Show me the MONEY

If You Build It, Will They Come?
It is hard work as of late, convincing individuals that blogging needs to be part of their digital personal brand strategy.
Especially those that have amassed valuable knowledge over the years and even those with great ideas and opinions.
Some tend to believe that all they need to have is a static presence, say hello on Twitter or Facebook once in awhile, occasionally add connections to their network and they are set to attract clients.
The “build it and they will come,” theory.
Lets be honest, this method doesn’t work and those that are venturing into this arena can back me up.  There is no “one size fits all,” path to success.
It’s about creating relationships and you have to drive, or even buy traffic. BUT it is not only traffic that is important. Unlike traditional media where today’s news is tomorrows fish and chip wrapper, the world of the Internet has staying power. So every entry into the online world leaves a digital footprint about you that can be found.
Magnetism  & Four-Letter Words
Streetwise professionals would probably also agree that publishing blog articles is like magnetising your target audience to you.  When the blog is quiet, the traffic to your blog slows or stops.
Lets take a look at some benefits:
•    Gives the writer credibility.
•    Focuses on the author’s ideas and expertise.
•    Establishes credibility in the author’s niche.
•    Attracts the reader to the author & the author’s additional content.

How awesome, right?
Who wouldn’t want that?
Ever met a salesperson that didn’t like the spotlight or to talk more about themselves?
Even so, when I say the word, “blog,”  it’s like I’ve said a four-letter word.
BLOG.

The definition of this word has also changed; with the advent of 140 character micro-blogs i.e. Twitter, the use of video blogs i.e. YouTube, picture blogs i.e. Flickr. Penning a few words can lead to engagement however the richer the content the richer the engagement.
Walking the talk
So, for some time, I’ve been pondering how I could get more people interested in blogging.  A little more exciting…more “sexy,” if you will.
It would have to be, or I’d lose my audience.
In this case:

•    Executives.
•    SME’s
•    Sales Professionals.

Individuals, that clients will make decisions about, in 2012 and future.
These days, the Internet is a haven of nifty new media.  A place where we read, play games, buy, sell, trade, socialise, and more… More telecommunications companies like Circles.Life are offering larger amounts of mobile data usage on a competitive price.
Building a boat
Back to my challenge – To making blogging more attractive and enticing.  As a parent, my instincts are to put a fun slant on it.
Much like how we convince our children to take their medicine with the song, “A spoon full of sugar.”  Or inspire others to remember something with a groovy acronym.
Finding the Hot Button
So, playing to what gets people enthused I realised this is the sweet spot…the hot button.  I should find a way for them to get just as excited about their blog as they might be about “MONEY“.
The acronym…
M – More
O – Opportunity
N – Needs
E – Engagement
from
Y – You
MONEY
More Opportunity Needs Engagement from You
Oh yes, Show me the money!
What sales person wouldn’t get excited about that?  Information about themselves – about their purpose – rippling across the Internet where their target audience is hanging out!
Can you imagine what could happen with this slightly changed perspective?

So…
Pen is mightier than the sword


The 2015 roadmap will be tough.  Battles between competitors are intense, at a time when our clients need answers and solutions.
Dell are changing customer engagement with mighty mileage from social media.  From a marketing, brand and personal standpoint, a blog should be the hub of your social media and digital presence.
Technology is already changing who wins and how.
Employees  – regardless of time served, status, or experience – NEED to stop snarling their nose at penning a few words once in awhile, and start realising the benefits.
For them, and their clients.


MONEY
More Opportunity Needs Engagement from You

97 Ideas for Building a Valuable Platform

Start Somewhere

  1. Don’t fret as much about the technology. Don’t have a blog? Start one at WordPress.com or Tumblr.com. If you want more flexibility, get your own WordPress blog (affiliate link) by clicking the 4th option on this page.
    If you’ve encountered problems along the way, there are a multitude of wpexperts online who you can trust.
  2. What are you passionate about? What is useful to others? These two thoughts combined are your best bet at defining your platform.
  3. You might be the “little drummer boy,” worried that what you have to say isn’t worthy. Everyone has something to contribute, especially if you remember to be the real you and not a copy of others you feel are successful.
  4. Get in the habit of writing daily, even if you don’t post daily. Start with 200 words. Then 300. The current best bet for a blog post’s length is between 300-500 words. You can get that.
  5. Remember that there are all kinds of platform-making choices. You can do blogs, video, newsletters, social networks, and many more avenues. What you can’t do is do ALL of those well. Pick a few and work from there. One, maybe two, is a good start.
  6. Don’t be afraid to consider video or audio as part of the mix. We are inundated with text. Why not give all those shiny new smartphones and tablet computers something to consume?
  7. The simplest of messages is often the one we need to hear the most. Paulo Coelho has a world record for how many languages and countries his book, The Alchemist, has been translated into for consumption. The real core of the book is about love and how all things are essentially the same.
  8. People always worry about how often or rarely they should post. The answer is “how often do you have something worthy of tapping into my attention?” Do it that often.
  9. It’s hard to create consistently without inspiration. Read often. Keep your eyes open. Be wary of how your world offers you stories every day.
  10. No matter what other tools you use, make sure you have a website that is your “home base.” Everything else is an outpost. You can spend more time on the outposts, but your goal is to encourage a visit to the home base for a furthering of the relationship.

Embrace Brevity

  1. We are in a consumption society. People can barely read a tweet. Keep everything brief. Note how a numbered list helps with this? Do similar things. Think bite-sized.
  2. We tend to overwrite. Most people’s first few paragraphs are throat-clearing, and their endings are weak. Try cutting from the beginning, and making sure the ending of what you write lands well.
  3. Short sentences rule. Read The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. You can’t not write like her afterwards.
  4. In video, the goal is under 2 minutes, unless it’s a speech or an interview. A trick: you can break up videos with your own “commercials.”
  5. People can barely read tweets. If your blog post is super long, make it worth it.
  6. Writing commentary about other people’s ideas is great – occasionally. Start formulating your own brief ideas.
  7. Want to master brevity? Learn how to create useful posts on Twitter. It spreads to other mediums quite well. Participate in a few hashtag chats like #blogchat on Sunday nights (US time).
  8. If you can say it with fewer words, do so.
  9. Think of ways to “chunk” your content, so that people can consume it. We’re consuming more and more on mobile devices. How will you serve that marketplace?
  10. Email newsletters were born to be brief. One “ask” per email is plenty.

Video. Video. Video

  1. Find a video recording tool and start using it. It can be your laptop. It can be a standalone like the Kodak PlayTouch. Whatever. Just start recording. Practice getting comfortable. Delete the first dozen until you feel like you can look at the lens.
  2. Get a YouTube account. You can use any other platform you want, but you must also use YouTube. It’s the #2 search engine in the world. Why would you NOT use it?
  3. Practice recording daily. Practice publishing weekly. Even if it’s just a few minutes. (It’s better if it’s just a few minutes.)
  4. Remember that brevity rules. 2 minute videos (or even shorter) get much more play and have many more views until the end than long videos. Yes, interviews are a different beast. Break them up with “commercials” or other ways to segment them.
  5. You can edit just fine in iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. If you graduate to Final Cut Pro or Sony Vegas or whatever, great. But don’t worry about that at first. Just start with the simple and the inexpensive.
  6. AUDIO is the secret to better video. People forgive a lot of visual mess if you have solid audio.
  7. How I learn more and more about video comes from watching and dissecting how others do what they do. Find interesting video shows (or TV shows) and figure out how they get what they get.
  8. Remember: start somewhere. You don’t have to do amazing video. You have to start telling a story that reflects you, and that is helpful to others. This is the core of a humble platform.
  9. Interviews are a great way to get started in video, because you can ask others to talk about themselves. Learning about others is often helpful to people.
  10. The more you practice with video, the more you’ll see rewards. We are a visual race, we humans. But don’t forget to add text in the post that contains the video.

Ideas Drive Platform

  1. If you’re the same as everyone else, how will we notice you? Ideas need contrast to make sense.
  2. The best ideas are the ones people can take and make their own. Give your ideas “handles” and let people take those ideas with them when they go.
  3. If you can clearly articulate your ideas, even simple ones work well.
  4. Sharing other people’s ideas helps show that you don’t feel you know it all. (Humble, remember?)
  5. Sometimes, a question makes for a great idea. I’ve learned plenty from admitting I don’t know something.
  6. One amazing idea trumps a lot of little ideas. And yet, usually really little ideas can be amazing. Sir Richard Branson’s biggest business idea is to keep his companies small. For a long time, only the airline bucked that trend.
  7. To come up with great ideas, read and listen to other people’s great ideas. To make your ideas great, share them as often as you can.
  8. Hoarding ideas is like stashing ice cubes under your mattress for later. Use them when you get them, and share them liberally.
  9. Never worry that someone else “stole” your idea. Ideas are free. Execution is what makes you money. I’ve met countless bitter people who “invented Facebook” years before.
  10. We love learning from people who have interesting and positive ideas. It’s harder to keep an audience, if you’re forever in the negative and griping camp.

Be Yourself

  1. The more I act like myself, instead of like what I thought the world wanted, the more successful I become.
  2. Realize that there’s a “hot mess” line, meaning that you have to filter the “you” that you put out there a little bit. People don’t want to hear every woe and misery in your life. (Most times. Dooce not withstanding.)
  3. Realize that being yourself means you won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Embrace that.
  4. The “yourself” that most people want you to be is the one that they can learn something from. And yet, if that’s not what you want to be, disregard me and be yourself.
  5. Part of being yourself is untangling from other people’s expectations. This is a very difficult matter, and yet important to building your platform.
  6. “Be yourself” doesn’t mean be only about yourself. Connecting with and caring about others is always a trait that earns more attention.
  7. It’s great to have a lot of passions. When displaying this via your platform, try to tie them to a larger storyline so that people understand how they connect.
  8. Never let your shortcomings become your reasons why not. Richard Branson is dyslexic. Ryan Blair went from gang member to millionaire success story. Excuses are Band-Aids on wounds that don’t exist.
  9. Marsha Collier said it best: “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”
  10. Start where you are. Lots of people worry that everyone’s so far ahead. Those people? They started somewhere.

Humble Is Better Marketing

  1. It’s better to focus on helping and creating useful information than it is to seek and share praise about yourself.
  2. Promoting others does more for your reputation and reach than promoting yourself.
  3. Share other people’s great work, and create great work. Yours will be shared, at some point.
  4. Leaving comments on other people’s sites with your links and promoting your stuff is poopy. It smells of desperation. Don’t do it. The only exception is when you’re invited to do so.
  5. Ask about others first. The most famous people I’ve met do this and do it well. Both Sir Richard Branson and Disney CEO Bob Iger asked me about me before I could start my interviews with them. In both cases, they were sincere and interested. Learn from the big dogs.
  6. The more you care about the success of others, the more you will be successful.
  7. Being humble isn’t a marketing plan. It’s a requirement for doing human business.
  8. Humble doesn’t mean “forgotten,” nor does it mean self-destructive. If you’re too humble, that’s also called “invisible.” Realize when the right times to chime in might be.
  9. Yes, occasionally, it’s great to pat yourself on the back.
  10. Remember that praise and criticism are the same: other people’s thoughts that shouldn’t sway your overall mission. (We tend to accept praise but loathe criticism. Learn to loathe it equally.)

Your Three Roles

  1. Whether or not you want to be, you are now in sales and customer service, along with whatever your main goal or drive might be.
  2. If you want your platform to succeed, you have to become comfortable with selling. Sell yourself. Sell your product. Whatever you’re looking to do, learn how to be open, clear, and honest with how you sell.
  3. Customer service (and use this term broadly) matters. If you’re selling something, serve those who are your customers. If you’re hoping to sell, realize that how you treat your prospects is how you should treat your customers.
  4. Marketing is part of sales. If you’re not finding ways to promote (humbly!) your ideas and your goals via your platform, you’ll not get the chance to have sales.
  5. Listening and responding are core to customer service. It’s amazing how many people miss opportunities simply by missing a reply. (Happens to me, often.)
  6. The old “ABC” from Glengarry Glen Ross was “Always Be Closing.” The new ABC is “Always Be Connecting.” Networks are what make selling easier. Your platform is part of how you network.
  7. Customer service also means sometimes learning who isn’t the best customer. It’s a tough moment when you have to let a customer go, but often times, this leads to improved success. (Tread cautiously here.)
  8. Most small businesses split their time in thirds: 1/3 prospecting, 1/3 executing, 1/3 serving your customers. That’s a good model for us, too.
  9. If you’re doing it right, all three roles complement each other. We buy from people we know. A platform helps with that. Serving the people you care about, your community, is just what comes with the territory.
  10. No matter how busy you are, if you’re not doing one of your three prime roles, you’re not working on your business or your platform.

Overnight Success

  1. Building a platform takes time. Years. But you have to start somewhere.
  2. Doing the work requires more time and effort than not doing it. Unemployment is also easier than working.
  3. No one ever hands you success. Even those stars you sneer at, saying “but they had ____” , really have to earn it.
  4. Success, as I define it, is the ability to choose how you spend your day, and a full belly.
  5. It takes a lot of “kitchen table” time to find ideas that can bring you success. But you need to test those ideas out at the “lemonade stand” to know whether they have any play in the marketplace. And ultimately, the beauty of this platform you’re building will be that it provides a “campfire” around which you can gather and further develop the community.
  6. There are very few successes in the world that happened as solo acts. You need a team, a network, and a lot of goodwill.
  7. Success doesn’t just show up. It comes in tiny molecules daily. If you didn’t work today on building success, how will it come to you tomorrow?
  8. Success is also about knowing what not to do, and what to cut out. Success is about stripping down to the core of what you can do for the world. This takes work.
  9. Never mistake popularity for success. There are plenty of popular people who still haven’t made it.
  10. Success never comes to those who don’t put in the work. If this seems like a lot of repetition, it’s because this one lesson is often skipped over.

What to Talk/Write About

  1. Write about your potential audience or buyer more than you write about yourself.
  2. Sometimes, the best posts or videos come from the frequently asked questions people have.
  3. Share more than just a few tiny tidbits. People know if you’re trying to lure them in deeper.
  4. Interviews make great content, but only if you ask great questions.
  5. Product and service demos can be interesting.
  6. Testimonials are good to talk about, but ESPECIALLY if you can highlight the hero, your customer, and not your product. Meaning, talk about a successful ____ customer, but don’t talk as much about the product as you do them.
  7. Personal posts can make for really great content. And by personal, I mean, connect people with who you are and what you are about outside of your professional role. What else are you into?
  8. Point out the great people in your community. Posts or interviews really make this happen.
  9. Deliver instruction. Teaching someone how to do something never goes out of style.
  10. Don’t forget to do the occasional series.

What to Avoid

  1. Any post bragging about how great you are is a wasted post. You want to feel proud, but it’s just hard for people to feel it with you, unless you’ve built the relationships first.
  2. Posts that are selling, but that are masked such that they don’t appear to be selling aren’t good business. If you’re going to sell something, be clear about it.
  3. Try never to say “you guys.” Address one person, a very important person.
  4. Try never to write about us and them.
  5. Want to wow people? Don’t write nasty posts about your competitors.
  6. Don’t worry about link-baiting. Worry about becoming a trusted and valuable resource.
  7. Before you blog or shoot video in anger, rethink whether it’s worth it.

In the end, it’s up to you. Yes, this will take work. No, this isn’t simple. Yes, there will be mistakes. But I feel that the world is shifting from simply “use of social networks” into “seeking of value.” This is some of the way you can attain that.

Originally written by Chris Brogan

“The World is Hanging Up”

Written by Jeff Bullas

I was involved recently with a telecommunications company that had been operating with no web site  for nearly a year and its main form of marketing was cold calling …you know the type that call you in your office or home and offer you… that special latest mobile phone deal. So what was their target market.. every business that drew breath… and what value did they offer the cusomer except maybe a cheaper price… very little. So their marketing was made up of one strategy, cold calling.  The marketing department consisted of staff  calling for up to 6 hours per day and only booking one appointment in that time. People were literally hanging up on them. There is a better way!  Our lives are so busy now and and with so much media noise and clutter that traditional marketing is becoming less and less efficient.

So how would a company stand out from the pack by using Internet Marketing such as a search engine optimised (SEO) web site,  low cost blogs and inbound marketing instead of expensive traditonal marketing .

10 Tips To Stand Out From The Crowd In Your Industry

  1. Have a web site that helps your buyers and provides value with new interesting content  that assists your buyers.. not just a static web site that doesn’t change.
  2. Offer content that shows how to do something with step by step instructions that adds value to your customers, or potential clients.
  3. Have a video on the web site showing something interesting about your industry, this can be even a Youtube video  that you just provide the video link for.
  4. Target a Segment and really understand it by producing content on the web site that addresses their needs specifically.
  5. If you are passionate about your business, contribute to the conversations in the other blogs in your industry so you can start becoming known as a thought leader.
  1. Create a blog that keeps adding new content that helps place you further up the search engines rankings as search engines love new content.
  2. Create Links to sites that are also well known in your industry this will assist in your Search Engine Optimisation and get you up in the Google rankings.
  3. Join Twitter and start experimenting like putting links between twitter,  your blog and web site.
  4. Join a social media site like Facebook and then join groups in your industry that are part of Facebook.
  5. Offer an E-book subscription that captures email from your online inquiries so you can start engaging with your clients and potential buyers .

Ths challenge with anything is just.. doing it…  You can research  forever but just start the journey. The one thing that a company can easily do is start a blog, and add a content to that blog and update it regularly. It is easy to do you, you can go to WordPress and set up a blog for free and be up and running within a very short time frame.

20 Ideas for Social Media Content That Engages

The cry of “Content is King”  has been a rallying call for bloggers and on-line publishers for years

20 Ideas for Content That Engages

Creating and marketing your content is now as easy as typing text and uploading images and videos and then hitting the publishing button.

This has been facilitated by the advent of social networks and blogging software that facilitate fast efficient multi-media publishing.

The reality is that everyone is now a publisher as social media has provided easy to use tools which has put a personal printing press in everyone’s hand.

We are not only creating but sharing this content on desktops, laptops, ipads and smart phones to our Facebook and Twitter streams. The mobility of the smart phones has accelerated this publishing revolution that allows us to share anytime and anywhere as the impulse takes us.

The more engaging the content whether it be video or text the more likely it is to be shared.

The “Content” Explosion

To put some perspective on the scale of this on-line publishing phenomenon here are some facts and figures

  • In 2010 on Facebook alone there were 30 billion images published by millions of “authors”
  • 5 Billion Photos published on Flickr by 2010
  • YouTube figures reveal that 48 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded every minute as of May, 2011
  • It is estimated that over 330 million blog posts are published every year

Content is what drives people to subscribe to blogs, search on YouTube and play on Facebook. Internet users are looking for information and content that

  • Informs
  • Educates
  • Solves problems
  • Entertains

The Thirst for Knowledge

In a knowledge economy the thirst for information and meaningful content is never ending.

If you dig deeper into the term “social media” you will be reminded that content can be any type of media and format. Media in all its formats that was previously hidden on personal computers or buried in files offline can be published to a variety of  social media platforms that host and make public your previously unpublished media. These include social media platforms such as Flickr for photos and images as well as Slideshare for presentations such as your last Powerpoint workshop.

I often hear questions from new and aspiring bloggers about what should you publish and how do you find the inspiration for the content. It isn’t difficult if you start to let the imagination run free.

20 Types of Content Types and Formats that Engage

1.Videos

The development of inexpensive video cameras with high definition and now included in smart phones as a standard feature allow you to record impromptu interviews or capture presentations and keynote speakers. The mantra to keep top of mind is to “think like a publisher”

What can you video and publish?

  1. Formal interviews which are arranged in advance with prepared questions and answers
  2. Casual impromptu video interviews at a conference
  3. Presentations either in part or full and full edited or unedited
  4. Video products such as clothes or items that you can publish to your on line store that show the product and how it can be adjusted or worn
  5. “How To” videos that instruct and teach
  6. Grab your smart phone and obtain people’s feedback or comments as they happen about your product, service or store. This will provide authentic and real testimonials that money cannot buy

2. Presentations

Slideshare is the primary site to upload your presentations and with over 50 million monthly visitors and 90 million pageviews it now ranks as one of the top 250 websites in the world. It also supports document sharing.

  1. Share PowerPoint and open office presentations privately with colleagues and clients
  2. Share publicly with the world
  3. Publish documents from MSOffice, OpenOffice and iWorks
  4. Upload PDF’s that educate and inform

Also make sure that the presentations and PDF’s are well structured for scanning and skimming with good headings and subtitles.

3. Images

King of image uploading is Flickr but other platforms to consider is Google’s Picasa (now included in Google+)  and of course Facebook. High definition images that are well produced can provide high engagement.

  1. Images that should be publicly shared do not just have to be photos but can be creative designs in high definition that visually present a concept. If you have an inquiry, you may visit sites like EverPresent to assist you in film transferring and photo scanning
  2. Photos at events demonstrates active participation in your industry and can provide high credibility through association
  3. Product images that display your products in all their high definition glorious detail
  4. Appropriate photos of staff at work and at play can provide a personal insight to a company that humanizes companies which is vital on a social web

4. Text Content

Text content is one of the oldest of formats since the pen and pencil was invented but still maintains its importance as a primary publishing medium.

What are some highly engaging text formats that help you sell your products and services?

  1. White papers – these are typically topical reports that demonstrate thought leadership vital for prospects and buyers and are generally 8-12 pages in length
  2. eBooks – Sometimes called a whitepaper on steroids can be 20-100 pages in length and can be free (in the short form) and maybe sold in the longer format. Presents complex information that is visually attractive
  3. Case Studies – Customer and readers love case studies that validate strategies and tactics. They are typically 1-2 pages long and with the narrative structure of the a story and are based upon real life events.
  4. Enewsletter – Email is a very powerful form of marketing with a list that you own and people have opted into a subscription. It can be purely text based or you can create HTML formats that includes images, links and optimized for a social web making it easy for people to share with their friends

5. Audio

Audio and radio has not died but evolved and podcasts and audio are still widely used. Podcasts can also be very effective when packaged together with a Slideshare presentation and a PDF

  1. Podcasts: Pre-recorded presentations either by one person or a goup that dicuss a topic that educates and solves problems for your listeners
  2. Live on-line radio shows with interviews of experts

This list is not exhaustive but will provide you with some tips that will maybe inspire you to engage in many media types that communicate with your readers , prospects and customers.

Sometimes bundling a range of formats for the same information will allow you to reach a broader audience that a singular media type cannot.

What media and formats do you use for your  content marketing and what is most effective for you?

Source of Facts and Figures: Royal Pingdom

Image by dirkshaw

The cry of “Content is King”  has been a rallying call for bloggers and on-line publishers for years.20 Ideas for Content That Engages

Creating and marketing your content is now as easy as typing text and uploading images and videos