MackCollier.com

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Social Media Isn’t Transactional, it’s a Community

A few weeks ago I was driving and a pastor came on the radio and he discussed how most Christians pray the ‘wrong’ way.

He explained that most people who pray, pray in a transactional way. “God if you do this for me, then I will do this.” The pastor explained that we shouldn’t pray asking God to do something for us. He said we should pray that God will empower us to do more for other people. He said as we do more for others, the blessings we bestow on others, will return to us.

This has completely changed my outlook on prayer. I now focus on how I can serve others, versus what I want to get.

I was remembering these words when I saw this LinkedIn update from Mackenzie today:

This is true for all of social media, and really all of life. If you want others to help you, helping them first is a great way to make that happen.

Every time I talk to my friend Michelle, she ends every call with the same request “Now, what can I do to help support you?”

Here’s what I’d like you to do, please check out Michelle’s new podcast, Hard Won Wisdom, which debuts next week with her co-host Fawn Germer. I cannot wait to listen and I’m so excited to see what happens next for Michelle!

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Grow Your Business By Growing Your Customers

training your customersYour happy customers are the best salespeople you have.

They just are. There has been a raft of research into most trusted sources of marketing communications, and the findings are always the same: We trust our friends and family more than we trust your brand. This is why companies that embrace their customers and empower them to market for them, typically have higher sales and revenue than companies that do not.

So, if we accept that your happy customers are also your best salespeople, what do we want our salespeople to have?

The best training. Therefore, if you are training your best customers to increase their knowledge and understanding of your products and services, you are also improving their ability to sell those products and services to other customers.

Right?

So this is truly a win-win we are talking about here. By giving your happiest customers training on your products and services, you are not only improving their ability to SELL those products and services to other customers, but you are also providing value to those customers. You are improving their sales ability, but at the same time, you are creating something of value for these customers, which deepens their loyalty and affinity for your brand. A true win-win.

 

The Secret Language of Happy Customers

Before we go any further, I want to make a book recommendation. Please buy and read Badass: Making Users Awesome by the brilliant Kathy Sierra. Badass teaches us that products that enjoy sustainable sales success do so because that success is driven by its users. So if you make your customers ‘badass’, you are simply increasing their ability to drive success for your products.

And customers who are highly skilled in using your product act differently and speak differently about that product.

Think of your favorite movie. The one you have seen so many times that you can recall entire scenes, you have the dialogue memorized. Now if I had only seen that movie once, what would our conversation about the movie sound like? I mean, I would be aware of the general plot, maybe I would remember the main characters and actors, but that would be it.

Now think about how that same conversation would be different if you were talking about your favorite movie with someone who loved it as much as you do? You would have a completely different conversation with that person. You could discuss the plot in detail, you could speculate on what happened in the story after the movie ended, maybe find out that you are both members of an online community of fans of the movie.

Now think about what would happen if you and I were both discussing that same movie with a friend who hadn’t seen it. While I could barely explain what the movie was about, you could go into minute detail about what the movie is about, and why it’s awesome. You could do a much better job of promoting the movie to others than I could.

This is an example of why your happy customers are your best salespeople. Because they love your products and services, they are knowledgeable about them, and they have a passion for seeing other people use and enjoy your products and services as they do.

 

A B2B Example of the Value of Training Your Customers

A few years ago, I worked with a SaaS company to design a customer advocacy program, which was primarily designed to increase subscriptions to the software, as well as reduce the customer churn rate. With this particular company, many of its customers sold marketing services to small businesses that included training on the same software.

So we created a customer advocacy program that offered expert training on the software as one of the perks for being involved. This training created value for the company, because it gave customers an incentive to not only attract more customers, but to also stay longer as customers themselves. Thus reducing the churn rate. It also created value for the customers, because as they became more knowledgeable of the software, it improved the level of training they could in turn pass through to their own customers.

By creating training for the company’s current customers, it gave the company a way to not only scale its sales (customers selling to other customers), but also its customer support. As customers received training on the software and became more adept at using it, they would also become more adept at troubleshooting problems that they and other customers encountered while using the software. So they could actually deflect calls or requests to customer support that the company would normally field. Which would result in a cost savings to the company!

 

A B2C Example of a Missed Training Opportunity

Many years ago, I participated in an influencer program where I was in a small group of influencers who were given a very expensive camera in order to use it and, ideally, promote it to other people. The company wanted to give the camera to a select few people it had targeted as being influential in their space, and then have them create content (and pictures!) in order to promote the camera to other potential customers.

The problem that I quickly encountered upon receiving the camera was that I had absolutely no idea how to use it. It was a beast, and it was a professional quality camera meant to be in the hands of a professional photographer. Which is the last thing I am! In the hands of a pro, this camera could have created magic, but in my clumsy hands it created out-of-focus and blurry disasters.

Ideally, I would have received some training on how to use the camera before I received it, or soon after. Just remember if you are crafting an influencer program, make sure the influencers who will be receiving and promoting your products have enough familiarity and understanding of the products to promote them successfully. To be fair to this company, this influencer program was done over 10 years ago, and was one of the first efforts of its kind. So they learned a lot, and went on to improve their efforts I am sure!

 

How to Incorporate Product Training in Order to Create Value For Your Customers

So let’s think about how we could add product training to our marketing and communications efforts in order to create value for our customers, and how this would also create value for our company.  To help simplify how training could be incorporated, let’s view the training as having three levels:

101 Level Training – This is basic product/service training. It’s designed primarily to handle basis issues and problems that might arise from a new customer, as well as to address questions they might have. The level of instruction will be very basic, and this will help eliminate requests to customer support by letting the customer solve their own problems, via this training. The idea behind this level of training is to help the current or potential customer become familiar with the basic functions of the product, as well as helping them solve common problems that other new customers have faced.

This level of training should be free and available to all current and potential customers. Think of this type of training as being an extension of you FAQ, or Frequently Asked Questions. It could include white papers or articles with detailed instructions, or videos that show how to use your product in a particular way, or how to solve a basic issue with using the product. This level of training will serve to not only save costs by deflecting requests to customer service, but it will also lead to more purchases as the most basic questions that potential customers would have are answered prior to purchase.

If we were selling a high end digital camera, the training at this level would focus on getting the customer familiar with the core features of the camera. Basically, here’s what you need to know to turn the camera on and start taking pictures.

201 Level Training – This is more advanced training that’s designed to teach customers how to use your product to its full potential. This level of training is typically not available to all your customers, as not every customer will want or need more advanced training. It can often be offered as a reward for engaging in some pre-determined activity. For instance, if you sign up for a loyalty program, this level of training could be a perk for doing so.

If we go back to the example of selling cameras, this level of training could focus on helping the customer improve his ability to use the camera in certain ways. Such as taking pictures of wildlife, or taking night time pictures in urban areas, etc.

301 Level Training – This is your most advanced level of training. Only a select few customers will want or be offered this level of training. This can also be offered as a reward or perk, for instance if your company has a brand ambassador program, members could have access to this level of training.

Customers who receive this highest level of training are typically the ones you also want to empower to sell your product for you, to other customers. So you could reward referrals or additional sales with more training, if warranted. Remember that the more proficient your customer is at understanding how to use your product, the better, in theory, they will be at understanding how to sell and promote it to other customers.

 

How Does Your Company Benefit From Training Your Customers?

Let’s close by looking at the benefits that training your customers creates for your company:

1 – Reduced customer service costs. One of the earliest adopters of corporate social media use was Pitney Bowes. The company justified using social media in part because it found that every social interaction it had with a customer about a support issue deflected a call to customer service. And at the time, Pitney Bowes placed an internal cost of around $9 per call, so each call that was averted, was a cost-savings of $9 for the company. So if you train your customers on how to better use your products, they can in turn provide support directly to other customers. Which further lowers costs for your company.

2 – Reduced Customer Acquisition Cost. As your trained customers are engaging with other customers, they become better at selling and promoting your products to other customers. So they are literally creating new sales for you, all the time. Think of it as passive income for corporations. By training your customers on how to better use your products, you turn those customers into an additional sales staff, one which generates new sales for you, while you sleep!

3 – Improved Customer Satisfaction and Increased Brand Perception. If your customers are trained on how to properly use your products, they will have less complaints about them. A good portion of most customer complaints are simply due to user error. The customer thinks there’s a problem with the product, when in fact the product is fine, they just aren’t aware of how to use it properly. Training your customers reduces complaints about your products, while at the same time increasing positive mentions. This can have a massive impact on overall brand perception.

 

Training your customers is completely worthwhile. It reduces costs, while increasing sales. As a result, the training more than pays for itself.

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Brands With Happy Customers Have One Thing in Common

They value their customers and communicate this through their actions.

When I talk to companies and clients and how to create passionate customers that love your brand, I typically talk about how rock stars have fans or how sports teams have fans. I talk to companies about how much of an impact it would make to their business to have customers that loved them and who were actual fans of their brand.

Almost always, the company will push back. “We aren’t Taylor Swift! We aren’t the Alabama Crimson Tide! We sell boring widgets, we aren’t rock stars and never will be!”

Rock stars don’t have fans because they are rock stars. They have fans because they put in the work to cultivate fans. Rock stars understand that they can create fans by engaging with their customers and communicating to their customers that they appreciate them, and love them.

Your company can and SHOULD be doing the very same thing. Here’s a couple of examples I have come across recently to give you inspiration:

Lego’s wonderful letters to customers

Lego has a long history of sending compassionate, humorous and thoughtful letters to customers who contact them with questions, praises and complaints. Often, these personal responses are to children who have perhaps lost a lego toy or have a question about one.

Here’s a recent example:

In this example, a customer named John bought a $350 Lego Star Wars set from Target. The set is apparently fairly hard to find. He took the set home and began assembling it. Toward the end of the process, he discovered that a bag of pieces he needed to finish the set was missing! He didn’t really have the option of returning it to Target, since he had already started assembling it, and since the store likely wouldn’t have a replacement in stock anyway.

So he contacted Lego directly.  Here was Lego’s response:

Dear John,
Thanks for getting in touch with us and providing that information! I am so sorry that you are missing bag 14 from your Mos Eisley Cantina! This must be the work of Lord Vader.

Fear not, for I have hired Han to get that bag right out to you.

Have a bricktastic day and may the force be with you.

 

The response is compassionate, humorous, and above all communicates to the customer that they heard them. It then tells them what will happen next to resolve the issue.  Perfect!

Not only will this delight John and give him a reason to buy more Lego sets, but it’s also a big source of positive PR for Lego. If you do a simple search on Google or Twitter you can easily find many mentions of Lego sending similar delightful letters to customers. All of these stories enhance the Lego brand and give more people a reason to buy from Lego.

 

The massive BBQ one streamer is holding for his Twitch subscribers

I’ve talked before about the amazing job streamer/content creator NickMercs does in creating and cultivating his community of Twitch subscribers, called MFAM. Nick is very loyal to his followers and goes out of his way to communicate this to them. Often, when he adds new brand sponsors, part of the deal will be that the brand has to give money or prizes to his subscribers. On a recent stream, he claimed that during the Holiday season of 2020, he gave close to $250k in prizes and cash to his MFAM community.

Nick goes out of his way to show his followers that he loves them, and they love him right back. To close out Summer, next weekend he is throwing a special BBQ for MFAM, all for free:

I follow a lot of streamers on Twitch and YouTube. Very few of them make the effort that Nick does to connect with his subscribers, and to communicate to them how much he appreciates them. As a result, they appreciate him even more, and the snowball just keeps rolling downhill.

 

Build a culture of customer appreciation

Most companies are dead set on acquiring new customers, but then when they make the first purchase, then they become a ‘current’ customer and it’s as if they enter this dark void and the company no longer cares. Smart companies, the ones that excel at creating happy and loyal customer, focus on customer retention as much if not more than customer acquisition.

You retain customers when customers feel happy and satisfied with your brand. By constantly listening to your customers, communicating with them and showing your appreciation, you keep them as customers. What’s more, those customers you keep go out and recruit new customers for you. Which greatly reduces your customer acquisition costs.

Having passionate fans doesn’t happen by accident. Taylor Swift doesn’t have fans because she is a rock star anymore than Nick Mercs has fans because he’s a Twitch streamer. There are plenty of rock stars and plenty of Twitch streamers who have almost no fans.

Happy customers don’t happen by accident, they are earned. Put in the work, show your customers that you love them, and mean it. That’s how you create happy and loyal customers.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Intuit/Mailchimp Rumors, Clubhouse Making Moves, Twitter Super Follows

Happy Labor Day, y’all! Hope you are having a safe and relaxing Labor Day, and ready for a productive week as we say goodbye to Summer.  Here’s a few digital and marketing stories that caught my eye:

 

The hot tech rumor of the moment is that Intuit is about to buy Mailchimp for a hefty $10 Billion! This move would obviously help Intuit better service its small and medium business clients with marketing and newsletter offerings. And it could be a nice shot in the arm for Mailchimp, I’ve used the service for years and feel like it’s been a bit stale the last few years. It will be interesting to see if this move happens and what possible ripples it might create in the space.

 

Clubhouse ain’t dead yet. Sure, the hypetrain has left the building and the excitement isn’t nearly where it was in January and February, but Clubhouse keeps plugging away. The latest update involves the addition of spatial audio to rooms. What that means is you could hear one person talking in one ear of your headphones, then when another person starts talking, their audio would come from the other ear in your headphones. An interesting addition that could make it easier to follow the conversations happening in the rooms on Clubhouse.

Full disclosure, I haven’t been in a Clubhouse room in months, but I still have the app and I know a lot of people are still using and loving Clubhouse. I don’t think it will ever return to the popularity it had for a few moments earlier this year, but I also don’t think it’s going away any time soon.

 

Would you pay to read someone’s tweets? We’re about to find out, as Twitter is rolling out Super Follows. For $4.99 a month, you can get access to exclusive tweets and content from certain Twitter users. If you’re wondering if you can qualify for offering Super Follows, you have to be at least 18 years old, have 10k or more followers, and have tweeted at least 25 times in the last 30 days.

As for fees, the content creators will actually keep most of the money. This is initially being offered only to iOS users.  Of the $4.99 subscription fee, Apple charges 30% off the top, or $1.50.  But of the remaining $3.49, Twitter only takes $0.10, so the content creator keeps $3.39 per subscriber. Once the content creator makes $50k, Twitter ups its take a bit, but it’s still not bad.

Twitter users that have Super Followers have the option to set their content as being for everyone or only their Super Follows when they tweet it.

 

 

Finally, this is just for fun, but college football is back! And in front of fans! So awesome to see!

 

Roll Tide, y’all! See ya next Monday!

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The Top Concern CEOs Have in 2021 and Beyond is…

remote work…managing remote teams. Numerous surveys of CEOs have found that the C-Suite and upper management at many companies are struggling to maintain productivity levels among remote teams. This makes perfect sense, since many businesses were forced to adopt remote learning out of necessity due to precautions over covid. Remote working isn’t something that many companies can embrace and see seamless results. But unfortunately, many businesses didn’t have a choice in 2020, and were thrown into the fire and had to adopt and adapt to remote work for their teams as quickly as possible.

Add in that many companies had to layoff or furlough employees as cost-savings measures, and it often made the remote work environment even harder for businesses to manage.

Remote work affects extroverts and introverts differently

As your business is reviewing your options for keeping your remote workers engaged and productive, don’t overlook how being isolated at home can impact the mental health of your workers based on them being extroverts or introverts. Suddenly being forced to work from home for months or even a year can be a bit depressing to all your workers. But keep in mind that your more extroverted workers thrive off in-person contact and collaboration. With that suddenly being taken away from them, it creates a negative impact on feelings, and can even lead to depression. On the other hand, taking introverted workers from an in-office work environment and having them work remotely, may actually increase their productivity. So if some of your newly remote workers seem to be less productive, consider that maybe they are extroverts who are simply missing the in-person contact and collaboration that they thrived off of.

 

Remote work is here to stay

Recently, Buffer surveyed remote workers to find out what they thought of the process. There were some interesting takeaways that your company should be aware of. Such as:

  • Almost 98% of respondents said they want to continue to work remotely, at least part time, for the rest of their working careers
  • 97% of respondents would recommend working remotely to others

What this means is that from this point forward, when your company courts candidates for open positions, those candidates will want, and likely expect, that you offer them the possibility of working remotely. If you can’t offer candidates remote work in most positions, it will begin to become a detriment for your company. Obviously, some jobs can only be done in-person and on site. But there are many jobs where you may want the candidate to be on location at all times, that could actually be done remotely, if necessary. You need to consider that starting now, it’s become necessary to offer a remote option for any work that can be done remotely. Not offering a remote option for such work will cost you qualified candidates to competitors that can offer them such possibilities.

 

Remote workers are facing difficulties

Remote work comes with some issues for both the employer, and the remote employees. According to Buffer’s State of Remote Work in 2021, some of the issues that remote workers identified as problems include:

  • Not being able to unplug – 27%
  • Difficulty collaborating and communicating with co-workers – 16%
  • Loneliness – 16%
  • Staying motivated 12%

These difficulties that remote workers are facing seem to overlap a bit with the concerns that CEOs have toward remote workers, don’t they? CEOs are worried about managing remote workers and keeping them productive and engaged. While remote workers are facing difficulty collaborating with co-workers and loneliness. And I think a lack of motivation can tie into those feelings of loneliness and struggling to collaborate and communicate with your team.

All of this points back to finding ways to better communicate and engage your remote workers. This seems to be a problem that runs through multiple issues that both workers and management face.

First, consider again if you are dealing with introverts or extroverts as your remote workers. Introverted workers are more likely to enjoy working remotely and the autonomy that comes with it. You may likely see their productivity actually increase. On the other hand, you may see the opposite for extroverts that are suddenly put in a position of working remotely. Extroverts thrive off in-person contact are likely more productive and happier with their work when it involves in-person collaboration. So you will need to think about how you can work with them to help facilitate the interaction with their co-workers that they are missing with remote work.

 

Consider adding ways for workers to engage outside of work

One of the best things your company can do to build morale and keep your employees motivated is to give them ways to engage with each other outside of work. We become more productive when we actually like the people we work with. Focus on finding ways to facilitate engagement among your workers and time for them to be social that doesn’t revolve around their work.

Some ways to do this could include:

  • Slack channels devoted to any topic OTHER than work
  • Facebook groups devoted to non-work topics
  • Zoom birthday parties for co-workers
  • Organizing online gatherings for workers such as playing games together online, participating in hobbies such as sports, genealogy,

Another option is to create an Employee Advocacy/Ambassador Program that can contain some or all of these elements. Such programs are designed to allow your employees to promote your business to customers and potential candidates, but it can also be used to keep your employees engaged and motivated.

 

GE created an employee ambassador program to recruit better job candidates

I did a write-up on GE’s employee ambassador program two years ago here. This particular program was focused on helping GE better promote its brand and working environment to potential job candidates. But the employees who were involved in the program became more engaged and excited about working for GE. We all want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We all want to feel useful and that we are playing a role in something important.

And I think an employee ambassador program helps your employees better understand what your business is doing and why its important. Let’s be honest, if your workers understand your company’s mission and the positive impact it makes on the world, that motivates them to work harder on your behalf. Too many people hate their jobs mainly because they feel as if their work doesn’t have a higher purpose or meaning. On the other hand, if you believe that your business is making a positive impact on the world, it motivates you to work harder to see that impact take hold.

Adopt a proactive mindset toward remote work

Since remote work is now a reality for business, embrace it as an opportunity to grow. How can you incorporate remote work into your company’s culture in order to improve it? What are the opportunities to leverage remote work as a way to actually increase productivity? We’ve already talked about how offering and embracing remote work could help the hiring process. Another example is your company’s annual retreat. Having your teams meet in-person for the first time in months or possibly even a year could have a huge positive impact on bonding, communication and culture.

Remote work is here to stay, so embrace it as a potential asset to your business, not as a problem to be dealt with.

 

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I Need Help Driving Sales to My Website

I Need Help Driving Sales to My WebsitePeriodically, LinkedIn will send me digital and content marketing leads from LinkedIn users who have said they need help with a project. One of the most common requests these users make is: I need help driving sales to my website.

Generating sales online is a process. You need several pieces in place before you can create sales.

Before you can sell products, you need a platform

Let’s say you want to open a retail store and sell clothing.

First, you need a supplier for your clothing.

Once you have that, then you need a store.

Then you need to hire salespeople to convert visitors into buyers.

Finally, you need foot traffic.  You need people to visit your store, looking to buy.

In order to sell clothing, you need all of the above pieces in place. You need a store.  You need a supply of clothes. You need people to visit your store, and finally, you need salespeople who are skilled enough to convince them to buy your clothing, and to facilitate the purchase for them.

If you’re missing one of these pieces, you can’t expect to have sales.

So before you turn to social media to be the silver bullet to give you sales, you need to figure out why you aren’t generating sales now.  What areas are you missing now, that you need to get sales?  Because that will be the areas that you will be depending on social media to help you with.

You can’t sell products until you have a platform. 

What do I mean by ‘platform’ in this case? In terms of online, your platform is the audience for your content. How many email subscribers do you have?  How many followers on social media sites?  How many readers of your blog?

That’s your platform.  If your website gets 150 visitors a month, you can’t expect social media to suddenly drive website sales for you. You have to first build a platform with social media sites, tools and content.

Once you’ve built a platform, then you can sell to the people on that platform.

Social media is a great way to build a platform. So don’t think of social media as a way to generate sales. Think of social media, of the content you create, as a way to build a following, an audience.

A platform.

Once you have a platform in place, then you can convert some of the people on that platform into customers. The more people on your platform, the greater a chance for converting more sales.

What’s the best way to build a social media platform?

When you start building your social media platform, you want to consider what sites and tools you will use to build a following. I always advise companies to focus first on their blog, simply because it will be a channel your business will have control over. The great tradeoff in using social media sites like Twitter or Facebook or Instagram to build a following is that you lose control over your content and your ability to create new content. Yes, you will have access to a potentially large audience of people, but that access can be controlled by those sites.

When you create and publish content on your blog, you have far more control. Since building a platform on social media is a long play, you want to first invest in the tools that you have direct control over. Such as you blog, or an email newsletter, or maybe a podcast.

This isn’t to say that you can’t use social media sites to help build your platform. You absolutely can, and in most cases you should. But use social media sites as the spokes to drive traffic back to your hub (blog, email newsletter, podcast), which you control. Remember the example of how Harry uses social media sites to drive email newsletter signups. He’s pushing people from social media, back to his hub (email newsletter) which he controls.

The Two-Step Plan for Social Media Success

Step one: Build your platform.

Step two: Convert the following.

First, build your platform. We’ve already talked about how to do this.

Second, once you have a platform, then you want to convert the following you have built into sales.

Let’s go back to the beginning of this post when I mentioned what if your website gets 150 visitors a month. What if, you decided to build a social media platform. The heart of that platform was a blog, that in six month’s time. was generating 1,000 visits a month, and referring 150 visits a month to your website.

So in just six month’s time, you have effectively doubled the traffic to your website. You did this by creating a social media platform, including a blog, which is now driving 150 visits a month to your website.

But what happens after those 150 visitors come to your website?

Ideally, you want those visitors to convert. A conversion could be downloading a white paper, it could be completing a purchase, it could be signing up for your newsletter.

Let’s go back to the earlier example of a retail store that sells clothing. One of the we needed for that retail store to be successful was foot traffic. We need people visiting the store, looking to buy.

If we could effectively double foot traffic to the store in six month’s time, is that a good thing?

It depends. If the foot traffic doubles, but the sales (conversions) don’t increase, then we have a problem.

So you want to build the platform, then convert the following. You want to focus on creating content and a customer experience that drives people to your platform, but once they are on your platform, you need to convert them.

If you do both correctly, then your social media platform can generate conversions, including sales.

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Think Like A Rock Star Named the Ninth Best Marketing Strategy Book of All Time!

Well this was a pleasant surprise to see earlier this week on Twitter:

I did some checking on the site and found that not only was Think Like a Rock Star named the 9th best Marketing Strategy book of all-time by Book Authority, it was also named the 7th best Content Marketing book of all-time, and the 30th best Marketing book of all-time!

According to Book Authority, here’s how they decide which books make their lists, and in what position:

“How are the books in the list ranked?
Books that were chosen to be featured on BookAuthority are ranked (#1, #2, #3) based on their star rating.
The star rating for each book is calculated based on multiple signals, such as:
✔ Public mentions of the book on social media
✔ Recommendations, ratings and reviews
✔ Analyzing user behavior and sentiment
✔ Book popularity, sales history and velocity”

 

In short, sales, reviews and public mentions drive the placement and rankings on Book Authority’s lists. I could not be prouder to see that Think Like a Rock Star, published in 2013, is still creating this much excitement for its readers.

Thank ALL of you for your support and kind words. It means the world to me, and it is such a gift to create a book that has created value for so many others!

I have to share a funny story. A colleague of mine told me she was talking to a CMO she had met about the power of embracing your customers. The CMO immediately got all excited, said his CEO had turned him on to this great book that talked about the power of leveraging your customers as fans and letting them drive sales. My colleague said wow that’s so interesting, my friend Mack Collier has written a book just like that, called Think Like a Rock Star!

The CMO immediately exclaimed THAT’S the book! That’s the book that caused my CEO to completely change our marketing to focus on embracing and empowering our customers and turn them into fans!

I love it! If you would like to order a copy of Think Like a Rock Star, you can get it from Amazon as an ebook, or if you want a paperback copy, you can order it online from Books A Million, or online from Barnes & Noble.

Also, here’s a video review of Think Like a Rock Star from earlier this week by Christoph:

Again, thank you to everyone who has bought, read and shared Think Like a Rock Star over the last 8 years. If you have not read Think Like a Rock Star yet, please do check it out, it’s honestly such a fun book to read, just as it was to write. I know you will love it!

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The Risk of Using Social Media

It’s never been riskier for a company to use social media than it is right now. Social media requires a disciplined, and purposeful strategy and governance to guide and manage it at the corporate level. Any company that uses social media needs to view it as a serious investment, which must be managed properly to realize maximum returns.

What is Keeping Your CEO Up at Night?

Business as usual flew out the window around a year ago, and may never fully return. Business leaders are focused on how to better control and manage everything from marketing communications to even work forces that are suddenly remote for the first time. In fact, Inc. found that managing remote workers was one of the top concerns that CEOs have in 2021.

Today, I wanted to focus on helping you regain control of your digital content, and show you how to lower the risk associated with being a business and using social media. The lure of social media for marketers has always been that you will, in theory, have access to a large audience of current and potential customers. How many billions of users are on Facebook? A bunch! Which means billions of potential customers just waiting on our marketing messages! Or so the story goes…

This thinking has led to far too many companies over the years adopting a digital marketing strategy where social media sites like Facebook and Instagram served as the foundation, with support coming from owned media channels such as your blog or website.

The problem with this ‘social media as our foundation’ approach is that you don’t have control over your foundation. If your Facebook brand page is your de facto ‘website’, then what happens when Facebook changes its algorithm and lowers the organic reach that content originating from a brand receives?  That’s right, your brand’s reach suffers. So how do you get your reach numbers back to previous levels? Why Facebook can help with that, let us tell you about Facebook ads!

So now you are paying to get back the reach that used to be organic. This is what happens when you marry your digital marketing efforts to a channel that you don’t control.

Wait, why is my business page restricted? 

I follow several marketing/content/social media groups on Facebook. I do this as a way to get a barometer on issues that companies are dealing with when it comes to their social and digital efforts. I want to see what questions they have and what issues they are facing.

You would be surprised at how often members of these groups are sharing how they were recently locked out of their Facebook business page or maybe from running ads, and want to know what the issue could be. Often, the issue will be that the brand owner (often the CEO or maybe the company’s social media manager) posted something on their personal Facebook profile that violated Facebook’s rules, so as a result,Facebook then restricted their ability to manage their brand page as a result.

Recently, Twitter and Facebook have suspended the accounts of thousands of users for what it claims were violations of its content policies. Whether you view these actions as censorship or completely appropriate, the reality is that social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram can pretty much suspend any user that it deems is violating its user agreement. So if your business is using Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as the foundation of its digital communications, you are effectively ceding complete control of those communications to these social media platforms. If these platforms decide that your content isn’t acceptable, then you are gone from those platforms. Simple as that.

Regain control of your social media and digital communications

Let’s focus on taking back control of your social media and digital communications. The foundation of your digital marketing strategy should be your Owned Media channels. Such as your website, your blog, your newsletter, your podcast. These are the channels where you control the content creation, and distribution.

Social media channels should never be the foundation of your digital marketing strategy. Social media channels should SUPPORT your owned media channels, not replace them.

Remember, we want to give you MORE control over your digital communications and LOWER the associated risk.  Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are NOT your social media strategy, they are tools you use to support it.

How Harry’s Marketing Examples Grew Its Newsletter From Zero to 19,000 Subscribers in One Year

Harry’s Marketing Examples is a great site you should check out. I noticed this article on how Harry grew its newsletter from zero to 19,000 subscribers in one year. That’s pretty impressive!

Harry had a very simple, three-pronged strategy for his content distribution:

1 – Customize all content for the platform he was sharing it on. For instance, content shared on Twitter would be threaded and long-form. The same content shared on Facebook would much shorter and more visual. This is honestly something I am terrible at, I tend to share a link to my latest post and a picture on every platform. I need to get better about this and Harry’s strategy has got me thinking about how I can improve.

2 – Move everyone from the social media platform where they see your content, to your platform. Give everyone a reason to leave Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, and go back to your website or blog. Remember, the social media platforms should SUPPORT your digital marketing strategy.

3 – Convert visitors into newsletter subscribers. Create content that engages users on the social media platforms where they are. Get them to engage with that content and GO BACK to YOUR platform (blog/website). Then once they are on your platform, convert them into an email subscriber.

Why is this so important? Because once Harry has the social media user converted into an email subscriber, then the can connect DIRECTLY with them VIA EMAIL! He no longer needs Twitter and Facebook to connect with this person, he’s got them locked into his email newsletter.

Remember, this is about giving you MORE control over your digital communications and LOWERING the associated risk.

Social Media will continue to be volatile in 2021 and beyond

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I’ve been warning for a while now that 2021 will be a pretty volatile year for social media. Over the last couple of years, there will be #DeleteFacebook movements that gain steam quickly then die out just as fast. As touched on at the start of this issue, there’s a growing sense among many Twitter/Facebook/Instagram users that the companies are getting a little too ham-fisted with their moderating or policing of content. In fact, as I’m writing this, I just learned that Instagram has admitted that it is reading private messages from users and suspending users for sending messages that violate its terms of service.

Earlier this year, Clubhouse seemingly came out of nowhere to become the hottest social media app available. While its popularity has definitely waned the last few months, it shows that people that use social media regularly are hungry for new experiences and context. Gone are the days where social media simply meant, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The rise of Clubhouse shows that social media users will support new apps and sites, and that they aren’t locked into Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Twitter and Facebook are very well aware of what’s happening, and they are trying to make moves to counter a potential exodus of users:

Twitter can see that its user growth is slowing, and is anticipating a potential decline in revenue. So the site is considering its options, including adding a charge to some of its basic features that have been free up till now. Also, Twitter has considered charging for Tweetdeck, a popular standalone viewer that many users enjoy to better organize and follow tweets on Twitter. This is a risky move if Twitter goes ahead with it. The only way I could see this working is if Twitter added significant functionality to Tweetdeck or its basic Twitter account as a way to justify wanting to charge for previously free features. Either way, it signals that Twitter understands that it’s user base isn’t as predictable as it once was.

Earlier this year, both Facebook and Twitter decided to get into the newsletters game:

Twitter and Facebook can see how popular newsletters are becoming, and are attempting to incorporate newsletter functionality into its sites as a way to keep users in their ecosystem, and generate more revenue from users.

This is a big part of the reason why I want your company to seriously assess its dependence on major social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You should absolutely leverage these tools to support your owned media channels if it makes sense, but don’t become so dependent on them if they experience massive changes, or force you to change how or if you can continue to use the sites.

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The One Thing I Hate About Content Creation

Content CreationThe one thing I hate about content creation is writing about the same topic over and over again.

I hate doing this. When I do, it always feels like I am being lazy or repeating myself. I mean, I covered this same topic back in 2011, why revisit it?

As it turns out, there’s actually several good reasons to create content around the same topic, more than once. So if you are like me, and it gives you the willies to create content about the same topic over and over again, strap in and let’s talk about why this is actually a good idea.

Why you should be creating content about the same topics over and over again

1 – Your audience changes. I’ve been blogging since 2005, across three different sites. The audience I wrote for at each site was vastly different. I’ve now been blogging here for over 12 years.  The people I am writing for today are vastly different than the readers I wrote for back in 2009. It makes complete sense to cover the same topics repeatedly because there are constantly new eyeballs on your content.

2 – Your expertise changes. I look back at a lot of the content I created back in 2005-2007 and realize now that I had no earthly idea what I was talking about. I certainly thought I did, but over the years I got to work with many companies and clients and put what was theory, into practice. My skills improved and grew, and as such the point of view I had for the work changed as well. I could go from presenting other people’s case studies to illustrate a point, to referencing the work I had personally done with clients. My knowledge and understanding of the topics greatly improved, and as a result it makes sense to revisit those topics to add what I have learned.

3 – You have better examples. Tying in with the previous point, as your expertise grows, your ability to illustrate concepts and ideas does as well. You become aware of better examples either through your own growing experience, or simply by being exposed to new case studies.

For instance, when I first started blogging, I often wrote about the value of using influencers on-site to drive interest in a conference or event. After a few years of experience working with companies such as Adobe as an influencer to promote their events, I could then point readers toward the results from that work. This resulted in my being able to create better content, and back up the concepts with real-world results.

4 – It helps your SEO. Yes, writing for search engines still matters. Depending on your blog, anywhere from 30-80% of your traffic comes from search engines. Those are numbers that are simply too big to ignore. By consistently creating content around certain topics, you are telling those search engines what the focus of your blog is. That makes it more likely that the content you create for those topics will place higher in search results, leading to more traffic from search engines.

The plugin I use for my blog to help me rank higher in search results is Yoast SEO. I cannot recommend it enough.

5 – It helps readers understand what the focus of your content is. It’s important to write for search engines, but it’s even more important to write for your readers. Consistently writing about the same topics helps readers understand where your focus is. Once they know what topics you write about, they can help tell their friends and colleagues about you as well.

So it’s vital to think about, from a strategic standpoint, the key topics you want to focus on. This will be the 3-5 topics that you want to be known for. I call these Topic Buckets. I pick 3-5 Topic Buckets that will be the main focus of the content I create here. This helps me focus my content. Additionally, this makes it easier for others to understand what the main topics are that I cover here.

 

There’s five reasons why it pays to focus your content creation efforts on the same topics, over and over again. Pick 3-5 Topic Buckets, then consistently create content that fits into one of those Topic Buckets. This will not only help drive more search traffic to your blog, but it will drive more direct and referral traffic as your readers better understand the focus of your writing.

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5 Reasons Why I Always Ignore Your Email Pitches

Unsolicited email pitches from companies and PR firms are the bane of my existence.

Every day, I get emails from people I don’t know, asking me to promote either their company or their product or a thought leadership piece by their CEO.

I reject 99.9% of these requests.  If you work in PR or in any capacity in which you pitch bloggers on writing stories for you, please pay attention to these 5 steps.  These are the 5 reasons why I never promote you.

1 – You never ask if you can email me before you do. I’ve been blogging now for 15 years. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has emailed me and asked my permission to pitch them BEFORE they pitched me. It simply doesn’t happen.

If it did happen, I would reply to that person, and thank them. I would then ENCOURAGE them to pitch me on a provided list of topics.

Instead, I get pitched by people I have never heard of. And since they don’t know me, that leads to #2….

 

2 – You pitch me on topics that are completely unrelated to what I cover. Anyone that reads this blog for any amount of time knows the topics that are covered here.  Anything concerning customer behavior, brand advocacy, content strategy, ambassador programs, etc.

If you pitch me on the exciting new line of cooking utensils you are rolling out for the Fall, I cannot mark Report Spam in my inbox fast enough.

Take 10-15 minutes to read my blog. Familiarize yourself with the topics I cover.  Then email me, ask if you can pitch me on topics that are in line with what I cover.

I promise you that I will say ‘Absolutely!’

 

3 – You never mention how I will benefit from covering your story. What’s in it for me? We both know what you get out of it, a link and publicity. What do I get?

When you pitch me, think about how *I* will benefit.  What value are you creating for ME?

If I can clearly see the value in your pitch, I will act on it. Every. Single. Time.

 

4 – You pitch me on a story from a SME that I could write better than the SME. This goes back to understanding the topics I write about. If you pitch me on having your SME talk on a topic I discuss regularly, I will probably say no. Because I can likely cover the topic better than your SME can.

So instead, pitch me on how your SME would like to share how his or her company built an employee brand ambassador company. Or the results from building a Voice of the Customer initiative. That I would be interested in.  But don’t pitch me on your SME explaining how to build an amazing brand ambassador program. I’ve already written that post.

 

5 – Don’t try to followup with me on a pitch that I’ve already written about. Honestly, this just happened to me and it’s what prompted me to write this post.

As I said above, I reject 99.9% of the email pitches I get. Usually because the topic of the pitch is completely off topic for what I write about. And I don’t waste time replying, which leads to a followup email in a day or two asking if I am interested.

Well recently, I actually got a pitch on a topic I cover. So I immediately wrote and published a post on the information I was pitched on. I then thanked the person who pitched me, and encouraged them to continue to send me pitches, and gave her a list of topics I wanted to be pitched on.

See how that works? When I get a relevant pitch, I work with the person to ensure that they keep sending me MORE pitches on topics I want to cover.

So I emailed this person back.  She replied immediately, thanking me for the post.

The VERY NEXT DAY, she emails me asking if I had reviewed the study that she pitched me on the day before.  The same study I wrote about that same day, and which she thanked me for doing so.

All that did was confirm to me that I am just a name on a list to her, and she had no appreciation for me actually answering her pitch and replying.

So what do you think the chances are that I will answer a second of her pitches? Yeah, not good.

 

If You Want Me to Answer Your Pitch Every Single Time…

1 – Read my blog. Familiarize yourself with the topics I cover.

2 – If you or your clients don’t cover the same topics I do, then DO NOT PITCH ME.

3 – If you or your clients DO cover the same topics I do, then EMAIL ME and ASK IF YOU CAN PITCH ME. Tell me what topics I cover that you have pitches for. I promise you that I will reply to you, and be elated that you took the time to ask. If you catch me in the right emotional state, I may be so overcome that I ask for your hand in marriage.

4 – Once you’ve established that you have a relevant pitch AND that I am interested, give me all the information and resources I need to create a better pitch. Such as custom graphics, quotes from relevant SMEs, access to relevant stakeholders at your company.

 

Now if you are reading this list and thinking to yourself “Aw Mack, that sounds like a ton of work!”  No shit, doing a good job TAKES PUTTING IN THE WORK.

Do you want your daily job task list to show that you sent out 200 email pitches, or do you want it to say that you got 20 bloggers to say ‘yes’ to your pitch?

Conversions is the name of the game. Follow the above guidelines and you’ll get far more conversions on your email pitches. Keep following these guidelines and you’ll see you actually send out FAR FEWER pitches as most of the people that say ‘yes’ to the first one, will likely say yes to the second and third one as well.