MackCollier.com

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Fans, Friends, Followers, and the Reason Why None of it Matters

I’ve tried to stay off the soapbox for the most part here the past two years, but the first blog post from Kathy Sierra in 4 years has got my mind racing.

I’ve been blogging for 6 years now, and the blogging and social media spaces have gone through a lot of changes in that time. One significant change I’ve noticed is how we define who the ‘authority figures’ are in this space. In 2005, if you wanted to know who the top bloggers or the ‘A-Listers’ were, you asked around.  Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, Hugh MacLeod, Kathy Sierra, Seth Godin and Jason Calcanis were some of the names you heard over and over again.  All people that were moving the needle, that were legitimate ‘thought leaders’.

Then, rankings aspects began to enter into the picture. Technorati started tracking the number of incoming links a blog had (later called the site’s Authority).  That changed the A-List a bit, as now a site’s ability to gain incoming links became more prized.

Later, around late 2006/early 2007, we all discovered Facebook, and that added a new layer to defining the A-List: Number of friends.  As a result, the A-List changed a bit more.

Then around 2008 or so, Twitter really started to gain steam. Which, you guessed it, meant that Followers now became a new way to define who the ‘A-Listers’ were.

What I’ve noticed is that how we define who the thought leaders are in this space has changed dramatically. In 2005, we figured out who the experts and A-Listers were by listening to each other.  The A-Listers were the ones that got talked about the most, and linked to the most, and who were on the most blogrolls.  There wasn’t really a way to ‘rank’ them, we just knew who was creating great and valuable content, and those were the people that we listened to, and whose opinions we valued and trusted.

Now, the rules for defining authority have changed. Yes, good content still matters. But so does your number of Facebook friends, your number of Twitter followers, and your Klout score.

The problem is, your number of friends, followers and your Klout score can be gamed.  Let’s be honest, I would be seen as a greater authority in the social media space by many people if I had 50,000 followers instead of my current 25K.  And we also know that all I’d have to do to hit 50K, is follow another 25K people.  That would be gaming the system.

A very unfortunate side-affect of using rankings such as friends and followers to determining authority is that the ability to teach isn’t as important as it once was.  Let’s revisit that list of A-Lister from 2005:   Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, Hugh MacLeod, Kathy Sierra, Seth Godin and Jason Calcanis.  All teachers. But today, it seems that more of the supposed leaders want to tweet about how you should ‘be awesome’ instead of teaching us how to be awesome.

We don’t need another ranking board. We don’t need to know who has the most followers, or fans, or the highest stock price on Empire Avenue. We don’t need to know how to get more RTs or how to get on more lists.  And we sure as hell don’t need to deal with the grief of thinking we aren’t smart or influential if we don’t have X number of any of the above metrics.

We don’t need to see tweets telling us to ‘be awesome’, we need more teachers that will roll up their sleeves and teach us how. And if someone can’t do that, then do they really deserve to be viewed as authorities?

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You need a company blog because the customer (thinks he) is always right

This morning I was making myself a Belgian waffle. I know from past experiences that if I put too much batter in the maker, that it will run out the sides, and when I open the maker, the batter will stick to both sides, and I’ll have a ruined waffle on my hands, and a mess to clean up.

Again, I know this.  But I went ahead this morning and added too much batter, it ran out the sides, and sure enough, I had a ruined waffle on my hands.  As I was cleaning up the mess, I caught myself thinking ‘This thing sucks’.

It wasn’t the waffle-maker’s fault that the waffle was ruined, it was my fault. But like a lot of people would do in a similar situation, I tried to pass the blame to the product, instead of admitting it was my fault.  Completely irrational, but who ever accused humans of being rational creatures? 🙂

I decided to check, and the waffle-maker (Black and Decker) does have a blog.  But the blog doesn’t allow comments. If your company decides to turn off comments then you have to realize that you are effectively limiting yourself to only being found via search engines.  And yes, I understand that many companies don’t want to allow comments because they don’t want to deal with negative feedback from customers. But as studies have proven, negative feedback is usually good for your company, if you handle it correctly.

Don’t view your blog as being a marketing tool, but more as being a customer service tool. A place where you can help me solve problems with your products, or get more information. A company blog is an especially wonderful place to help me with problems that *I* create, such as the above episode with my waffle maker.  Black and Decker could use its existing blog to write a post on 5 Steps to Creating the Perfect Belgian Waffle, and make one of those steps be ‘Don’t put too much batter in the maker!’  Then if the blog turned on comments, I could have left one saying that I used the blog’s tips, and created a perfect Belgian waffle, and am happy with my Black and Decker Belgian waffle maker!

So if your company has a blog, keep these content creation tips in mind:

1 – Don’t create product-centric content, create customer-centric content. Think about how your customers will use your products, and why. For example, a post from Black and Decker touting the production advantages and benefits of its waffle-maker is almost meaningless to me, since I already own it. But if B&D writes a post on how to create the perfect Belgian Waffle, that helps their existing AND potential customers, because the content is customer-centric.

2 – View your company blog as a customer service tool more than a marketing tool. The blog isn’t a place to sell your products, it’s a place to sell the products benefits, and connect with your customers. If you’ll open up comments and use the blog as a place to address customer concerns, you’ll find that your customers will not only become more loyal, they will promote you to others. Which, ironically, becomes far more effective marketing than anything you could do via a blog post!

3 – Your blog should supplement your existing content, not replace it. A big reason why you don’t want to include a lot of product-centric posts on your blog is because all that information should already be on your website. Your customers will come to the blog to get more specific information on how to use your products, or to get in touch with you about an issue they are having.  For example, if I had no idea why my waffle maker was ruining my waffles, I would have searched to see if Black and Decker had a blog, before I searched for the company’s website.  Because I know that I have a better chance of finding information that would solve my issue on the company blog versus the company website.  You need to understand this as well, and give your customers the information they are looking for, in the place where they are looking for it.

Just curious, but when you have a problem with a product, are you more likely to go to the company website or blog to look for help?

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Online Influence Is More Than Just Social Media Activity

I logged into Klout this morning, and was greeted by this pop-up ‘warning’.  It tells me that my Klout score is dropping, and that I can raise it by sharing more content, and engaging with my network.

Klout adds this explanation for what its score means: “The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence.”

So Klout tells me that it measures online influence, but that in order to increase my score, I should increase my social media activity?  Then doesn’t that mean it’s measuring my activity instead of my influence?

Likewise, Empire Avenue also explains that your score there is dependent on your level of social media activity: “When you join Empire Avenue, you can connect your Social Networking accounts, and we’ll score activity and engagement in each account and give you a virtual share price.”

Essentially, Klout and Empire Avenue are measuring your level of social media activity, not your level of online influence.

Simply sharing more content and engaging with my network isn’t going to make me more influential over them.  In fact if it’s not the type of content and engagement that they are looking for, my influence over them will fall, not rise as I become more active.

Also note that both Klout and Empire Avenue are encouraging you to participate with their site.  EA includes activity on the site as part of your score, and Klout is already encouraging you to give +K to other members, and I’m betting they will come up with other ways to reward you for interacting more with other Klout members.  Which is smart of both sites to do, but it doesn’t help either of them more effectively measure my perceived online influence.

What do you think?  What role does social media activity play in online influence?  Does one lead to the other?

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Wait, my blog’s search traffic is down, what happened?

Welcome to another edition of ‘What can we learn about our own blog from watching Mack obsess over his?’

Ok, as most of you know, in January I decided to ramp up my posting schedule.  Since this blog’s launch 2 years ago (BTW Happy Birthday!) up till January of this year, I had kept to a pretty consistent schedule of 1-2 posts a week.  Sometimes I’d have a bit more, sometimes a bit less.

But if mid January, I decided to really boost my posting here.  I went from 1-2 posts a week, to 4-6.  I immediately saw a huge spike in traffic, and along with it, search traffic.  Now to be fair, search traffic here was already increasing at a steady pace, but as soon as I started posting more in mid January, the gain increased.  Here’s a graph of my weekly search traffic over the life of the blog:

The X marks the spot at which I started posting more often in January, and as you can see, the last 6 weeks or so has been sideways.  Also note the slow and steady growth, but it seemed to kick up an extra notch right after the X.

Now this graph bugs me, because I want to understand why search traffic has flattened over the past 6 weeks.  I did some checking and thinking and I’ve come up with two possibilities:

1 – I haven’t been posting as much. Every week since April the 10th, I have posted a consistent 4 posts a week here.  The next week is when search traffic started going sideways.  The three weeks prior to that, I posted 5-6 posts each week.  That’s one possibility.

2 – I haven’t been focusing as much on specific search keywords and phrases.  I honestly think this is it more than posting schedule.  From Jan through March I really tried to focus on specific keywords and phrases not only in my post title, but in the post as well.  And it really worked, I got excellent search rankings usually within a few hours for whatever search keyword/phrase I had targeted.

So here is the (very) inexact method I have come up with to test to see which is the cause of my flatlining search traffic.

This week, I will post 5 posts here.  This one is the second for this week, so there will likely be a new one here on Wednesday through Friday as well.

Next week, I will go back to posting 4 new posts here, but each one will be search optimized with a particular search keyword/phrase in the title and the post.

Then in a couple of weeks, I’ll report back and share the results with you.  My guess is that 4 search-optimized posts will produce more search traffic next week, than 5 non-optimized posts will this week.

And no, this isn’t a perfect test, and it won’t definitively prove anything.  This is more about me wanting to get a better understanding of how my blog works, and what impacts search results.  That way when I am at a conference and someone asks me a question about search traffic, I can give them my own experiences, instead of just regurgitating what some other blogger wrote 😉

If you obsess over your search traffic as well, what have you discovered that impacts it?  Do you think posting more often or spending more time optimizing for search will help me?

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Are we headed toward a Social Media snapback?

Let’s say you are presented with a unique and unexpected opportunity.  One that would require a several-month commitment, that would mean significantly shaking your life up, but could ultimately be the best thing that ever happened to you.

You need to ask some friends for advice.  People that know you completely, your life situation, and that you trust to give you good and sound advice.

Now if you needed to make a list of 5 people from your Twitter network to email (not including friends you know outside of Twitter or before you used Twitter), how long would it take you?  I ask because I often find myself in such a situation.  And every time I struggle to find more than 2-3 people that I would really trust to reach out to.  And every time I hear this tiny voice in my head saying ‘why is it that you are following these people?’

Which is a silly question to ask, because I am following everyone on Twitter and Facebook and wherever because I value the connections.  But do we reach a point at which adding more connections stops adding value?  Or worse, can we reach a point where adding more connections lessens the value of our existing connections?

Which becomes an interesting question to ask, when you consider that most social media sites and tools are built around making it easier to connect with more people.  But lately when I am on Twitter, for example, I’m often in Twitter chats.  I’m finding that I’m getting more enjoyment from Twitter chats, because even if the chat is huge like #Blogchat, I can zero in on a small discussion with just a few people, and really connect with them.  It becomes more like having dinner at a conference versus being with 500 people in a session.  I am seeing far more value in these discussions with smaller groups, and I’m finding that I am then starting to connect with them more outside of the chat.

So I have a couple of questions for you:

1 – Do you think in the next couple of years that we will see people begin to become more aggressive about ‘pruning’ their social networks, so that they have a deeper connection with the people they friend/follow versus just following them based on who they are?

And this is the far more interesting question to me…..

2 – If #1 holds true, will we begin to see a shift in the functionality of social media tools so that they encourage and facilitate smaller networks with deeper connections?  And what would that look like?  Simply limiting the number of connections you can have?  Maybe the ability to expand your network has to go through your existing network via an introduction or something similar?  Not sure, but I think the possibilities are endless.

 

What do you think?  Are you facing social media burnout?  Would you rather be loosely connected to 5,000 people, or closely connected with 50?

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How the CDC is Using its Blog to Prepare Us For the Zombie Apocalypse

One of the complaints you often hear from businesses and organizations about blogging is that they aren’t sure what type of content to create to reach their audience.  That they don’t know how a blog can help them build awareness for their particular product.  That it’s ‘too boring’ and that no one wants to read a blog post about….

A recent blog post by the CDC (Center for Disease Control) disproves the notion that there’s just some products and services you can’t blog about.  Let’s say you work for the CDC and your boss tells you to write a blog post that will explain how to build an emergency kit, and that will also raise awareness for the need to do so.  Oh, and you also need to get Twitter buzzing about the post.

Even with the recent horrible tornadoes and storms that have ripped through the South and Missouri, building an emergency kit is not something that is top of mind for most people.  And yet, the CDC has created a blog post that explains how to create an emergency kit that has Twitter buzzing and that currently has over 100 comments.

So how did the CDC take the topic of creating an emergency kit, and make it so interesting to so many people?  They explained that you need to create an emergency kit in order to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.

Genius!  What the CDC did is take a topic that’s not that interesting to a lot of people (building an emergency kit) and wrapped it in an analogy that is (the coming zombie apocalypse).  Check out some of the tips from the post:

  1. Identify the types of emergencies that are possible in your area. Besides a zombie apocalypse, this may include floods, tornadoes, or earthquakes. If you are unsure contact your local Red Cross chapter for more information.
  2. Pick a meeting place for your family to regroup in case zombies invade your home…or your town evacuates because of a hurricane. Pick one place right outside your home for sudden emergencies and one place outside of your neighborhood in case you are unable to return home right away.
  3. Identify your emergency contacts. Make a list of local contacts like the police, fire department, and your local zombie response team. Also identify an out-of-state contact that you can call during an emergency to let the rest of your family know you are ok.
  4. Plan your evacuation route. When zombies are hungry they won’t stop until they get food (i.e., brains), which means you need to get out of town fast! Plan where you would go and multiple routes you would take ahead of time so that the flesh eaters don’t have a chance! This is also helpful when natural disasters strike and you have to take shelter fast.

There’s several things I love about the approach of this post:

1 – It makes the CDC seem ‘more human’. They are showing they have a sense of humor, not to mention a knowledge of pop culture.  This post instantly makes the organization more accessible to more people.  That’s a good thing.

2 – They are spreading the message on terms that appeal to their target audience.  The CDC could have written this exact same post without the zombie references and verbiage, and it would have been far less interesting.  Which means it wouldn’t have been shared by nearly as many people.  But because the post was written focusing on a topic that’s more interesting to others, it will get shared by others.

3 – Even though the zombie analogy is added, the CDC’s core message still spreads.  This post still raises awareness of the need to create an emergency kit, and now the topic is more front-of-mind for a lot more people.  So the end goal of the CDC in creating this post, is achieved.

And the CDC was even smart enough to create badges you can add to your site/blog.

I love this approach, and I hope it will challenge you to think about how you can make your blog content more interesting to your readers.  BTW thanks to Geno for bringing this post to my attention via his excellent post on what Zombieland taught him about community-building.

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How One Blogger Has $20,000 a Month In Sales on Her EBook

A few weeks ago on a Sunday I was scrambling for topic ideas for that night’s #Blogchat when @SarahMaeWrites suggested we cover How to Create and Sell an EBook that night.  That sounded interesting, and then she DMed me to add that she had just created and sold one, so I thought ‘Perfect!’ and asked her to co-host.

Now what I didn’t realize is that this pretty young lady had unleashed a social media marketing dynamo to promote and create interest in her ebook.  She had a clear strategy, and was leveraging social media and her existing online network to promote the book.  And her strategy was working incredibly well, so well that she has now sold over 8,000 copies of the ebook in less than two months.  At $4.99 a pop.  Do the math kids, she’s making $20K a month JUST off this ebook.

And the reason why is because she created a valuable product and did a fantasmic job of promoting it and building interest in it by not only leveraging her community, but involving them in the entire process.  When I heard Sarah’s story I just knew this would be such a wonderful case study to help show others what really smart social media marketing looks like, so I asked Sarah if I could interview her, and she was gracious enough to accept:

Mack: What made you decide to write an ebook?

Sarah:   A few things…

First of all, I read this: Indie Author is Making Millions by Selling the App Store Way (I have no idea how I came across this article, I wasn’t searching for ebook info or anything like it.) I found the article fascinating and tucked it away in my mind.

The second thing that influenced my decision to write an ebook has to do with my serious procrastination skills (and lack of the ability to write on cue). I had an article due for a site I write for monthly and I had nothin’. I finally decided to go through my archives and I landed on a post from a series I did two years ago on cleaning (which was more about the heart than on the actual mechanics of cleaning). I posted it.

The response was significant; women were relating with what I wrote. I knew the content was something that could help and encourage women, and I wanted to get it out there.

The best part was that I knew I had enough posts to go ahead with the ebook on my time table (I have very limited time being a SAHM to little ones). My cleaning series was 31 days long – I had 30 articles to work with. Timing was also perfect – it was March and spring cleaning was just about in full swing. I knew I needed to put my series into a book and release it in April (time is crucial!).

 

Mack: What goes into the actual creation of an ebook?  And once you create it, how do you distribute it?  Do you put it on your servers and let people download it?

Sarah: For me, it’s mainly the writing I focus on. I hire a designer to do everything else, from turning my document into a PDF (anyone can do this, but I always seem to mess it up!) to having her format it on Kindle and Nook. I use (and highly recommend) Erin from insightblogdesign.com. She is professional, efficient, affordable, has an eye for design, and is an easy personality.

As for distributing it as a PDF download, I heard good things about E-Junkie, so I went with them (this I do myself-they take you step-by-step through the process). So far, so good. They also have an affiliate set-up, the ability to create discounts, video branding, and more.

 

Mack: When did you start promoting, before or after the ebook was released?

Sarah: I started promoting pretty much the minute I decided to put my series into an ebook. I deleted the posts from my site, began to re-work and update them, and let my readers in on the ride. I used social media because it is my platform – I have an audience on it. I had built up my personal blog, started another blog, and was hosting a conference. I am in the social media sphere because that is where my community is (one I am so thankful for, especially as a SAHM).

 

Mack: How did you use social media to promote the book?

Sarah: Here’s what I did: I held two launch day giveaways on my own two blogs to get things started with a bang (I contacted companies and asked them if they wanted to participate). I then asked many bloggers to review and/or have a giveaway of the book (reviews on blogs are key-the more the better). I did pay a few blogs for advertising. I used Twitter and Facebook to create a community around the book – a hashtag for Twitter and a fan page on FB (both of which I regularly interact with). I created a youtube video where I talk about the book (over 10,000 views) and I started a website for everything related to the book (including freebies). I also used the power of free to get the word spread. For one day only I offered the book for free to anyone who spread the word via social media channels. It was a wonderful success. I gave away over 2000 books, but the reach was just what I was looking for – I wanted to break through my own sphere of influence and reach beyond, and the free day did just that. It even got my book mentioned on two different radio stations in different states. The goal? Be everywhere.

I also put the book on Amazon Kindle. You’ve got to have your book on Kindle (and Nook).

(Mack’s note – Pay attention to where Sarah said she gave away 2,000 copies of the book in one day.  That might seem like she was losing sales, but note how she said that by doing that it greatly EXPANDED the reach of the ebook and pushed it past her network.  Allowing her to get MORE sales!)

 

Mack: What has been the biggest surprise from doing this ebook?

Sarah: The biggest surprise was the amount of ebooks I sold. I honestly was hoping to sell about 50…maybe 100 if I was “lucky.” I had no idea I would sell over 8000 copies in less than two months. Shocking, actually, comes to mind.

 

Mack: Are you thinking about doing additional ebooks now that your first has been so successful?

Sarah: Yes. Although now I’m in this interesting place of deciding if I want to continue with ebooks or go traditional publishing. If your ebook takes off, a publisher may want it. However, just last week Amazon announced that Kindle E-Book sales surpassed printed books for the first times. A sign of the times.

 

Isn’t that just the coolest story ever?  BTW here is another great post recapping Sarah’s process.  And of course, the ebook!  You can go here to learn more about it (and isn’t that site just amazing? ).  And please do check out her blog, Like a Warm Cup of Coffee.

Thanks Sarah!

UPDATE: Here’s some more information on some of the fees associated with selling the ebook, according to Sarah:

Addendum to the interview: I have been extremely blessed with the sales of my ebook, but please remember that I do factor in taxes and tithe, which takes 40% off my gross. On Amazon, I receive 70% royalties (for U.S. sales, 30% for abroad), and then take 40% off of that. Paypal charges about .44/book, and E-Junkie (where I distribute the PDF) charges $5/month.

And here’s the link to the post on Sarah’s site.

BTW some people seem to be a bit upset about the $20,000 figure being mentioned.  That was actually *my* idea, Sarah didn’t really even want to mention it, but I did because it would help get attention to the post because I wanted people to hear the strategy Sarah used as I think that’s the key.  Also, I changed the title as it technically wasn’t correct to say she was ‘making’ $20,000 a month, but again, that was my idea, not Sarah’s.

 

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Congrats to the Four Blogs That Will Be Reviewed at #Blogchat!

Thanks to EVERYONE that submitted their blog to be reviewed Sunday night during #Blogchat!  Since there were so many submissions, I decided that we’d review 4 blogs instead of 3.  Now if your blog was not chosen, please submit it again next month, and I’ll try to give priority to the ones that weren’t selected this time.  Also, if you do submit again, please try to add who you are writing the blog for.  This really helps us, especially if you are asking questions about the type of content you should be creating.

So without further adieu, here are the 4 blogs we’ll be reviewing tomorrow during #Blogchat!

Dave Cutler’s Blog at 8:00PM Central!

Here is Dave’s feedback for us:

I’m relatively new to blogging and also hoping the blog can help with my job search so feedback from the experienced pros could benefit me greatly. I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on any or all of the following:

Design/layout: is it clean and visually appealing? Anything specific I should change?

Content: I’m a traditional marketer transitioning more and more into the social media space. I’m trying to demonstrate knowledge and understanding but also cater to the fairly large percentage of my readers who are still quite unfamiliar with most aspects of social media. Am I accomplishing that balance?

Comments: What can I do differently to elicit more comments?

Feels Like Home at 8:15PM Central!

Here’s what Tara want us to look at:

1. Set up – My primary concern is whether I should change things around to make it more like a magazine with channels than a plain old blog. There are a few things I dislike about the design – things don’t always line up just so, the links are either all underlined or all not underlined, and the theme disables threaded comments.

2. Overall design – Is it appealing? Again, thinking about switching themes to Thesis (or something all together different) but a little intimidated by the work it would require.

3. Advertisements – It’s necessary for me to monetize, but I worry that I have too many ads on the page.

4. A landing page – I’m thinking about adding a static landing page. Good idea? Bad idea? I used to have a landing page with snippets of articles, but some readers complained. They wanted a full post on the landing page.

5. What’s missing? I worry that there’s something I’m not doing that I should be doing. I don’t know what it is. Is there something important missing?

New Day New Lesson at 8:30PM Central!

Here is Susie’s areas of concern:

1) Tagline. Right now it is too long. Have some ideas but nothing that I have said wow about.

2) Getting more subscribers. I have been blogging for over a year now. i have about 100 or so subscribers. I would like to up that.

3) Monetization- I have recently thought about monetizing, and put up amazon-though it is not doing anything and am not sure I like the concept. What ideas do you have and would you hold off till I have more subscribers?

4) Design-would love a revamp-can’t afford it right now. Any suggestions? I like the fact that there is the most recent post on top, then favorites and popular and then summaries of other posts underneath.

5) Post titles. Generally I put the “lesson” I have learned as a title. Do you think it would affect the concept of the blog (lesson learned each day) to get creative in the titles?

6) General-what would improve the experience of reading the blog.

7) Length of posts. I do all different lengths. Is that good , bad…doesn’t matter.

Social Butterfly Guy at 8:45PM Central!

Here is DJ’s feedback for us and what areas he has concerns with:

1. Design. It’s a WordPress Thesis Theme. I loved it 2 years ago when my blog launched, but it needs a refresh. I just don’t have the skills to do it myself nor the cash to pay someone as this is a personal blog.

2. SEO Stuff. Again, I’m using WordPress and it has some built-in SEO stuff, but I need help!

3. Content: As my tagline says, “It’s all about people.” My content is – for the most part – about people, but I worry that it’s all over the place.

4. Frequency: I was in a rut awhile ago, but finally got on track again. My last few posts have been some of my most viewed/commented in the past 2 years. But, I’m still struggling with the right balance on frequency.

So there you have it!  Those are the four blogs we will be reviewing Sunday night.  Congrats to DJ, Dave, Tara and Susie, and thanks to ALL of you that submitted blogs, and remember that if your’s wasn’t chosen, please submit it again next month when we do this again!  And if you will be joining #Blogchat on Sunday night at 8pm Central, please do visit these four blogs and make some notes for each of the bloggers so you can share your suggestions.  And this will also be a great way for all of us to get some ideas on how to improve our own blogs in the process!

Now it looks like we all have some homework to do, and some interesting new blogs to discover!

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Live #Blogchat is Coming to the Marketing Profs B2B Forum!

In less than one month, we will have the second LIVE #Blogchat ever!  That’s right, LIVE #Blogchat is coming to the Marketing Profs B2B Forum in Boston next month!  We’ll be joining what is already a stellar agenda and speaker lineup including CK, Ann Handley, KD Paine, Chris Penn and dozens more.

This will be the second LIVE #Blogchat, following its highly-successful debut at South By SouthWest in March.  If you’re familiar with #Blogchat on Twitter, then this will be an offline version of what is the biggest Twitter chat on the planet.  We won’t be on laptops, just a room full of smart people chatting and learning from each other and having interesting discussions.  Following the same format as on Twitter, we will have a one-hour meetup, then the actual #Blogchat will follow immediately after that.  The LIVE #Blogchat will be on June the 14th from 7pm-9pm EST.  The paint is still wet on this announcement, so we make have a few more details and surprises to add and if so, I’ll be happy to update everyone!

Now, how do you participate in LIVE #Blogchat?  The LIVE #Blogchat is only open to B2B Forum attendees, and luckily, Marketing Profs has given us a special discount code we can use to save $100 on admission!  Register via this link and add in coupon code ‘Blogchat’ to get a $100 discount!

So I cannot wait to see everyone in Boston!  If you will be attending the LIVE #Blogchat, leave a comment and also let us know what topic you’d like to discuss!

PS: If you’d like to bring a LIVE #Blogchat to your event, here’s where you can learn more information.

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Most Social Media Experts aren’t hacks, but a lot of them are misguided

As part of a project I am working on, lately I have been reading (and reading up) on a lot of the books that many ‘social media experts’ have written.  And I honestly find myself cringing at a lot of the advice that they are giving companies.  Basically, they are explaining how they got X0,000 followers on Twitter or X0,000 blog readers, then telling a company how they can do the same thing.

Which is the big elephant in the room: Just because you have 50,000 followers on Twitter does NOT mean you are qualified to advise a company on how it should properly implement social media strategies to connect with customers.  And to be fair, there are successful social media consultants that have more than 50,000 Twitter followers or 100,000 blog readers.  But getting to such benchmarks is not a ‘proof of concept’ that you know how to successful implement social media programs for companies.  Still, many people are trying to leverage the volume of usage on social media sites as a validation for their career choice as a social media consultant.

When I started blogging in 2005, it was a bit different.  Bloggers that were making a name for themselves by creating valuable content and creating a community on their blog, were being hired by companies and promoted at existing ones.  They were often hired to fill ‘Community Evangelist’ or similar roles, or if they already worked at a company or agency, they were promoted to handle some or all of that company’s social media and ‘community outreach’ efforts.  Neither of these solutions were perfect either, but at least then, these people were part of a TEAM and working within organizations where they were getting real-world business experience every day.  And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of the people that went that route in 2005-2007 are now some of the biggest names in the social media space.

But at this point we need to return to the issue at hand and make a clarification: If you can build a community of 50,000 people following you on Twitter or 50,000 people reading your blog that IS significant.  No, it doesn’t mean you are automagically qualified to sell social media consulting services to companies, but it DOES mean that you have an ability to create content that connects with people.  That is a SKILL, and one that you SHOULD be able to monetize.

I think the problem is (and I’ve been blogging this for 5 years now) that there aren’t a lot of viable options for how content creators can monetize their content-creation skills unless they have massive reach, and even then, it’s usually via ads on their blog.  If you think about it, it’s pretty ironic: Many of us in the social media bubble complained for years that bloggers shouldn’t be trying to make money off their blogs.  So a lot of people didn’t try (to avoid the potential backlash from readers and critics), and decided to become ‘social media experts’ instead and sell their services to companies.  Which meant an influx of unqualified people working with companies, and then many of the same people that complained about bloggers attempting to monetize their content, were then complaining about all the hacks calling themselves ‘social media experts’.

If you are ready to ‘cash in’ on your content-creation and community-building talents, here are some other options besides simply marketing yourself as a ‘social media expert’.

1 – Write an ebook.  Already rolling your eyes?  Stop it.  @SarahMaeWrites wrote an ebook based on a popular blog post series she wrote, and sold it for $4.99.  Big deal, you say?  She launched the ebook on April 11th and as of May the 9th, she had sold over 5,600 copies, meaning she made over $20,000 in her first month.  Can we get a show of hands of all the A-List Social Media Consultants that made even half that last month?  Sarah was smart because she leveraged her community-building skills to keep her readers involved and updated throughout the creation process (leveraging multiple social media channels) so that when the ebook launched, demand for it was at a fever-pitch.

Oh and ironically, which do you think would impress a company more if you were a social media consultant: Saying you had 50,000 Twitter followers, or that you created an ebook that made you $20K in its first month of sales?

2 – Get sponsors for the content you create.  Do you know how I ended up in Austin for SXSW this year doing the first-ever Live #Blogchat with two amazing sponsors?  I asked.  The event was an amazing success, and as a result I’ve had multiple events approach me since then about adding a Live #Blogchat to its program (one has already been announced), and I’m talking to multiple events about a Live #Blogchat to their program.

But you could get sponsors for your blog content.  Approach a company in your space and ask them if they’d like to purchase a 200X200 banner on your blog’s sidebar for a week.  What do you charge?  That’s up to you, personally, I would start very low, like $25 or so a week.  If your blog content is worth monetizing, then you’ll likely get a glowing recommendation from your sponsor, which will mean you can raise your prices PLUS, that recommendation will make it easier for you to sell additional sponsorships.  After a few weeks you could be making a few hundred dollars a month from blog sponsorships.  That’s a car payment, and if you create other forms of content (say, a podcast), then you could have sponsors there as well.

And after a few months of successfully gaining content sponsorships, then you can write an ebook on how to secure sponsorships, and sell it 😉

3 – Offer consulting to individuals versus companies.  If you know how to build up a network of 50,000 people on Twitter that follow and adore you, then think about the type of individuals that might be interested in those skills?  Maybe….politicians?  Athletes?  Maybe you could partner with PR firms that sign on politicians and athletes and work with them?  I think this area has HUGE untapped potential for a lot of the people that are trying to market themselves as social media consultants.

 

But at the end of the day, you have to realize two things:

1 – Simply growing a large following via social media channels does NOT mean you are qualified to offer social media consulting services to companies.  Doesn’t mean you can’t, but also doesn’t mean you’ll have much success.

2 – Being able to grow a large community around the content you create is a skill that you should be able to monetize, if you want.  And being a social media consultant is NOT your only option, and in many cases, it’s not your best one.  Start with the list above, but there are many more options available to you, if you are smart.

 

What do you think?  What are some other smart monetization options for content creators?

PS: I didn’t write this post to bash any ‘social media expert’ that I think is unqualified.  Honestly, the constant sniping back and forth about how so-and-so is a hack is killing the credibility of the ENTIRE space.  The focus of this post is to show that there are other options for making money off social media than diving into consulting.  And often, there are much better options, based on your skillsets.  I’m not trying to name-call, I’m trying to get a discussion started about what the monetization options are for content-creators.