MackCollier.com

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The fast food approach to social media

“May I take your order?”

“Yes, I’d like a small Twitter presence, with 200 followers.  And a Facebook Fan Page, but could you upsize that to 5,000 fans?  And I’d like to add a side of 3 updates a day to each, and a daily status report.”

Amazingly, I got an email earlier asking for exactly that.  This person wasn’t interested in a social media strategy, they wanted to know what I would charge them to create a Twitter presence with X number of followers, and a Facebook Fan Page with X number of fans.

This request really scares me for two reasons:

1 – That many companies think that number of fans or followers alone is a metric that indicates a successful social media effort.  And they do, the above request is far from the only one I’ve received.

2 – A shady agency or consultant looking to make a fast buck will be all over this request.

Folks this apparently need to be repeated: The number of fans/followers your social media presences has is meaningless.  If you want to have 500 followers on Twitter, then just start an account and follow 2,000 people (the follower limit for new accounts).  You should eventually get about 500 follow-backs.

But unless those 500 followers either do business with you, or have some level of influence over the people that WILL do business with you, then they are all but worthless to you.

In the opening exchange, what’s the magic word that’s never mentioned?

Strategy.

Getting 5,000 fans on a Facebook fan page is NOT a social media strategy.  Getting 200 followers on Twitter is NOT a social media strategy.  Facebook and Twitter are tactics used to execute a social media strategy, getting on Facebook and Twitter is not a social media strategy.

If you want to know more about creating a social media strategy, I wrote just the post for you, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Creating a Social Media Strategy (But were afraid to ask).  But please, don’t put the cart (tactics) before the horse (strategy).  And please don’t believe that more fans/followers = a more successful social media effort.  30 engaged and excited current/potential customers on your Facebook fan page will trump 300 disinterested followers ANY day of the week.

Pic via Flickr user Tony the Misfit

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How to be inspired by SXSW if you weren’t there

If you haven’t noticed on Twitter the past few days, geeks have been having a field day in Austin, otherwise known as SXSW-Interactive.  I’m often asked which social media conferences are ‘must attend’ events, and although I don’t think SXSW is right for everyone, I do think that anyone that’s active in the social media space should attend SXSWi at least once.

If you ask most attendees what makes SXSW so great, the response you will hear 99% of the time is ‘the people’.  In fact, it’s a bit of a stretch to call SXSW a conference, because most attendees aren’t there for the program, the sessions.  They are there for the discussions in the hallways.  The talks over dinner between 10 people that up till yesterday you only knew online.

But at its heart, SXSWi works because it gives us the chance to connect and share ideas.  Which is when the magic happens.  So how can you draw inspiration from SXSWi even if you weren’t there?  Here’s some ideas:

1 – Comment more on other blogs.  And don’t just comment to leave your feedback, become a participant in active conversations.  Talk to my friend Lisa Petrilli, she is doing an amazing job with this.

2 – Become an active participant in Twitter chats.  @JDEbberly is actively involved in several Twitter chats, including #blogchat.  I’m sure it’s greatly expanded his network because he’s constantly meeting and engaging with new people.

3 – Start a Twitter chat focusing on a topic you are passionate about.  Seriously, I have no idea why more people aren’t doing this.  Beth and Anna started #IMCchat because the need for integrated marketing is a topic they believe in.  But it could be anything, it could be about your love of NASCAR, Civil War memorabilia, or politics in Rhode Island.  Pick a topic you want to discuss and run with it.  I didn’t wait for anyone to tell me that it was ‘ok’ to start #blogchat, I just did it.  You don’t need permission to connect with other people that are just as passionate about a topic or idea as you are.

4 – Attend local social media events/Tweetups – And especially if it’s a Tweetup, wear a name tag with your Twitter name on it.  A great icebreaker!  Nothing in your area?  Float the idea out to your friends about having a Tweetup or maybe even a Barcamp/Podcamp type meetup.

These are some ideas to get those connections, both online and offline, going.  And if you DID attend SXSWi, how are you going to keep that level of inspiration going once you get back home?

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How to Create a Company Blog That Customers Will Actually Give a Damn About

Recently, a ten-year veteran of company blogging said he was throwing in the towel on his company blog.  So when Joel on Software goes up in smoke, does that mean that it’s finally time to pronounce that company blogging is dead?

Hardly.

What it means, is that there are now a LOT more companies blogging.  And unfortunately, that also means that there are a lot more very crappy company blogs out there.

But a well-written and positioned company blog is just as effective now as it was 10 years ago.  Probably moreso.  The key then, as now, is to create a company blog that your customers will actually read.

I loved this quote from Joel’s article where is points out a discussion he had with one of my heroes, Kathy Sierra:

So, what’s the formula for a blog that actually generates leads, sales, and business success? I didn’t even understand it myself until last year at the Business of Software conference, when one of the speakers, a well-known game developer and author named Kathy Sierra, blew me away with an incredibly simple idea that explains why my blog successfully promoted my company while so many other blogging founders foundered.

To really work, Sierra observed, an entrepreneur’s blog has to be about something bigger than his or her company and his or her product. This sounds simple, but it isn’t. It takes real discipline to not talk about yourself and your company. Blogging as a medium seems so personal, and often it is. But when you’re using a blog to promote a business, that blog can’t be about you, Sierra said. It has to be about your readers, who will, it’s hoped, become your customers. It has to be about making them awesome.

Bingo.  Your company blog has to tap into the ‘bigger idea’ that makes your content more relevant and valuable to your customers.

For example, recently I did a social media strategy audit for a client that sells western wear.  Part of the audit involves assessing how the company, as well as its competitors, is using social media.  The company in question had a blog, but it was primarily being used as a vehicle to promote product giveaways.  So the only people reading the blog were people hoping to win a ‘free prize’.

But as I started looking at this company’s Facebook Fan Page, and those of its competitors, I noticed something.  All of the people that were posting on the wall of these Facebook pages were talking about how they loved western wear, but more importantly, how the clothes fit into the larger western lifestyle.  These people were talking about how they loved attending rodeos, riding horses, wearing cowboy hats and boots, being in touch with nature.

In other words, this company shouldn’t be focusing its social media efforts on directly promoting its products, but on the LARGER LIFESTYLE that its customers had fallen in love with.  As I explained to them, by shifting the focus to the ‘western lifestyle’, the content you create for your customers becomes much more valuable and relevant.  And the kicker is, you can STILL promote your products, because those products ARE a part of this lifestyle.

A perfect example of a company already doing this with their blog is Patagonia.  Here is what it says on the About page for Patagonia’s The Cleanest Line blog:

The goal of The Cleanest Line is to further Patagonia’s mission by encouraging dialogue about the products we build, the sports we love and the environmental issues we’re concerned about. By talking openly about the products we build, Patagonia users can help us achieve ever greater standards of quality and functionality. By spreading the word about specific environmental issues, we can increase awareness and take action as quickly as possible. By sharing field reports, we can inspire one another to keep experiencing the natural wonders of our precious planet.

Notice the focus. It’s not completely on Patagonia’s products, although they will be discussed.  The focus is on the environment, sustainability, and the planet.  Patagonia understands that these are the topics that its customers are most passionate about.  They don’t want to talk just about their products, but how Patagonia’s products fit into these larger issues that their customers care about.  So Patagonia focuses on those larger issues, or the ‘Bigger Idea’.

What’s your blog’s bigger idea?  What is the larger idea or concept that your products are a part of?  Because that is where your blog should likely be focused if you want your customers to actually care about your blog.

Pic via Flickr user Sister72

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Do you always have your community’s best interests in mind?

How many of you have done this same thing?  Commented on a friend’s status or item then almost immediately you started getting emails from Facebook alerting you to other people that had commented as well.

This is perfect if you want to see what everyone else is saying.  But what if you didn’t?  What if you just wanted to leave a comment and move on.  And the constant stream of unwanted emails will now make you think twice about leaving that next comment on a Facebook update, won’t it?

Which is ironic, because Facebook is sending you those emails to try to ENCOURAGE you to go back to its site and check the updates.  To comment again.  But often, the persistent emails can lead to FEWER comments, not more.

I hate am not a fan of Disqus.  Partly because I always seem to have trouble getting the comment form to load properly to begin with, but mostly because it always seems to send me emails about new comments on a post after I leave a comment.  Even when I tell it not to.  It’s sending me these emails because it wants me to go back and re-read the comments to see what I have missed.  Instead, it makes me less likely to comment on blogs that have Disqus installed.

Everyone is buzzing about FourSquare.  But if you’re active on Twitter, you’ve no doubt seen that some of the buzzing is coming from people that are sick and tired of seeing constant FourSquare updates in their Twitter stream.  Seriously, I’m expecting someone to say they are at the right cushion on their couch, then the following tweet to be “I’ve just ousted my wife as Mayor of My Living Room”.

As with Facebook and Disqus, these updates are designed to get people to check out FourSquare.  The advantage to the user, and FourSquare, is obvious.  But what benefit do these constant updates have for the rest of us?  Often times, they are simply a nuisance.

And when you are trying to build awareness for your online community, you need to consider this.  You need to make sure that in attempting to build that awareness, that your efforts are also CREATING VALUE for the people you are trying to reach.

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How many filters does your message pass through?

Remember that game where a group of people sit in a circle and one person whispers a rumor to the person next to them?  Then that person whispers it to the next person, and so on until the rumor has worked its way around the circle.  Then the last person tells everyone what the rumor is, so they can see how the story changed from start to finish.

I was thinking about this game when Kevin Smith recently had his very public spat with Southwest Airlines.  I’ve already covered what happened and my thoughts over at The Viral Garden, and don’t want to rehash everything here.  But I think this case is an interesting study in how the number of filters or channels a message goes through can have a serious impact on when a company responds, and how they respond, and perhaps most importantly, WHAT they believe they are responding to.

Case in point, Kevin had the tools available to DIRECTLY communicate with 1.6 million followers on Twitter.  For Southwest, they had to have the flight attendants and pilot, and gate attendants all communicate with their PR dept, and at that point the message MIGHT have gotten in touch with someone that could respond to Kevin via the same tools he was using; social media.  So it’s obvious that Kevin could get HIS message out much quicker than Southwest could.

And to be fair, Southwest is very active in social media.  But even with that, their natural communication infrastructure dictated that their response to Kevin’s message couldn’t come as quickly.  All of the above people, the attendants on the plane and at the gate, the pilot, and perhaps others, all had to be consulted to get their version of the incident with Kevin.  Then when all the information was collected, the PR dept had to issue the appropriate response for Southwest.

So how does a company address this and get timely and accurate responses out via social media tools during a crisis situation?  I think it comes down to a two-part solution:

1 – Reduce the number of channels that a response must pass through

2 – Reduce the amount of friction in each channel

When there is a crisis situation, a timely, accurate and valuable response is essential.  Companies should be aware of social media and how these tools work, if for no other reason than to understand how their customers are utilizing these tools to create and share content.  Now granted, if you’re running a 1-man fruit stand, understanding how your customers could be using social media might not be your top priority.  But if you are a Fortune 50 B2C company that is ignoring how your customers communicate via social media, you have a ticking time bomb on your hands.

So companies (especially larger ones) should invest the time to educate their employees on social media tools, what they can and cannot do, and how their customers are using these tools to communicate with each other, and to create content about their company.  They should also create a social media policy so that employees understand not only how to use social media tools, but what usage is acceptable, and if any is not.  Many of your employees will be using social media anyway, so it’s best to put some guidelines in place to govern their usage on company time.  This will also give employees that aren’t familiar with social media and incentive to become active in using these tools to connect with customers.  IBM has a great social media policy, if you want an example to look at.

Next, companies should create internal tools that allow employees to connect with each other.  Tools like Yammer give employees a quick and easy way to connect with each other, and collaborate on projects.  Companies like Dell and LinkedIn have internal blogs and wikis set up that let their employees connect with each other and share information quickly and easily.  This helps reduce friction in the channels, but can also reduce the number of channels, if it allows a front-line employee to instantly connect with the appropriate person that can respond to a developing crisis situation.

But at the end of the day, the key to addressing a developing crisis situation via social media is to utilize the same tools that your customers are, in the same way.  If there’s a firestorm erupting via blogs, your customers will expect you to respond via those same blogs, not via a carefully-worded press release 4 days later.  If your company can educate its employees about how to use these tools, both external AND internal communication will be greatly improved, as will your ability to deal with future crisis situations.

PS: Thanks to Beth Harte for recommending I write this post.

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The ROI of giving a damn

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to see a tweet from Mike Myatt about an article FedEx’s Matt Ceniceros had written where he discussed how the company uses social media to connect with its customers.  He added this passage:

“Social media” can seem like a complex world of diverse and daunting technology. But the technology is fairly easy to learn if you spent some time with it. Social media is really just another channel to tell people about your business.  If you read any of the top online influencers like Chris Brogan, Mack Collier or Dan Schwabel they all give insights on how to be “social” and personal online.  They tackle many of the issues we have in face-to-face communication, but how to translate the learnings online.

I really appreciate Matt mentioning me in that context, and especially with Chris and Dan.  Matt’s doing a great job of leveraging social media to connect with Fed-Ex’s customers online, and he’s the only employee of ANY shipping company that I’ve ever interacted with on Twitter.  So he’s got a leg-up on the competition there.

Matt and I have talked on Twitter several times, some times about how companies can use social media, or how his company can use social media, or we’ve even chatted about college football a few times (Matt’s a big Texas fan).

If you’re like many people, and especially companies, you might look at social media and think “Ok how is talking to a bunch of people all day going to help me?  What’s the ROI of being friendly on Twitter?”

It’s a legitimate question, and one that many of us struggle with.  Hell I have to justify to myself the amount of time I spend using social media.

But I don’t ever feel the need to question if there is value in helping others.  In connecting friends, in sharing what I’ve learned.  Case in point; even though Matt and I have talked several times on Twitter, we may never work together, and technically I probably won’t get any direct business from interacting with him.  But because we’ve chatted before, because I’ve tried to help him, we became friends via Twitter, and that’s probably had something to do with him mentioning me in his article.  Which then got RTed several times, then Chris RTed it to his 100K or so followers, and a whole lot of people were exposed to a very positive endorsement by the guy that heads up social media for one of the largest companies in the world.

Not too shabby.

This is why I don’t think companies should obsess about the ROI of social media.  Should they, MUST they see a return on their time and money and effort?  Absolutely.  But if companies view every single interaction and minute spent with social media through the lens of ‘is this going to make us money?’, they are going to miss the big picture.  That social media works best at INDIRECTLY creating value for companies.  It’s not “If we tweet, we’ll sell more stuff”, it’s “If we can create value for our customers via Twitter, then that will increase their trust in us and the brand equity we have with them and then AS A RESULT of that, sales will increase.”

For example, let’s look at #blogchat.  Our weekly chat about personal and professional blogging on Twitter has been growing like a weed for 11 months.  Occasionally, friends will tell me “You need to find a way to get some business from #blogchat, you’re spending too much time with it not to.”  But I didn’t create #blogchat as a way to get more consulting business, I created it as a way for people to come together on Twitter and talk about blogging.  That’s it.  Now as a result of #blogchat I have connected with people that HAVE referred me to clients and that HAVE hired me to do work for them, but that’s been an INDIRECT result of creating the chat.  If I tried to make #blogchat a vehicle for DIRECTLY giving me business, it likely would be a lot less valuable to everyone else, and as a result a lot less popular.  Which means it probably wouldn’t be helping me get any business anyway.

So companies, be mindful of getting value from your social media efforts, but understand that the more value you CREATE for the people you are trying to connect with, the more value you’ll receive in return.

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Audio Post: Defining Online Influence

Hey guys, I wanted to try something different with this post. Lately I’ve been struggling to find time to get new posts up here and at The Viral Garden as frequently as I want. So I wanted to experiment with doing some audio posts like this one. I can do these quicker than writing a post, and if you guys like the format I might do one of these a week or so, and see how it goes. If you don’t like them, let me know that as well.

Thanks guys! And if you have any problem with the player or the audio, let me know!

[audio:https://mackcollier.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Post2-15.mp3|titles=Defining Online Influence]

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So how much will a social media strategy cost?

One of the most frequent questions I get about social media is the cost. What will launching a blog/Facebook fan page/Twitter presence cost me? What will a social media strategy cost? The answer is never clear-cut and depends on several factors, including:

  • What are your goals for using social media?  This greatly determines the tools necessary to achieve those goals
  • What are your resources?  Can you handle everything in-house, or will you need to outsource some of the work?  All of the work?
  • What is the length of the project?  Obviously, a 6-month project will cost more than a 3-month project.

From my point of view as a consultant, I am looking at how much work is involved, and what type of work, when I give a quote.  One word of caution; If you contact a consultant or firm about doing social media work, they SHOULD ask you several questions before they can give you a price.  If a company contacts me and asks “Ok, what’s it going to cost us to launch a blog?”, then I can’t answer that question without more information.  And here’s a tip; If you ask a consultant/agency how much it will cost to launch a blog/Facebook fan page/Twitter presence for you and they immediately quote you a price, that is a big red flag.  They can’t answer that question until they know what your resources and goals are for using social media.

Now, I know what you are thinking.  “Yeah that’s great Mack, but give me some prices!”  While it’s almost impossible to give any company an accurate quote without talking to them about the above and so much more, I’ll share some ranges with you to give you an idea of what to expect.  And I will caution you that these are my prices, some agencies/consultants will be more, some will be less, and you should consider this a guide only.

Blog:

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource all content creation (including customer interaction) – $3,000-$6,000 a month

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource all content creation at first, eventually take over – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource some content creation till you can handle all – $2,500-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Restructure an existing blog to improve your efforts – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching to improve your existing blogging efforts – $1,500-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Twitter:

Launch a new presence on Twitter and outsource all content creation and customer interaction – $2,000-$5,000 a month

Launch a new presence on Twitter and outsource all content creation at first, gradually taking over – $2,000-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Restructure an existing Twitter presence to improve your efforts – $1,500-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching to improve your existing efforts on Twitter – $1,500-$3,000 a month for 3-6 months

Facebook:

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing all content creation and customer interactions – $3,000-$6,000 a month

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing most of the content creation at first, gradually taking on more – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing some content creation at first, till you can handle all – $2,500-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months.

Restructure an existing Facebook Fan Page to improve your existing efforts – $2,000-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching on improving your Facebook Fan Page – $1,500-$3,000 a month for 3-6 months

Social Media Strategy:

Comprehensive Social Media Strategy, assuming outsourcing of all content creation through all channels (not recommended) – $5,000-$12,000 a month

Comprehensive Social Media Strategy, assuming outsourcing of most content creation at first, with company assuming more responsibility as project proceeds – $4,000-$9,000 a month for 4-12 months

Creation of a Social Media Strategy, with limited coaching and assistance with execution of the strategy – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-9 months

Restructuring of existing Social Media Strategy, with limited coaching and assistance with strategy – $2,500-$6,000 a month for 3-9 months

Limited coaching on improving the execution of an existing Social Media Strategy – $2,000-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Social Media Strategy Audit – $2,000-$5,000

Thanks to Anita for leaving a comment that reminded me to include this.  This is a service I offer to companies that gives them an audit of their existing social media strategy, as well as that of their competitors and the marketplace, to give them a suggested course of action for social media, moving forward.  This is for companies that aren’t sure how to proceed with social media, and want to know what sort of resources they will need to use social media effectively.  I have been getting several requests for this service over the last couple of months as companies begin setting their budgets for 2010.

Again, these figures should be considered a guide to get you started.  Obviously, the more work you need, the more the cost.  For example, if you have a team of 10 bloggers that I will be coaching, it’s probably going to cost more than if I am working with 2 people.

One final point: In general I don’t advise companies to outsource their social media efforts.  If you need to outsource some/most of your efforts at first till you get up to speed, that’s fine.  But if you hire someone to create and execute a social media strategy for you and outsource EVERYTHING to them, then you’re locked into needing to pay them big money for as long as you use social media.  And what happens if they are hired by a company?  There goes your social media strategy.

I understand that some companies need to outsource.  But in the long-run, your efforts will be more effective, and cheaper, the more you can handle yourself.  I was talking to a company recently about their launching a blog.  We were discussing if the company had the resources to keep and MAINTAIN a blog.  The CEO said he could that he had a great passion for his products, and the people that use them.  I pointed out that the PASSION was the one area that can’t be outsourced.  I can show you how to craft content that will be more valuable to customers and show you how to encourage interaction, but I won’t be able to match the passion or understanding that YOU have for your business.  That can’t be outsourced.

PS: If you’d like to get a custom quote on a social media project that you are considering, please email me!

NOTE: If you found this post via a Google search, this post first appeared in 2010.  The prices and services in this post have been updated for 2011 and you can find those prices here.

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I really want you to comment on my blog

Don’t most of us want more comments on our blogs?  Even the companies I work with almost always mention ‘getting more comments’ as one of the top concerns for their blog.

And it’s easy to see why we’d want more comments, after all, if our readers leave more comments, it has a lot of benefits for us:

  • More comments means more people will be likely to comment
  • More comments means more people will be reading the post, and spending time on our blog
  • More comments means there’s a greater chance of the post getting more links and retweets and being shared on other social sites
  • All those extra links and retweets means more traffic
  • We just like to know that people like the content we are creating

So we all know the reasons why WE want more comments.  Commenting is one of the key actions we want our readers to take when they visit our blog.

But have you ever asked yourself what’s in it for the reader?  What does the reader get from commenting?  Because if commenting is the action you want your readers to take, you need to give them a reason to.  And when they do, you need to acknowledge them.  Here’s some ideas:

  • Answer as many comments as possible.  It’s not a coincidence that I leave about half the comments written here.  And when I leave comments on other blogs, if the blogger replies to me, that makes me more likely to leave another comment there.
  • Promote the comments that your readers leave.  You can do that in the post, or even when you share a link to the post on Twitter.  I often link to each new post I write 2-3 times on Twitter.  Normally the first link is to the post itself, but often when I tweet out the post the second time, I will point out a great comment that someone left.  If they are on Twitter I might tweet ‘Love this comment by @BethHarte on my post about time management and social media!’
  • Add a Recent Comments plugin or something similar that displays the most recent comments left.  Readers like to see that you appreciate their contributions, and that’s a very simple way to do this.
  • Write posts based on comments left, and point out the reader that wrote the comment.

The point is, you’ll get more comments if you give people a reason to comment.  So don’t look at it as ‘here’s how I benefit from more comments’, but think about what your commenters get from the deal.

How have you increased comments on your blog?

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How high is your bar set?

When I was 11 years old, living in rural Alabama, one hot summer I joined a local football team.  The school where I was attending at the time didn’t have a football program, but a nearby school did, and a couple of my friends convinced me to join them in playing football.

My good friend and I were on the ‘midget’ football team, and my friend’s two older brothers were on the ‘pee wee’ football team.  To be honest, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of playing football for a school where I knew no one.  But my friend wanted to play, and my dad encouraged me too, so I sheepishly agreed.

On the first day, we were lined up and the coaches did a series of drills designed to help them figure out what our skills were.  Who could throw, who could catch, who could run, etc.  I noticed how all the other players were kidding with each other and the coaches.  These were all kids that attended this school together, so they were already friends.  Everyone knew everyone else, and being an introvert, that made me realize that I had no business being there.  No one knew who I was, and as the coaches lined us up for drills, a sense of dread came over me.  What was going to happen when it was my turn to catch a pass from the coach?  Of course I was going to drop the ball, because I was nervous as hell, and then everyone was going to stop and say “Who is THAT kid?  The one that can’t catch?”

Yeah it’s funny how a kid, especially an introverted kid that didn’t want to be there, can overreact.

So I watched as the line in front of me got shorter and shorter.  We were lined up and the person at the front of the line would run down the field, and the coach would throw them a pass.  Four kids in front of me, then three, then two.  Funny thing is, I wasn’t worried about dropping the pass, I was worried that the coach wouldn’t know who I was (how could he?), and that he’d tell me I didn’t belong there because I didn’t go to that school.  So by the time the kid in front of me ran out to catch his pass and it was just seconds away from being ‘my turn’, I was almost scared to death.  All the worst-case scenarios ran through my mind; The coach wouldn’t know who I was.  I would drop the ball and everyone would laugh at me.  The coach would laugh at me.  Who knew.

The coach watched the kid in front of me catch his pass, he clapped and shouted encouragement to him.  Then he turned and grabbed another football, and turned to look at me.  This was it.

Then he did something I will never forget; He looked at me, smiled slightly, and said ‘Ok Mack….go get it!’.  And he winked at me!  The man winked at me!  At that moment, all the irrational fears of an introverted 11 year-old kid in a football practice he didn’t really want to be at, immediately disappeared.

I ran a route that would have made Jerry Rice cheer, and if that coach had thrown that ball 10 feet over my head it wouldn’t have mattered because I still would have caught that ball.  When that coach smiled and winked at me, he was saying ‘You can do this!’.  And I immediately knew I could.

“So Mack” you ask, “what the hell does this have to do with social media?”

I think the lesson is to remember that you sometimes need to lower the bar to encourage interaction.  It could be on your blog, your community site, Twitter, where ever.

Believe it or not, there really ARE people out there that have never left a comment on a blog.  AND some of them are a bit intimidated at the idea.

Laugh all you want, but many of us have been there ourselves at one point.  And maybe it’s because I am an introvert, but I always keep these people in mind when I create content.  Look at my last post about social media rockstars.  I’ll be the first to admit that it’s probably not the most mentally taxing post you will ever read.  But that post  (hopefully) was very easy to leave a comment on.  It got several comments here, and many RTs on Twitter.

The idea is to occasionally (at least), create content that’s very easy for people to interact with.  Making your content more accessible. Because the more people that interact with your content, the better the experience for you, and everyone else.

Try lowering the participation bar, and see what happens.  Try saying “Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!”

That just might be the ‘wink’ of encouragement they were waiting for…

Pic via Flickr user pdubs.94