MackCollier.com

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Thank you, Trey

Social South was held in Birmingham in 2009, and it will always be a very special event to me, for many reasons.  One of which was that it was where I got to meet Trey Pennington.  I remember Trey attended my session ‘What Rockstars Can Teach You About Kicking Ass With Social Media’, and he tweeted to Collective Soul that I mentioned them in my deck as a case study.  And five minutes later, the band tweeted back to both of us!

The next time I met Trey was in Greenville last year at Brains on Fire’s F.I.R.E. Sessions.  To be completely honest, I started not to go to this event.  As an introvert, I am very uncomfortable when I’m in a room full of people that I don’t know.  There was a pre-event networking event the night before it started and sure enough, I knew no one there other than Robbin and Geno.  I honestly did NOT want to be there, but after a while Trey arrived, and we started chatting.  I think he must have noticed how uncomfortable I was because he said ‘Here, let’s introduce you to a few people’, and then he went around the room introducing me to a few of the many people he knew there.  It was a very kind gesture that helped put me at ease and made the entire event much more enjoyable from that point forward.

I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on these two meetings with Trey today, because earlier this morning I found out that Trey took his own life.  I won’t claim to have any idea of what issues Trey was facing, because I really didn’t know Trey, and he really didn’t know me.  But despite this, during both our meetings, Trey went out of his way to help me and to attempt to improve my situation.

As I was reading the outpouring of response to Trey’s death on Sunday, I learned that my experiences with Trey were completely typical.  Trey simply went out of his way to give to others, and to spread kindness to them.  He left people in a better place than where he found them.

Goodbye, Trey.  Thanks for being kind, compassionate, a fellow Crimson Tide fan, and an inspiration.  I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend more time together, but I am a better person for the time we did share.

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#Blogchat will be LIVE at Blog World Expo in Los Angeles!

Whenever I announce on Twitter a new Live #Blogchat, a few people always have the same response: “But when are you coming to the West Coast?!?”

This November.  In Los Angeles.  At Blog World Expo! 

I am beyond excited about this announcement, as this is the conference that EVERY blogger wants to attend.  It’s our Super Bowl, and I cannot wait to see #Blogchat become a part of it.  We are still fleshing out some of the details, so I will be talking more about the Live #Blogchat at Blog World Expo here in the coming weeks.

For now, please go over to the Blog World Expo site, and check out Deb’s post on it, and also, you can vote on the topic you want for #Blogchat!  We’ve given you 5 options so pick your favorite topic, and that might be what we discuss when #Blogchat comes to Blog World Expo!

Finally, Blog World Expo has given us a special discount code for registration!  Use code BLOGCHAT20 to get a 20% discount on a conference pass!  As you might expect with Blog World, the speaker lineup will be the Whos-Who of this space, with Amber Naslund, Peter Shankman, Liz Strauss, Jason Falls, C.C. Chapman and David Armano some of the people that have already been confirmed.  It’s Blog World, you know it’s going to be huge 😉

Cannot wait to see y’all in a couple of months.  If you’d like to see a full schedule of where #Blogchat Live will be around the country, click here.

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If you want to be a great blogger, you have to develop your blogging voice

Last night during #Blogchat I asked my friends what was the ONE thing they believed made a blog great.  The vast majority of the answers were associated with content.  Creating amazingly, great, valuable content.

I disagree.  In my mind if you want to be a successful blogger, here’s the secret: You have to believe that you have a voice worth sharing.

A few weeks ago I went back and read some of the very first blog posts I ever wrote, almost 6 years ago.  I literally cringed at some of the logic I used, the points I was trying to make.  A lot of it was wrong, but the thing about it is, I wrote from a place of conviction.  I believed that I was right, and that I deserved to be heard.  And as a result, people responded to what I wrote.

People want to read bloggers that are passionate about their ideas, that believe in what they are saying.  For example, one of the common worry issues for bloggers is the idea of blogging about a topic that ‘everyone else has already covered’.  Or blogging about the ‘hot topic of the moment’.

How many times have you read a blogger mention a topic that other bloggers have covered, and just link to those bloggers and add ‘check them out’.  Ummmm…..no.  We don’t want that, we want to hear what YOU have to say about this same topic.  Don’t just point us toward those amazing blog posts, if they are truly amazing, then we’ve probably already read them anyway.  Your job is to tell us what YOU think.

“But what if someone says my post stinks?”

Then you know you are REACHING people.  Not everyone is going to agree with your ideas.  In fact you WANT some people to disagree with your position.  That’s how you learn, by looking at different angles to the same topic.

You have a blogging voice that deserves to be heard.  Even if only one person reads your blog.  We all want to feel good about the content we create on our blogs, and we all want to feel like we are making a difference and connecting with others.  How can you truly connect with anyone if you don’t put yourself and your opinions out there?

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Facebook ‘Fans’ are NOT the same thing as Brand Advocates

I was having a discussion on Twitter the other night and we were discussing a brand’s fans.  A passion topic of mine, but after a few minutes I realized something: The other person was talking about FACEBOOK fans, I was talking about Brand Advocates.

They are completely different groups.  That’s not to say that someone that Fans your Facebook Page can’t also be an advocate, but we know that the top reason people Fan a Facebook page, is to get discounts.  Brand Advocates aren’t looking for compensation or incentives in most cases, they want acknowledge and empowerment.

Yet I fear that Social Media in some ways is corrupting how brands view its customers.  We are teaching companies that ‘Fans’ on Facebook are something to be collected like baseball cards, and that they should target ‘influencers’ like bloggers and power Twitter users.

Brand Advocates are special customers that are motivated by a love of your brand and a desire to make sure that everyone else sees your brand in the same light that they do.  The amount of motivation that a Facebook Fan has for your brand is usually directly proportional to the value of the ‘prize’ they receive from Fanning your page.

Which would you rather have?

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The three blogs we’ll be reviewing tonight at #Blogchat are…

Thanks again to everyone that submitted their blogs for review.  Here’s the three that we’ll be reviewing, starting at 8:00 PM Central, Sunday (the 21st).

1 – Campfire Song Thanks to Lindseyfor submitting her blog, we’ll review it from 8:00-8:20 PM Central:

Here’s Lindsey’s feedback for us:

“I blog at http://campfire-song.com. I’m targeting women in the 25-35 age range, probably with kids. (Mommy blogger?)

I’m interested in a review of

1. post titles

2. effectiveness of a blog on WP.com vs. WP.org (I’m considering a switch in the near future to self-hosted with a custom template)

3. info/widgets (i.e. sharing buttons) etc. that I should remove or add to enhance the look and usefulness of my blog”

Also, please follow Lindsey on Twitter.  We will review Campfire Song from 8:00-8:20 PM Central on Sunday the 21st.

 

2 – Patrick’s Place.  Thanks to Patrick for submitting his blog, we’ll review it from 8:20-8:40 PM Central on Sunday the 21st.

Here’s Patrick’s feedback for us:

“My blog is “Patrick’s Place,” at http://www.patrickkphillips.com. I’ve been blogging for about seven years now, and I’m trying to build a larger audience. My key topics are television, politics and religion and my audience tends to be adults 30+. I’m looking for feedback about the presentation and how easy it is to find those key topics, as well as tips for better interaction and SEO. Thanks for considering me.”

Also please follow Patrick on Twitter.  We will review Patrick’s Place from 8:20-8:40PM Central, on Sunday the 21st.

3 – Poet on Poetry. Thanks to Sheree for submitting her blog.  We’ll be reviewing Poet on Poetry from 8:40-9:00pm Central.

Here’s Sheree’s feedback for us:

“I’d like my nonprofit blog reviewed. It is 4 months old and has had good traffic (over 25k views from 77 countries) but it I would like to evalaute

1. How to increase that traffic
2. Why I am not getting more followers
3. Why I am not getting more comments.

Thank you for this opportunity. My blog is ar http://poetonpoetry.blogspot.com I write for poets and poetry lovers. I started the blog as a place to promote my own poetry book once i have one but it seems to have mushroomed rather quickly into more. I enjoy promoting other poets. I would like to explore being able yo make money from the blog.”

Also, please follow Sheree on Twitter.  We will review Poet on Poetry from 8:40-9:00pm Central on Sunday the 21st.

Thanks to everyone that submitted their blog, and if yours wasn’t picked, please submit it again next month!  See everyone tomorrow night!

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Get your blog reviewed during #Blogchat! – August

It’s that time again!  Once a month we review the blogs from 3 participants during #Blogchat, and we’ll be doing it again this Sunday!  The idea is that you get a ‘fresh set of eyes’ to look at your blog and give you some ideas and pointers on what you’re doing.

So if you’ve just launched your blog, and maybe you want some feedback on the visual look of it, we could help you!  Or if you want some advice on the type of content you are creating, etc, let us know!  If you want your blog to be considered for one of the THREE review slots at the next #Blogchat then leave a comment to this post giving us the URL of your blog, and exactly what you are concerned with and the areas you want feedback on.  If you want to know what everyone thinks of the information on your sidebars, let us know that.  If you want to know what you should be writing about, tell us who you are trying to connect with.  If you want feedback on your post titles, let us know.

Again, if you want to have your blog be eligible for being reviewed, please LEAVE A COMMENT to this post and please give us as much information as possible about what we should be looking at on your blog.  Please don’t just say ‘I would like to have my blog reviewed, thanks!”  Give us 2-3 things we should be giving you advice on, and please tell us WHO you are writing your blog for, and what its focus is.

That’s it!  I’ll select the 3 blogs that will be reviewed and have that post up by Saturday.  Good luck!

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Should Social Media/Marketing Consultants List Their Prices?

I am totally piggybacking on Marcus’ post over at Spin Sucks, but this is a question I have been pondering for a LONG time.

The two most popular posts so far this year (by a mile) are this post on How Much Social Media Costs in 2011, and this one on How Much Social Media Costs in 2010.  Also, three of the top 7 keywords that send search traffic to this blog are associated with the price of social media services.  So I only have to look at my Google Analytics to tell that there is a HUGE interest in the price of social media services.

And yet, most social media and/or marketing consultants don’t list their prices.  Or if they do, this information is usually buried on their site, in doing research for both of the above posts on the price of social media services, I found several ‘name’ consultants that did have prices for their services, but it was like hunting on their site for a needle in a haystack to find the numbers.  It seems that the few consultants that do quote prices are quoting prices that are so far and above what most of their peers charge that it seems to simply draw ridicule from their peers.  Which might be the plan, cause it also draws a lot of attention to their prices!

I did start listing prices for my Social Media Strategy and Blogging Strategy Audits, but that’s really all I have solid prices down for.  And I also offer a Satisfaction guarantee on both, which is something else I am experimenting with.

But really I want to know what y’all think about this issue.  And I can completely see both sides:  I can see why it would be better to list prices, but I can also see why it would be hard/impossible to quote exact prices for some services.  And to further stump me, I have very good friends and business professionals that have told me I should absolutely list my prices, and others that tell me I absolutely should not!

What do you think?  Should every consultant/agency list prices for their services, or nothing?  If you are a consultant or work for an agency, what’s your policy?

Should consultants list what they charge for social media and marketing services on their site?  Yes or no?

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Blink-182 Finds Fans Illegally Using Their Music on YouTube and Rewards Them

I’m so in love with Blink-182 right now!  The band is getting ready for their first new single in eight years, and they came up with a pretty fascinating way to promote the song.  They teamed up with AT&T and found every instance of where a fan was using their music without permission in their videos on YouTube.  Then the band took a few dozen of the videos and spliced them together to create a music video for their new single, Up All Night.  Then they named all the fans at the end of the video that were represented in their video.

And they thanked them.

What I love about this move is that Blink-182 was smart enough to realize that these were FANS of the band.  Sure, they were technically violating copyright by using the band’s music, but I would wager many of the fans didn’t even know that they couldn’t add the music to their videos.  And they all were promoting a band that they were fans of.

So Blink-182 was smart enough to recognize that, and reward the behavior, instead of punishing it.  There’s an important branding lesson here for companies: You don’t own your brand, it belongs just as much to your fans and customers as it does to you.  The best you can hope for is to co-own that brand with your customers.

Here is the video montage that Blink-182 created:

And here is one of the videos that one of the fans mentioned in the video created:

Remember, create something amazing for the people that love you.

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Learn how to improve your blogging and SEO with Topic Buckets

Two of  the biggest issues that most bloggers face is how to come up with ideas for posts, and how to optimize their blog for search engines.  I think most bloggers can solve both these problems (as well as tightening your blog’s focus) with Topic Buckets.

Here’s the way Topic Buckets work: Take your blog, and find 3-5 main topic areas, or Buckets that you like to write about.  For example, on here I have three main Topic Buckets:

1 – How individuals/companies can improve their blogging efforts

2 – How companies can use social media in general

3 – How companies can better understand and connect with its brand advocates.

Occasionally I post something that doesn’t go into those buckets, but most of my posts fit into one of those categories.  Now note that if I only write one post a week for each bucket, I’m up to 3 posts a week!  This helps me structure my blog and its posts.  For example, if I look and see that last week I only wrote posts that would go into Buckets 2 and 3, it tells me that this week I need to write a post from Bucket 1.

So once you create your list of Topic Buckets, your posting schedule can naturally evolve from that.  This is also a way to help you bring clarity to your blog’s focus.  If you write down all of your blog’s Topic Buckets and you have 15, that’s a good hint that you are covering too much ground.  Try trimming the fat down to 5 buckets or less.

For example, note that yesterday’s post on Advocates would obviously go in the #3 Topic Bucket for me, and this post will go in the #1 Topic Bucket.  So if I want to get a post up tomorrow or on Friday, I know that it would be best if it came from the #2 Topic Bucket (How companies can use social media in general).

Now as for SEO; When you create your Topic Buckets, you need to also make a list of the keywords and phrases that would be associated with those Topic Buckets, and you can use those in your title and post.  Look at the title of this post, ‘Learn how to improve your blogging and SEO with Topic Buckets’.  Keywords like ‘Learn’ and ‘Improve’ associated with ‘blogging and SEO’ were chosen on purpose because I want this post to do well in search engines.

I could have just have easily made the title ‘A cool trick I learned that might help you’, but that doesn’t really give you (or search engines) any real idea of the type of content in the post.  Remember that keywords and phrases help  search engines decide what type of content is in your post, and if it will be useful to people that are searching.

So try out Topic Buckets and see if that helps your blogging efforts.  I think you’ll find that it definitely makes getting on a posting schedule easier, and should help you improve your SEO as well.

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New study suggests a passionate minority can sway the majority

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have concluded that it only takes 10 percent of a population holding an unshakable belief in order to convince the majority to adopt that same belief.  In fact, the scientists found that this will always be the case.

“When the number of committed  holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”

This study ties into an idea I’ve been thinking about recently; the difference between how companies market themselves versus how rockstars do.  And while my graphical skills on the computer suck, I am a bit better at freehand, so I drew a graph to demonstrate what the customer base for the average company looks like:

Obviously, the size of the market for New Customers will always be bigger than the others.  After that you get Existing Customers, then customers with Some Brand Affinity and finally, Brand Advocates.  Note also that New Customers have the least amount of Brand Loyalty, and that increases for each group with Brand Advocates having the highest levels of loyalty.

But note the disconnect between which group most companies target, versus the group that most rockstars target:

At first glance, this can seem like the smart play for companies, because they are targeting the group that’s the largest.  The problem is, this group also has the lowest levels of loyalty to the brand.  So the company may be gaining New Customers, but it’s probably losing them just as quickly, again due to a lack of brand affinity.

But note what Rockstars do;  They focus on the people that already love them.  Unlike the New Customers, this group has a strong degree of loyalty for the rockstar.  So much so, that they will go out and actively recruit people from the OTHER groups to the left to come join them.  And yes, we have stats to back that up as well:

Note that evangelists refer business equal to 45% of the money they spend.  That means that the Brand Advocates that the Rockstars target, and also going out and finding new business for the Rockstar from the OTHER groups.

Remember also the study I referenced at the start of the post: Scientists have discovered that if 10% of a population have an unshakable belief in an idea, they will eventually convince the majority to adopt their stance.  The ’10-Percenters’ are your Brand Advocates.

So let’s compare and contrast the two approaches:

Company – Targets New Customers. Loses them just as quickly as it gains them, so constantly having to reinvest in getting more New Customers to replace the ones it lost yesterday.

Rockstar – Targets Brand Advocates (Fans). Brand Advocates have a strong sense of loyalty for the Rockstar, so they not only stay as customers, they go out and actively recruit New Customers, Existing Customers, and customers with Some Brand Affinity to buy from the Rockstar.

See the difference?  While the company is engaged in an almost constant zero-sum game, the Rockstar isn’t focusing so much on expanding its customer base, but rather on delighting the people that are already delighted with the Rockstar.  Because the Rockstar understands that its next sale is just as likely to come from the efforts of its EXISTING fans as it is their own.

This also is why Steve Knox said this:

Said in terms of the above graph, that quote would be ‘Victory in marketing doesn’t happen when you get New Customers, but when you connect with your Brand Advocates.”  Because your Brand Advocates are the people that are bringing you the New Customers anyway.

Companies, y’all make this marketing stuff too hard.  It’s not about spending a lot of money trying to convince strangers to buy from you, it’s about delighting the people that already love you.