MackCollier.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you all tonight at #Blogchat!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Think Like a Rockstar is coming to MPU on Wednesday!

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

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

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

You will learn:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sessions: Sometimes More is Less

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

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

The Parties Were a Very Pleasant Surprise

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

Overall, I think Blog World was a great event

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

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

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Review: LIVE #Blogchat at Blog World Expo in Los Angeles

You know how a parent isn’t supposed to show favoritism toward one child?  I almost feel that way about the seven Live #Blogchats that have been so far this year.  Every one had amazing discussions and was special in its own way.

But Live #Blogchat at Blog World Expo was my favorite one so far.  By far.

This was the 1st Live #Blogchat where there were several regular and active #Blogchat participants in attendance.  At all the other Live #Blogchats, at best there were a handful that had joined a few times, maybe a couple of regular participants.  But for many, they had little to no idea what a ‘#blogchat’ was.  This group not only knew what it was, but they knew the people that were going to be there.  Many of them showed up 30 minutes early to the session just to meet each other and I lost track of how many times I heard someone scream OMG! and then immediately tacklehug someone!  This was the first Live #Blogchat where I really felt like the community was present.  When the first wave showed up, we all were so excited to see each other that we spent about 5 minutes posing for pictures 😉

This is what I really wanted to see happy at the Live events because #Blogchat belongs to its community.  Yes, I started #Blogchat almost 3 years ago, but there are hundreds of people that have taken an active role in building #blogchat into what it is today.  I cannot wait to see what the Live #Blogchats look like a year from now when everyone is familiar with the format, and the audience is mostly made up of regulars, like it was at Blog World.

We didn't have no stinkin' speakers in Live #blogchat, so the Live-Bloggers got to be on the stage 😉

Thanks to Judy for the above pic!  Now I wanted to explain how this room was structured.  When I got to the room about an hour before Live #Blogchat started, you had a room with 90ish chairs, all facing forward.  The 1st two rows were at tables, facing the stage along with the rest of the chairs.  I wanted the chairs all facing toward the middle, so we switched the 1st two rows of chairs at the tables that you see in this pic, so they were facing the back of the room.  Then as a few people started arriving, James asked ‘So who’s going to be on stage?’  Without thinking, I said ‘You are!’   And all the live-bloggers for the session got to be up on stage.  I *really* thought it was important to have active #blogchat members up on the stage because if the ‘spotlight’ was going to be on anyone in this session, it should be on them.

The discussion, as always, was excellent.  We started off talking about creating a blogging strategy, but as always happens in #blogchat on Twitter, we soon started veering off into other areas like finding a focus for your blog, your content, injecting personal tones and personality to your blog to give it a unique voice; your own.  James did a great job of collecting many of the key tweeted takeaways from the Live #Blogchat via Storify.  I did want to send out a special thank you to Tamsen McMahon, Jason Falls, Marcy Massura and Mark Horvath for making a special effort to answer questions from fellow #blogchat participants.  I honestly think I talked way too much during #blogchat, and I had several participants afterward mention how much they appreciated their help.

And thanks to James for this picture, I don’t like most of my pictures, but this was a good one.  Clearly, being around #Blogchat peeps brings out the best in me 😉

I would hope that most of you had as much fun at the Live #Blogchat at Blog World as I did, but I know you didn’t 😉  Many of you have been asking about the next Live #Blogchat, it is tentatively scheduled for South By Southwest in March.  Right now I am trying to get sponsors and the venue locked down, so if you know a company that might be a good fit for a Live #Blogchat sponsorship, please email me and I’ll be happy to give them a rundown on what’s included, prices, etc.

When #Blogchat started, I told everyone that I appreciated them for coming, and loved them for it.  I meant every single word of that.  As we were getting set up, I went to check my phone to see how much time I had left before we got started, and I realized I was smiling from ear to ear.  I was so damn happy to see everyone and so glad they could share in this experience!  As soon as I thanked everyone for coming at the end of our hour, everyone got up and instead of leaving, all stayed and chatted and I realized how incredible LOUD it suddenly got in the room because everyone was either talking really loud because they were excited to be meeting someone, or because they were laughing at something someone had just said.

I loved it.  And I love all of you that came and made it possible!

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An honest look at being a Social Media consultant

Typically, I am loathe to write personal posts here, because I think I am boring y’all to tears, but I wanted to do so today.  Over the past few months, I’ve had several discussions with people that are working in this space as the umbrella term of a ‘social media consultant’.  What prompted me to write this post was because several times I have heard from friends that are struggling, and they assume that since they are struggling, that it’s a direct reflection on their abilities as a consultant.  They also assume that most consultants are doing extremely well, so if they aren’t, that further cements the idea that they just aren’t ‘cut out’ for this type of work.

I think there are a LOT of misconceptions about being a social media consultant.  The first is that many people think that ‘big name’ consultants are out there getting $20K every day to swoop into companies and spend a few hours with them.  So the logic becomes ‘if I can make a big name for myself, I will get big bucks too.’

From my experience and talking to others, this is fantasyland.  Not saying 1 or 2 consultants don’t do/get this, but for the consultants I know and talk to, nothing could be further from the truth.  A lot of times they are working on monthly projects, with a monthly fee.  That’s probably a lot closer to $1K than $20K.

The second misconception seems to be that social media consulting is a much more stable and profitable way to go than simply doing similar work for a company.  The downturn in the economy that’s been going on for years now has affected social media consultants as much as anyone.  Probably more, since companies tend to only allocate marketing dollars to the ‘tried and true’ when funds run low.  So if you can’t find a job and are thinking that becoming a ‘social media consultant’ will save you, good luck.

Now that I’ve set the stage with all this doom and gloom, I wanted to circle back to why I wanted to write this post.  It was mainly to talk about the misconception my friends seemed to be having that if they were struggling in consulting, it was more a reflection on them and their skills, versus the reality of the space.  I think it’s more of the latter.  I’m not saying that you can’t make good money and be successful as a social media consultant.  But it is a LOT of work.  Personally, I’ve been doing this for about 5 years now, and 2011 is the 1st year where I’ve really felt like I was getting my feet under me.  There are a TON of ups and downs, so if you are a social media consultant or considering becoming one, please keep these things in mind:

1 – Figure out what you are offering, and who you are offering it to.  And be aware that this likely will change over time, but you need to start out trying to decide who you are wanting to work with, and what you can offer them.  Do you want to work with small businesses, or large companies?  Do you want to work with local clients, or virtually with national clients?  What services do you want to offer?  Campaign/project creation and execution?  Training?  Speaking?  Actual consulting?  Again, this will likely change a bit over time, but a big reason why I think a lot of people struggle with social media consulting is that they don’t clearly have their preferred clients decided upon, and their value proposition for those clients.  Remember, you can’t get work until others know what you do, and a ton of your work will come from referrals.  So the sooner you can clearly define your role and niche, the better.

2 – Realize that there WILL be downtime in work, and how to capitalize on that.  One of the things I have always hated about being a social media consultant is that it seemed like I would have 3 months with little to no work, then 3 months with more work than I could handle.  It was such a relief to talk to other consultants, and find that most of them go through the same feast or famine work cycle.  Their best advice was that when you know a lull is coming, to shift your focus to working on YOUR business, and make yourself your client.  Freshen up your blog/website, re-evaluate your marketing strategy, etc.  For example, I was crazy busy from May-September, but I knew looking ahead that October-December would probably be slower.  So I took some of the personal business projects that I wanted to work on, and moved them to the end of the year.  Now that work is slower, I still have some things to keep me busy.

3 – Be creative in finding sources of income.  The great thing about social media consulting is that this space is so new.  And as such, there’s a ton of new possibilities, and things that have never been tried yet.  For example, my biggest source of income this year has been from doing Live #Blogchats, something that I’d never even considered offering this time last year.  But I decided to try doing one this year at SXSW to see what the reaction would be, and the rest is history.  Other consultants have had much success with thinking ‘outside the box’, for example, look at what Tom Martin has done with getting Emma to sponsor his TalkingWithTom.com, or look at how Jim Kukral is crowd-sourcing the funding of his next book.

 

These are a few ideas, but I know from my own experience that my first few years of being a social media consultant would have been easier if I had known the above.  But if you are struggling as a consultant, don’t assume it means that simply aren’t ‘smart enough’ to do the work, it could simply mean that you need to better organize your marketing and business efforts.  It’s often true that we can offer far better marketing advice for our clients than ourselves.  Look at your business situation as if you were hiring yourself, and see what advice you would give yourself on how to improve your situation.

Those of you that are consulting now, what are some of the potholes you’ve encountered, and how did you move past them?  Or if you are having troubles now, maybe we could give you some advice on moving past them?

 

PS: I meant to add this in the post under #3 but got sidetracked, but Lee Odden last night was telling us about Live-Blogging an event during #Blogchat.  He said that because of his Live-Blogging, he’s gotten passes to over 50 events in the last 5 years.  And of course, being at all those events has opened a ton of doors and opportunities for him.  Check out his post today where he walks you through the process, and talks about some of the benefits he’s enjoyed as a result.

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#Blogchat this Sunday will be Co-Hosted by Lee Odden discussing Live-Blogging an event!

I’m thrilled to announce that this Sunday night (October the 30th), #Blogchat will be co-hosted by Lee Odden!  I wanted to Lee to co-host our final #Blogchat before Blog World Expo because one of Lee’s many talents is that he is a prolific live-blogger!  So for those of you that are heading to Blog World that were considering Live-Blogging some of the sessions, I thought this would be perfect prep for you!

As always, #Blogchat will start at 8pm Central, on Sunday night.  Here’s what we’ll be discussing:

From 8:00pm-8:30pm – What are the Top 2-3 things you should know before you attempt to live-blog an event?

From 8:30pm-9:00pm – What are the advantages to live-blogging an event versus simply doing a recap post once you get home?

So if you have any questions about live-blogging, definitely check out #Blogchat and Lee can help you out!  Thanks again to Lee for agreeing to join us, and please make sure you subscribe to Top Rank Blog and follow Lee on Twitter!

BTW if you are new to #Blogchat, here’s what it’s all about.  And if you will be attending Blog World, please join us for a LIVE #Blogchat on Saturday, November the 5th!