the customer’s first phone call. The very fact that I now want to sing this book’s praises is testimony that what Collier writes about in this title actually works.” – Angie Finley

“I am actually considering buying a copy of this book and sending it to the marketing departments of each of my favorite companies – those to which my undying loyalty goes largely unnoticed and unappreciated, and to the small local businesses I support that DON’T make the effort to get to know me despite my status as a frequent customer.” – JL Keats

“This is one book that I will be sharing with my team, from our customer service superstars to our editorial team to our sales group. Aside from being engaging and easy to read- I mean come on, we all love rock stars!- Mack provides the reader with concrete, actionable take-aways that can be immediately applied to any business setting.” – Rebecca Amy Todd

Here’s a video review from John Bellamy, who works for Dell (one of the case studies in the book)

Hopefully by now I’ve sold you on why you should buy Think Like a Rock Star.  But if you still aren’t convinced, email me and I will be happy to send you the Introduction from the book, which will give you an idea of what it’s all about.

Here’s some of the places where you can buy Think Like a Rock Star online:

Also, if you would like for me to present Think Like a Rock Star at your event or do a workshop on how brands can connect with their fans, please email me for pricing and availability.

by

Who is Mack Collier?

Mack1Recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 25 Social Media Marketers in the World, Mack Collier is a social media strategist, trainer and speaker located in Alabama that specializes in helping companies better connect with its customers via social media and digital marketing channels. He has been actively immersed in social media since 2005, and in that time, has helped businesses of all shapes and sizes better connect with their customers via these amazing tools and sites. His clients include businesses of all sizes, from sole proprietorships, to Fortune 100 companies.  His goal is to help his clients create connections with their customers, and nurture them into relationships that help grow their bottom line.

Mack is a highly sought-after speaker on social media and customer-engagement topics and has presented at some of the top social media conferences and events, including South By Southwest Interactive, Blog World and New Media Expo, Content Marketing World, and Social Media Tourism Symposium.  Additionally, he founded and moderates #Blogchat, the largest Twitter Chat on the internet, where thousands of people meet each Sunday night on Twitter to discuss a different blogging topic.  The amazing growth of #Blogchat, first on Twitter and now as a series of Live events, speaks to Mack’s ability to leverage Social Media tools as a way to build community and make connections.

Additionally, Mack’s thoughts and expertise on Marketing, Brand Advocacy and Social Media have been sought by some of the world’s most prestigious news sources, including The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, USA Today, CNBC, ESPN, The Washington Post, CNET and Entrepreneur Magazine.  His first business book, Think Like A Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans was published in 2013 by McGraw-Hill and is an Amazon Best Seller.