MackCollier.com

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#Blogchat this Sunday will be co-hosted by Dell’s Chief Blogger Lionel Menchaca!

Lionel being interviewed at #Blogchat LIVE at SXSW as Chris Heuer and Susan Beebe look on

I’m not sure how long the list is of people that have been blogging for the same company for FIVE years, but I’m guessing it’s pretty damn short.  But Lionel Menchaca is on it, and for the last five years, he has served as Dell’s Chief Blogger.  And this Sunday, he’ll also be returning to co-host #Blogchat for the second time!

Dell’s social media transformation has been nothing short of remarkable, from Dell Hell and exploding laptops in 2005 and 2006, to today being lauded for its progressive approach to using social media to connect with its customers.

And for the last 5 years, Dell’s blogging efforts have been at the forefront of its social media success, and I’m tickled pink that Lionel has agreed to join us at #Blogchat this Sunday!

Sunday’s #Blogchat topic will be How to Create and Maintain a Successful Corporate Blogging Strategy.  As we normally do with co-hosts, the flow of the conversation will be segmented into different sub-topics:

1 – At 8pm Central, we will begin #Blogchat by discussing this point – How do you sustain a blogging strategy for years, and how do you keep the blog relevant with your readers and customers?

2 – At 8:20pm, we’ll begin discussing this point – How do you find writers for your blog, and how do you keep them motivated to keep blogging for you?

3 – At 8:40pm, we’ll close by discussing this point – How do you create relevant content for your blog and how do you decide what content your readers are interested in?

So if you have any questions for Lionel, think about which of the above areas would be most appropriate, and please ask it then.  This #Blogchat will be sponsored by Dell, and that leads me to another surprise for y’all:

In a couple of weeks I will be in Austin working with Dell on a #DellCAP project (disc – Dell is a client).  But while I’m in town, we decided to do a LIVE #Blogchat! The Live #Blogchat will be Monday, July the 18th at the Westin Domain, with the meetup starting at 6pm, the actual #Blogchat will start at 7pm.  I will set up a signup page soon, and when I have that I’ll add a link here.  The event will be open to #DellCAP attendees plus about 30 people from the Austin area.  So I can’t wait to see all my Austin friends again!

So if you’ll be joining #Blogchat on Sunday, make SURE you are following Lionel on Twitter, and you can also check out Dell’s main blog, Direct2Dell.

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#Blogchat topic for 7-3: How to create useful content for your biz blog without ‘giving it all away’

Hey y’all!  Hope everyone is getting ready for a festive Fourth of July!  Since tomorrow is the holiday, and not tonight, we’ll go ahead and have #Blogchat tonight (Sunday) at its regularly scheduled time of 8pm Central.

And our topic will focus on creating content for business blogs, and how ‘helpful’ our content should be.  Someone asked a question during last week’s #Blogchat about how you promote yourself via your blog, especially if you are a consultant or working for yourself.  My quick answer was ‘Give away the WHY, sell the HOW’, but I thought that would be a good topic to expand upon tonight.  I think there are two schools of thought here:

1 – Create content that establishes the need for hiring me (Why), and then use the content to get business (Where you teach the how).

2 – Create content that gives away the How, and hope that the content is so amazingly useful that it leads to positive word of mouth, and that leads to referrals.

I think you also need to consider what type of customer/client you want, when you position your content.  For example, if I wanted someone to hire me to setup their business blog, I would probably create more content devoted to WHY they need a blog to build their business.  On the other hand, if I wanted to connect with clients that are already blogging that need help building engagement, I would probably create more content around the HOW, because I want to establish my expertise in building engagement and community.

I think this will be a very interesting discussion as those of us that use our blogs to drive business often struggle with the proper balance in our content.  How much do we promote, versus teach?

So please do join us tonight for #Blogchat at 8pm Central!

Oh! And I promised a very small surprise, didn’t I?  As many of you remember, we were using WTHashtag to create transcripts after each #Blogchat up till a few months ago, when WTHasthag had to stop offering that functionality due to a change in Twitter’s TOS.  But, before it shut down, I was able to convert over a year’s worth of #Blogchats into PDF transcripts!  I’ll be sharing a few of these every week for the next several weeks, so you can use these as additional study materials.  Here’s this week’s transcripts:

7-26-09 – Topic: How to Get Sales and Business Leads From Your Blog (Co-Hosted by Amy Africa) – #Blogchat07-26-09TranscriptWAmyAfrica

7-12-09 – Topic: Finding the ROI of your Blogging and Social Media Efforts (Co-Hosted by KD Paine) – #Blogchat07-12-09TranscriptWKDPaine

7-19-09 – Topic: How Non-Profits Can Use Social Media (Co-Hosted by the Red Cross’ Wendy Harman) – #Blogchat07-19-09TranscriptWWendyHarman

Just click on the link for each, and then you can view them, and download if you like.  Enjoy!

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The key feature that neither Google+ or Facebook really addresses

So like many of you, I finally got a Google+ invite, and plan on kicking the tires a bit over the next few days.  But as I was quickly scanning the features, and reading great previews like this one, I was looking for a specific feature.

I want the ability to follow content in addition to following people.

Let me give you an example (because I can already tell I’m not doing  a good job of explaining myself).  We all have our networks on Facebook and Twitter.  And we are probably following the people that aren’t family for a specific reason.  Maybe it’s for their social media knowledge, or because they are industry sources, whatever.  But come next year, a big portion of your network (at least those in the United States) will probably engage in discussing the same topic: Politics.  And if you are following a few dozen ‘A-listers’ for advice and wisdom on social media, it can be a jolt to see them suddenly on Facebook and Twitter every day saying that they think your favorite Presidential candidate is a blithering idiot.

So then comes the question: How do you handle this?  You are following a person because you want to hear their opinions on social media, not politics.  Do you unfollow them?  Do you grit your teeth and bear it?  Do you argue with them?  I do the same thing: Last fall, on Saturdays I started tweeting score updates from the 1 or 2 college football games I was watching.  Then I had friends tweeting me asking for the score to a particular game, and the next thing you know, I am all but live-tweeting about 5 different games at the same time.  Some of my followers absolutely loved it, and some of them unfollowed me because they weren’t following me for college football updates, they were likely following me for social media discussions.

The shortcoming I see from existing social media tools is that there’s no efficient way to filter based on content created.  Sure, you can create groups or lists of like minded individuals, but even that doesn’t guarantee that ‘unwanted’ content won’t be discussed.  And if you could filter someone based on content, would you even want to?  Is this a viable concern, or is it maybe an unintentional byproduct of following a lot of people that we really don’t know?

What do you think the solution is?  Do you unfriend/follow people that discuss topics that don’t interest you?  If you had the ability to filter their content based on type, would you?

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The secret to creating brand advocates

It’s not about having a transactional relationship with your customers, it’s about having an emotional one with your fans.

Thoughts?

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Think Like a Rockstar: Create something amazing for the people that love you

So I was on Twitter late Friday night, and I saw this tweet from @AmandaPalmer.  It got my interest, so I did some checking.  I found dozens of tweets from Amanda’s fans either gushing about her and thanking her for letting them attend the secret show, or those that were angry that they missed it.

From Amanda’s blog, here’s how the secret show was set up:

p.s. for those of you who were waiting on more info about the SECRET-BOSTON-AREA-SHOW next saturday, we put together a little contest. if you wanna come, we’re picking about 50 lucky people who’re gonna join in on our crazy little loft party in arlington, and it’s your LAST CHANCE TO ENTER. get in on this shizzle NOW:

* head over to my profile on GetGlue. you can find it right here:http://getglue.com/recording_artists/amanda_palmer
– don’t have a GetGlue profile, yet? it takes about 20 seconds and you can do so athttp://getglue.com/signup (they also have an app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Blackberry, and Android – you can sign up on those, too)
* “Check-in” and tell us your favorite AFP-related concert memory, starting with something along the lines of I really want to see Amanda on tour this summer http://bit.ly/AFPtour or My favorite AFP-concert memory was…
– feel free to get creative about how you say that you wanna come, just make sure to include a link to the tour page
– if you haven’t ever seen me or the dolls or evelyn evelyn live, post a link to your favorite live YouTube or Vimeo clip and tell us why you’re excited to (hopefully) come
– bonus points for cross-posting to Twitter and Facebook, and for clicking “Favorite” on AFP (and other AFP-related stuff like The Dolls, Evelyn Evelyn, 8in8, etc)

and that’s it. any questions? post HERE and sean’ll get back to you, asap. we’ll be going through and contacting winners throughout tonight and tomorrow, getting e-mail addresses so that we can get your name for the guestlist, and know where to tell you the location of the show.

 

So Amanda created a free show for her biggest fans, with the requirement for getting in being that her biggest fans would have to share why they loved Amanda.  Which is something they were already doing anyway.  The lucky fans that got to attend were then treated to an amazing show, and they now love Amanda even more.  The fans that didn’t make the show are now extremely jealous of the ones that did, but still love Amanda for going out of her way to connect with her fans.

Attention big companies: You usually make this ‘marketing’ stuff a lot harder than it has to be.

I will once again go back to that wonderful quote from Steve Knox:

Think about what Amanda did here.  She didn’t use social media as a channel to generate sales, or connect with new customers.  She used social media to embrace her biggest fans, and give them a reason to love her even more.  Totally flies in the face of what most companies try to do, which is generate sales from new customers.  Instead, Amanda said she was going to create something totally amazing that customers want, but she not only wasn’t going to charge for it, she was going to give it to her existing customers.

This is why we don’t call these people ‘Amanda’s customers’, we call them ‘Amanda’s fans‘.  The next time Amanda has a paying gig, her fans that attended this show will be even more likely to pay to attend (because they love Amanda even more now) and they will be more likely to encourage their friends to come with them (because they want their friends to love Amanda like they do).  Amanda has created a way to embrace her biggest fans, and to let them do her ‘marketing’ for her.

Why is it that companies can’t get this?

To be fair, some companies are trying.  Ford recently had an event where they flew in influential bloggers to spend a day with them.  The focus was on Ford and its products, but there was also live entertainment and interesting speakers such as Malcolm Gladwell.  That’s definitely not the same as Amanda’s secret show, I think the focus with Forward with Ford was ‘how can we show you what we are doing and get you to like us more?’ while the focus with Amanda’s show was ‘how can I show you how much I love you?’

Which is a big reason why I think rockstars have fans, and companies have customers.  Because most companies view the relationship with their customers as being transactional, while most rockstars view the relationship with their fans as being emotional.

Companies, if you want to be successful, follow Amanda’s approach: Find a way to connect with your biggest advocates, and delight them.  Don’t worry about selling anything to them, create something amazing for them, and then watch as they take the initiative and promote you and maybe even gush about you to their friends and networks.  The end result is that you’ll get those sales you wanted to begin with, but the added bonus will be that you’ll also create a way to excite and delight your biggest advocates in the process.

Again, y’all make this ‘marketing’ stuff a lot harder than it has to be.

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So how big is #Blogchat? Here’s the stats…

As those of you that follow #Blogchat and other Twitter chats know, recent changes to Twitter’s Terms of Service have made it more difficult for 3rd party sites/apps to provide the chat transcripts that so many of us rely on.  WTHashtag, a popular site many of us used to create our own transcripts for Twitter chats, was shut down by the move.

So I was looking for a replacement to WTHashtag, and the good people at Hash Tracking reached out to me to let me look at the transcript and statistics service they offer.  What I love about their service is that first, I now have a way to provide transcripts for everyone that follows #Blogchat!  But in addition to offering a transcript, Hash Tracking also gives me some decent stats behind #Blogchat, which is something that I really didn’t get from WTHashtag (other than volume of tweets).

Here’s a screenshot of what the dashboard from last night’s report looks like:

If you’d like to view the report for yourself, you can find it here.

Now if you can’t see that picture clearly, it shows that last night’s #Blogchat had over 3,300 tweets, generated a staggering 15.9 MILLION impressions, had 445 contributors, and reached 1.7 MILLION people.  What I also love about the interface is that it gives me the ability to break down the stats and see who was tweeting the most, who was generating the most impressions, etc. And in case you were wondering, those numbers are actually down a bit from recent weeks.  For example, on May the 29th, the #Blogchat that night generated almost 20 million impressions.  I was able to break down the stats and see that several million impressions were generated by @JessicaNorthey and @ProsperityGal.  The interface also lets me see which users are the most active, so I know I need to make special effort to connect with them and thank them for participating.

Now think about what a company would have to pay to get 16 million online impressions.  Even if we assume a CPM of only one dollar, that would still cost a company $16,000 to buy as many impressions as #Blogchat generated last night.

This is one reason why I am such a big proponent of Twitter chats for companies.  If done correctly, a company could create a robust community that will help them extend and expand its brand awareness.  Just doing some quick math, if a company had a weekly Twitter chat that averaged 10 million impressions a week, that would generate  520 million impressions a year, and again assuming a CPM of $1.00, would save the company $520,000 in online advertising costs!

Something to think about, and if you or your company want to start your own Twitter chat, here’s how you can get started.

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The Importance of Creating Your Own Blogging Path

It seems that a lot of people are wanting to copy the efforts of popular bloggers.  They want to figure out how to be the next Chris Brogan or Mashable or Jessica Northey.  I wanted to talk about why I think that’s wrong, but first I wanted to tell you about a couple of my favorite bloggers (and people).

The first is Gini Dietrich.  I’m sure most of you know and love Gini and her blog, Spin Sucks.  Gini is sharp as a tack, but what I love about her writing is that its business-oriented, but personal at the same time.  Even when she is talking business, she still writes in a way that makes you think you are listening to your best friend tell you how their weekend was.  Everyone loves her writing and her style, which is exactly why she has such a passionate community of readers.  She posts almost every day, usually TWICE a day if you count guest posts on Spin Sucks, and she averages dozens of comments on her posts.  Gini’s readers love her, and as she clarified in a post here, her readers are driving business to her.

The other person I wanted to point you toward is CK.  In contrast to Gini’s 2 days a day and dozens of comments a post, CK posts about twice a month, and gets about 1-2 comments per post.  But what CK also does is have a laser-sharp focus with the content she creates via her blog, and elsewhere.  Don’t believe me?  Google ‘B2B Mobile Marketing’ and see how many of the results on the 1st page are content that CK has created.

The point here is, both Gini and CK (and you both should know each other, BTW, consider this an introduction!) have created a content strategy that works for them.  Too many of us try to replicate what is already working for someone else.  That’s THEIR strategy.  We all need to come up with our own path and our own voice.  Look at Gini, she has created a wonderful community on her blog, and that community is helping to drive business for her.  On the flipside, CK is breaking one of the biggest ‘rules’ of successful business blogging: She’s only posting once or twice a month.  But it works for her because every post is optimized and helps her expand her online footprint in the B2B marketing space.

Think about this especially if you are a solopreneur.  You are completely responsible for your blogging strategy, so you have to consider what works for YOU more than what works for anyone else.  You can and SHOULD draw inspiration from other bloggers, and you should be aware of what’s working for them.  But you should NEVER attempt to copy someone else’s strategy and approach if it’s not right for you.

Here’s a personal example:  When I started blogging in 2005, everything I read about successful blogging said to blog like Seth Godin does.  Short, quick, to the point.  Write your post as if it’s an executive summary, because no one has the patience or attention span to read more than that.

I want to tell y’all, it took me FOUR DAYS to write my very first blog post.  Because I agonized over that post for 3 days and 23 hours and 30 mins because I had no idea how in the hell I was going to condense my first blog post down to 3 paragraphs.  Finally, I said ‘screw it!’ and wrote the post *I* wanted to write, in 30 mins.  As soon as I accepted that the ‘blogging rule’ about proper post length didn’t work for me, I wrote the post I wanted to write.

And that’s made all the difference.  The beauty of blogging is that it gives us all a way to share our voice.  I told my friends at the Live #Blogchat at the B2B Forum this, but I honestly believe that most people are smarter than they give themselves credit for.  I fear that too many bloggers feel that their posts will only be popular or ‘work’ if they mimic the way a particular blogger writes.  Five years ago when I started blogging there was no David Armano or Beth Harte or Shannon Paul that I could learn from.  And no doubt they were inspired by other bloggers, but they also found their own voice and their own blogging path.

If you are losing your passion and excitement for blogging, if could simply be because you are trying to walk someone else’s path, instead of your own.

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5 Steps to Giving Your Blog Clarity and Focus

One of the most common complaints that struggling bloggers have is ‘I don’t know what the blog’s focus is’.  This is a BIG problem for a lot of bloggers, but it’s one you need to overcome if you want to truly have a successful blog.  Here’s 5 steps to getting you past this roadblock:

1 – Figure out who you are writing for.  It all starts here.  Once you figure out who you are writing for, then your content strategy to reach that audience will fall into place.  For example, I am writing this blog for companies that want to learn more about how they can successfully use social media to connect with their customers.  That’s my primary audience.

Your primary audience could be potential employers, potential clients, or your friends and family.  But whoever it is, YOU need to figure it out, because if you don’t know who you are writing for, you can best bet that your readers won’t.  And you need to pick something more concrete than ‘people that want to read my stuff’.

2 – Pick your title and tagline.  After you’ve decided who you are writing for, then look at your blog’s title and tagline.  You might not be able to do much with the title, but your tagline should explain exactly what your blog is about.  Note that mine is ‘What are you doing?  Helping companies understand the ‘social’ part of social media.’  That tells them exactly what they are getting into.

3 – Use the 3-second rule.  If someone that doesn’t know you arrives on your blog, how long will it take them to figure out what the blog is about?  If it takes longer than 3 seconds, assume they will leave.  This again, is where the tagline can really help you, because when we arrive at a new blog, we immediately look for the blog’s title/tagline, and then any pictures.  If we are confused by the title/tagline, and don’t see any pictures of the blogger, we will probably leave.

4 – Keep your sidebars clean. On a lot of blogs the sidebars are a hot mess.  In fact on some, the fancy widgets etc are actually throwing off the formatting of the entire blog.

When it comes to the sidebars, think about how the content/information/widgets you put there will help you reach your blog’s goals.  You will have a TON of options for adding stuff to the sidebar(s), but that doesn’t mean you should.  Less is often more when it comes to sidebars.  Remember, the content is the star of the blog, don’t make it take a backseat to flashy widgets and such on the sidebar.

5 – Be careful with ads on your blog.  A lot of bloggers think that they aren’t a ‘pro’ blogger until they have ads on their blog.  Or that they won’t be viewed as being a ‘serious’ blogger without ads.  Horse-hockey, ads take up space that could be given to content that could help your readers.  Period, so don’t make that tradeoff unless those ads are worth your time, and that of your readers.  Remember, the purpose of ads on a blog is to ultimately ENHANCE the experience of the blogger AND the reader.  If the ads aren’t making you any money, and aren’t relevant to the reader, then they are a total waste of time.  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have ads on your blog, but I am saying you should only keep them if they make sense for both you and your readers.

So there are 5 quick tips for bringing clarity and focus to your blogging efforts.  If you only follow one, PLEASE pay attention to #1 and decide who you are blogging for.  Everything else will flow from that.

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Turning failure into success

I was standing behind my podium, and I began our presentation.  A minute or two into introductions and laying out the reason for our talk, I lost my train of thought.  A second or two suddenly grew into a very noticeable and pregnant pause.  I glanced across the room at my co-presenter, who was standing behind another podium, hoping he would bail me out.  The look on his face told me I was on my own.  I glanced up at the audience, and the face of my instructor in the back row of the room.  She was looking over her glasses at me with a frown that screamed ‘you aren’t prepared, are you?’

I wasn’t.  I didn’t review my notes prior to the class, thinking it would go better if I ‘just winged it’.

In reality I stopped talking about 2.3 seconds ago, but it felt as if we were in Day Three of Mack’s Great Silence.  I glanced back down at my notes, and for a brief second I seriously considered running from the classroom, even giving the door a few feet from my podium a sideways glance.

Thankfully, I found enough composure to finish the presentation, and I believe I ended up with a B in the Business Communications course.  But I just wanted out of there and left knowing that if I never had to give another presentation in my life, I would be a happy camper.

Fast forward almost exactly 9 years to last week in Boston at the B2B Forum.  As I was talking to other attendees and we were discussing our favorite sessions and especially how good the keynotes were, I caught myself thinking ‘I really wish I was presenting here’.

The lesson I’ve learned from this is that your failures can lead to successes.  I used to hate public speaking, as most introverts do.  Now I love it, because I found a way to learn from my past failures, instead of letting them define my ability to speak in public.  I learned from that horrible experience in undergrad, and now prepare meticulously for every presentation.  I always know the material well enough that I can ‘just talk about it’, and that greatly improves the quality of my presentations.

Nine years ago I was so nervous in front of a room of undergrads that I seriously considered running from the room, now I love speaking, and get paid to do so.  Life can be funny sometimes.

What failures have you used to shape your current successes?

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Congrats to the 3 blogs we’ll be reviewing at #Blogchat

If you remember last month we reviewed 4 blogs during one of our #Blogchats, a new one every 15 mins.  That #Blogchat was very popular with y’all, so I decided to make it a monthly feature!  The 3rd Sunday of every month we will review 3 blogs from #Blogchat participants.  This is a VERY small way I can hopefully repaid you guys for helping to make #Blogchat so successful.  I really do appreciate every one of you!

Now, for how we will handle tonight’s #Blogchat:  Every 20 mins starting at 8:00pm Central, we will review one of the 3 blogs listed below (they will go in the order listed).  Each blogger has given us some feedback on the areas they want us to pay close attention to, but if you see something else that catches your eye, make note of that.  And feel free to be critical of the blogs (we are trying to help each other) but please also offer suggestions for improvement.  For example, if you tell a blogger that ‘your left sidebar is really weak’, explain to them how they can make it stronger.  Just try to make sure that every time you point out that something is broken, you follow up with ‘here’s how you can fix it…’

And without further adieu,  the winnahs are…

Todd Jordan’s The Broad Brush.

Here’s Todd’s feedback for us:

1) Sidebar -> is it relevant/interesting to my blog’s focus

2) Landing pages -> serious help needed here. What can I change/add/delete- HELP!

3) Contact page specifically.

 

The Nerd Connection.

Here is Allison’s feedback for us –

I’d love to have The Nerd Connection [http://allisondduncan.com] looked at for readability. I feel like the sidebar may be too cluttered and the articles may be too indepth to garner much readership.  I’m trying to reach bloggers in general, Nerds/techies as a niche, and wordpress users as a whole.

 

Senior Care Corner.

Here is the feedback Barry gave us (BTW Barry gave INCREDIBLE feedback, if you want to get your blog chosen for one of the future Blog Review #Blogchats, give as much information as Barry did here).

Our blog is written primarily for adults who have elderly family members for whom they are caring and/or about whom they care, often while living some distance apart. The blog is first an outlet for sharing information to help both the family members and the seniors about whom they care, which is an interest of ours from both personal experience and work. We would like to earn revenue by providing attractive products/services that solve problems faced by our audience but realize we need a larger regular audience to make it meaningful financially.

We value the #BlogChat community’s suggestions regarding design changes or feature we should consider to get more repeat visitors. From our stats, the overwhelming majority of our visitors are first-timers and we would like to get more of them to return or at least to follow our content through some means. Are we making it easy enough to get our information? Does the overall visual effect of our site turn off visitors or negatively impact their perception of the information we provide?

Many #BlogChat participants are either part of our target audience or will be at some point so the feedback would be valuable from that standpoint as well as their experience with successful blogs.

 

So those are our 3 blogs that we will be reviewing tonight! Thanks to everyone that submitted their blogs, if yours wasn’t picked, please resubmit it next month!  Please visit these blogs today and make some quick notes on what you would improve about each one, paying close attention to the areas that the bloggers asked for feedback on.  This will be a lot of fun and even if your blog isn’t being reviewed, you can still learn a ton from what others have to share!  See you tonight!