Social Media: How Much and How Many?
Social media sites are springing up all over the internet.
- How many should you belong to?
- How much time should you allocate to participating at each?
- And how do you measure success?
The answers to the above questions, of course, are:
- How many? 3
- How much time? 7.2 minutes per day
- How to measure success? 10 buckets of cash per site
Yes! I’m being facetious! The real answers are:
- Participate only at sites that facilitate conversations between the people you want to reach
- As much time that is socially appropriate to nurture desirable relationships
- One relationship at a time
Any questions?
ps - Brian Solis offers you a free e-book “The Essential Guide to Social Media”. A succinct, delightful, insightful read. If you had any issues answering the above 3 questions, go ahead and download his book today!
When you don’t need more web traffic…
People ask me about “traffic” all the time. As in:
“Laura, how do I get more web traffic?”
Somewhere, somehow, some folks seem to have forgotten that traffic is undesirable!
Sometimes, lots of traffic is stinky, smelly, and annoying!
Don’t get caught in traffic! There are about a zillion attraction and marketing tactics that can lead to the dubious goal of “more traffic.” Search Engine Optimization (SEO), press releases, ad networks, participating vociferously in social media — the list of online marketing tactics can go on and on. Which ones will work best for you and your site?
That’s where “strategy” comes in. The last thing you want to do is spend your time chasing internet marketing tactics without a strategy in place.
Dogs chase traffic.
Smart business people don’t.
photo credit: thetorpedodog
Take a look at what you’ve got. When business owners bark, “More traffic!” — I encourage them to take a hard look at their stats. Too many times, we find that “more traffic” is a lousy goal. In fact, many times, “more traffic” can be the kiss of death for the business. Why? Consider this all-too-typical scenario:
The Case of the Website Abandoners. Let’s say the website gets X number of visitors per month — yet averages less than 10 seconds per visitor. Further, the stats reveal that over 97% of the site’s visitors never return. So — what’s the point of getting “more traffic” to this site? To scare away even more customers?
What to do instead. When a site suffers from a high rate of abandonment, something’s amiss. It might be a simple technical glitch– or a systemic problem with the structure, content, imagery, navigation, or offer. Next, carefully look at the referring site for the visitors. Did visitors come from an irrelevant link, or a badly placed ad campaign? If a website is turning off visitors when it has only a little traffic , find out what the problem is — and fix it — before aggressively pursuing “more traffic”.
Get off the ego trip. It’s really hard to explain to a Creative Director at an ad agency that we need to tweak a few things at a newly developed site — even if it’s merely A/B testing a headline approach or swapping out some pictures. And it’s even harder to tell a business owner that they have a systemic problem that needs complete re-development. In both cases, this is what I’ve heard (from time to time!):
“Nonsense, Laura — if we only had more of the right people who understand what we’re trying to do here, we’d be fine.
Now, how do we get those people to come to the site?”
Gimmee, Gimmee More Traffic!
Woof! Woof! Woof!
Face the stats. When business owners refuse to face their stats, I’ve discovered there’s not a whole lot that I can do to help them. Web analytics teach us volumes –not just about what works online, but about our offline messaging, brand, competition, and customer behaviors, as well. In fact, web stats can often give you more useful information than what you’d learn in a focus group. After all, it’s real and it’s raw! It’s customer behavior! Your stats don’t lie.
More traffic is not the answer... When a site isn’t resonating with a small audience — the last thing you’ll want is “more traffic!” Instead, set appropriate numeric goals — including acceptable bounce rates, conversion rates, page per visit, time on site, percentage of return visitors — and test how well your site performs with limited visitation. In other words, analyze the heck out of your site!
Tweak, test, repeat. When your site successfully meets numeric goals with a small audience, you’re more likely to be in a position to attract more qualified visitors. Instead of “getting more traffic” — you’re more likely to “attract more customers.”
And isn’t that a much better result?
Watch the Rise and Fall of Blog Subscribers
The Rise and Fall of Blog Subscribers. Do you use Feedburner to burn your blog’s RSS feeds? That’s no surprise. Many blogs do — and with little wonder. Feedburner integrates so many useful tracking, marketing, and optimization tools — it’s almost ridiculous to blog and NOT use Feedburner!
When you’re in your Feedburner console, it’s easy to see the rise and fall of your own blog subscribers under the “Analyze” tab. Now, click on the “Publicize” tab. If you’ve activated either “FeedCount” or “Awareness API” — you’re in for a treat.
Go visit FeedCompare. This site lets you compare the subscription history of any Feedburner feed that has either the “Publicize” or “Awareness API” option activated. You can check your own feed’s subscriber rate over time — and maybe even spy on a few competitors!
What this means. You can check the accuracy of the subscriber claims of quite a few Feedburner feeds. Many times, bloggers deliberately check the “Publicize” or “Awareness API” option — often because they want to show off their superb subscriber numbers.
But a few times, I’ve caught a few sites that have been, ah, fudging their numbers, shall we say? In order to sell advertising, a few blogs boast higher numbers of subscribers than they actually have. FeedCompare lets you accurately check subscriber claims.
If you’d rather not have your own subscriber numbers be available to the general public, you’ll want to uncheck the appropriate options in your Feedburner dashboard. But if you’re selling advertising based on subscribers and growth — it’s a good idea to publish your subscriber numbers, anyway.
And, of course — if you’re selling numbers — you need to be honest about your numbers! Being open and transparent can help you — if you have a great story to tell!
How else will you use tools like Feed Compare?
Using LinkedIn Answers for Business Development
What is an effective way to use the LinkedIn “Answers” feature? Resume and connections are an important part of LinkedIn. However, “LinkedIn Answers” is a powerful, yet often under-utilized feature of the popular professional networking site.
In this brief interview, Grand Rapids-based marketing expert Jay Hidalgo focuses on how he uses “LinkedIn Answers” for business development. Essentially, Jay uses “Answers” to build his company’s reputation and earn trust.
A partner and founder at The Annuitas Group, a Grand Rapids-based Lead Management and Marketing firm, Jay agreed to share his winning “LinkedIn Answers” approach with me.
Laura: Jay, how did you initially hear about/get involved with LinkedIn?
Jay: About 4 or 5 years ago, my brother sent me an email about this “really cool site” called LinkedIn. Said it’s a great way for people to learn about your business. So, I created an account, and I waited. Nothing happened, so I ignored if for a while.
Laura: How has it since helped your business?.
Jay: About a year and a half ago, I started using LinkedIn more. At first, I used it to connect with people or to find people. Now, I use it mostly via the Answers area. It’s helped to give us visibility, and drives a significant amount of traffic to our website.
Laura: Tell me a little about how you use the “Answers” RSS feature at LinkedIn.
Jay: I researched the categories in the Answers area that I frequent most: Marketing and Sales, CRM, Direct Marketing, and Lead Generation. Then, using iGoogle, I set up a tab and labeled it “linked in”. Using the “add stuff” section of iGoogle, and the RSS feeder from LinkedIn, I have questions from each of those categories on my homepage, refreshing as they come in. I spend 5-10 minutes a day reading and answering questions. It helps me get my firm’s name out there pretty regularly.
Laura: What advice can you give other entrepreneurs for effectively using LI?
Jay: Don’t try to sell yourself. Networking, whether online or off, is about building relationships. Relationships are short-lived when you try to start them with a “What can I GET?” mindset. Go into LinkedIn with a “What can I GIVE?” mindset, and you won’t alienate people.
About Jay Hidalgo. Want to find out more about Jay Hidalgo? Why not visit Jay’s LinkedIn profile — you’ll not only see his resume, but you can read his answers and discover exactly why his LinkedIn approach works for him!
About The Annuitas Group. The Annuitas Group helps its clients improve their ROI on sales & marketing by developing process based marketing solutions to increase efficiency in demand (lead) generation and closed loop lead management. They then implement those solutions by providing marketing process consulting, services and marketing automation technology. The Annuitas Group is a VIP partner and certified reseller of Vtrenz iMarketing Automation, the leading marketing automation solution for the SMB market.
Social Media Fun With Wordle
Entering your speech notes into Wordle can create a relevant Welcome slide for your next PowerPoint presentation.
I’m working on a presentation about Social Media, so I enter in my introductory notes. Here’s what Wordle delivered –
Fun Stuff! If you were greeted with this slide upon entering a meeting, would you have clue about what the discussion might entail?
Grand Rapids Businesses: Give Social Media a Chance!
All we are saying is, “Give Social Media a Chance!”
Give it a good three months — June, July, and August lay before you.
So why not make this your summer of social media love?
photo credit: Phillie Casablanca
How to start. Whether you live in Grand Rapids, Michigan or Bombay, India — start by find, reading, and commenting on blogs with topics that interest you! At my other blog, I show you a cool new way to do just that.
Find out what bloggers are writing about your company. Bloggers are writing about your products and services. Are they raving — or ranting? Or are they silent — which means you’ve got no blogosphere buzz? It’s smart to stay in touch with your markets. Go where they are and where they live — online. It’s essential to know who’s talking about you and what they’re saying.
How to find out who’s saying what about you: At the very least, sign up for a free Google News Alert. Enter your company’s name, product names, competitor names, names of key executives, etc. — and how often you want to receive alerts. With this one easy move, you’ll begin to see just how visible — or invisible — your brand is with key influencers in the blogosphere and the main stream media.
How will you respond? Merely getting Google Alerts about your company can be a real eye opener. Some company MarCom directors are shocked by what they’ve learned. Don’t be shocked — be informed! What you learn from listening and how you respond is at the very heart of all your company marketing — not just the online stuff!
Manage your reputation. This brief post merely touches on why developing and adhering to a social media policy is crucial for both large and small businesses. The information you learn from listening to your customers is more important than any focus groups or surveys you conduct. It’s real, it’s raw, and it’s happening all around you. If you aren’t listening to it, your company’s reputation and survival is at risk.
That’s why I’m encouraging Grand Rapids businesses to make this the summer of social media love — start by listening and learning! Make a commitment to reading blogs for three months — summer is a great time for reading, right?
You can start by subscribing to this very blog! If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do. Here’s my RSS feed — put it in your favorite RSS Reader, and consider yourself subscribed!
Grand Rapids Blogs for Businesses
Over the past month, two folks offered me this challenge statement:
“Name a Grand Rapids business that has an active and thriving blog!”
Of course, I brightly answer, “Me! And I know a ton of local Realtors with blogs…”
But this is dismissed. I’m a writer and a sole proprietor. Realtors, too, are dismissed.
“No, no. Not individuals. Major, brand-name companies.”
Ah.
At that moment, we hear the crickets chirp.
Grand Rapids Business Blogs, Where Art Thou? Never mind the slight that I’m not a “real” business. The silence comes because at present, there just aren’t that many major Grand Rapids businesses that have committed to blogging.
For the moment.
This, of course, is going to change. Because it has to.
A brief search of companies revealed that other people are blogging about these major businesses.
But the major companies themselves?
Well, we’re back to hearing those crickets chirp!
Here are two of the main reasons I hear crickets in Grand Rapids when it comes to major business blogs:
Stop email attachment abuse!
I love my friends and family dearly. And I really like receiving funny emails and jokes from them. It shows they are thinking of me! They want to stay in touch!
But I run a business, and sometimes an email with a 10mg video attachment of sweet Aunt Sally’s cat can prevent me from getting fast access to more pressing business email.
photo credit: Conor Lawless
Email Attachment Abuse
For years, I’ve tried to re-train my “email attachment abusive” friends — with zero success.
In 2006, I even created a 5 minute audio podcast explaining email attachment netiquette. It worked for about 3 months.
Oh, I could always block abusers for their bad behavior — but I really DO want to keep the lines of communication open with Aunt Sally and Uncle Bob!
photo credit: ™bluhousworker
Some of my business pals suggest that I give out separate email addresses — just for my gravest abusers. But that makes me work extra hard. Further, this only enables their unwittingly bad email manners — and allows abusers to spread their abuse to others!
Stop Enabling Today!
So today, I’m trying something new. We’ll see how it works.
This is what I did, in two easy steps:
- I set up my inbox rules to automatically delete any email that hits my server that is over a certain size. (I’m not going to publish the size, because abusers can be sneaky — they might want to see just how much they can get away with!
- I also set my inbox rule to automatically reply with the following message:
I’m sorry, but the email you sent me contained a huge attachment, so I’m not accepting it.
If you want to share a huge file with me (or friends, family, and colleagues that you care about!) please consider using a free service like www.filemail.com instead of sending an attachment.
It’s not just safer — it’s also good 21st century “netiquette”.
Why is this practice more courteous than sending a big attachment?
1. Sending huge attachments chews up email server bandwidth. A huge file can block or delay urgent business email from getting through. Using a service like www.filemail.com converts your big attachment into a tiny link that I can click at my convenience.
2. Friends often want to send me huge “funny” videos and photos. I often don’t have time to view these “right away” — preferring to answer business emails first. When you upload your file to www.filemail.com — (or point to the same video at www.youtube.com for that matter!) — I get to experience your rich content when I have more time.
Thanks for understanding.
What do you think?
Will this work?
Will it end email attachment abuse?
Or will my email confuse and frighten Aunt Sally?
Internet Marketing: Grand Rapids meets Hollywood…
For the past few years, at least one of my websites comes up in the top ten at Google Local Search for the phrases “internet marketing Grand Rapids” or “web marketing Grand Rapids”. Take my Maniactive.com blog, for instance:
Now, this is a good thing. After all, I specialize in internet marketing. And I work in Grand Rapids, MI.
So why wouldn’t I (or any local business!) take advantage of a free & easy listing at Google Local?
(Note: quite a few of my local competitive colleagues aren’t there, which makes me skeptical about their online marketing abilities! Anyhoo…)
Here’s a fact: not too many people search for those particular terms. But the ones who do are usually pretty valuable to me. They’re looking for something very specific. And I get a few calls a month from this free listing, so it has a high ROI.
How times change! Earlier this year, I received a phone call from a local businessman who inquired about my web copy writing service. He told me he did a search for “internet marketing Grand Rapids” and up popped my name.
“Ah, Google,” I said.
“No, LinkedIn,” he said. “I’d never use Google to find a professional.”
What a quote! Turns out, by using LinkedIn, this businessman found out that “his people knew my people.” (How Hollywood!)
But my transparent personal and business connections increased his trust factor. Aside from my profile and recommendations, it was his personal connection to me that made him pick up the phone.
Conversely, by viewing his information and connections on LinkedIn, I quickly discovered that this was a person I wanted to meet.
We did lunch. (How Hollywood!)
LinkedIn works both ways, y’see.
Earlier this month, I wrote about the decline in search volume at Google for the term “real estate agents”. While this is a very general, non-local example, web findability trends for professional services are definitely changing.
Peer-to-peer and word-of-mouth recommendations are much more meaningful.
In 2008, instead of thinking SEO or “Search Engine Optimization” — think again.
Think “findability”.
Think “trust”.
Social media is changing your internet marketing mix.
How are you preparing for the change?
Why Hashtags at Twitter?
Hash is in the air!
Not only did I enjoy “Hippy Hash” at a local diner recently, I also discovered the joys of using hashtags at Twitter.
photo credit: ninjapoodles
What the? Why Hashtags?
Hashtags are a joyous way to track only certain Twitter posts. For example, if you’re at a conference, you might want to use a previously agreed upon hashtag in any Tweet that covers the conference. That’s what the attendees at the recent NAR conference did — you can actually follow the conference through their hashtagged Tweets at http://hashtags.org/tag/nar_midyear. Those of us who couldn’t attend the conference still felt like we were there!
Another example: yesterday, I started the #ATT_unwanted hashtag. I will only use this hashtag in my Tweets when I get yet another unwanted AT&T telephone solicitation. Instead of getting irritated with AT&T for continuing to plague me with unwanted phone calls, the hashtag is an easy way for me (and others!) to log the abuse. (If you keep getting unwanted AT&T calls, feel free to Tweet the details with the hashtag #ATT_unwanted.)
Backstory: for months, I’ve been getting an almost daily phone call from a person who claims to be an AT&T rep. When I tell the rep it’s the umpteenth time I’ve told them to put me on the “do not call” list, they all smugly say, “This is the first time I’ve personally called you.” One rep explained that when I tell each AT&T rep to put me on “donotcall” — they pass my number on to another AT&T rep. The rep said (nastily), “AT&T is a huge company. Ever hear of it? We found a way around the “donotcall” list by passing your number on to the next rep. We’re not going to stop calling until you buy from us. We’re way bigger and way more powerful than you’ll ever be. You might as well give up now: someone from AT&T will keep calling until you do.
Like I’d do business with a company with that kind of ‘tude!
As Twitter friend @phits said, “Lame!”
How to Hashtag
Hashtagging with Twitter is 4-step easy!
- First, get a free Twitter account, natch.
- Next, follow @hashtags
- Thirdly, in the appropriate Tweet, use the pound sign (#) followed by a unique & descriptive phrase (the hashtag)
- Finally, follow your hashtagged tweets at http://hashtags.org/tag/enter-your-hashtag-name-here
How to Give Your Hashtags Meat
If you’ve invented a new hashtag for an event and you want other Twitterers to participate and follow, you’re going to have to let them know what your hashtag is!
And by following hashtags organized around an interesting subject area — who know? You may find more Twitter friends to connect with!
What are some of your favorite hashtag uses at Twitter?
