Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Anyone who knows me knows that I love Social Media. Love, Love, Love, Obsessed, Love Social Media. I’ve been very serious about Social Media and the amount of time I’ve spent doing it daily for the past 6+ months. It didn’t take me long to realize that Social Media has a lot of similarities to High School.
Popular Crowds
Every High School has their popular crowds and Social Media is no exception. Getting into the Popular Crowd can be tough, but we all have heard of the Perks of once we get accepted into it.
Clubs
We all remember Drama Club, Ski Club, Chess Club, Math Club, Wrestling Club, blah, blah, blah. Social Media has Clubs too…. Digg, Reddit, Sphinn, StumbleUpon. Some clubs are more popular than others. We might like all of them, but we don’t have the time to participate in all of them. So, we pick our favorite Clubs and participate in those Clubs the most.
The Bad Boys
Oh boy, did my School have some Bad Boys!! I’m positive all High Schools do. These were the guys who were rebels. They would push the limits. I was always fascinated with the bad boys. Sure, they made me nervous, but there was something about them that made me want to get to know them better. Social Media has the Bad Boys as well. These are bloggers that write whatever is on their mind at the time. They are not out to hurt anybody, but you can feel their emotions in every single one of their controversial posts.
Rule Breakers and Goodie-Goodies
I wish I could say that when I was in High School I was popular, but I can’t…. I was a total Goodie-Goodie. Mostly out of fear of my mother, but whatever. I was a total Nerd!! The Rule Breakers were those kids who, well, broke the rules. They smoked in the bathroom, they were always in detention, and most often they were skipping classes. Well, in Social Media we have the Rule Breakers and Goodie-Goodies too. But, in Social Media we call them Black Hats and White Hats. Social Media wouldn’t be the same without them.
Parties
High School Parties…. the closest I was ever to one was seeing them in movies. I told you…. I was a total Nerd. But, I heard High School Parties rule!! Ok, I went to High School in the 80′s. Do they still say, “Rule”? In Social Media there are Conferences. There is a Major Party going on right now, PubCon, and I’m totally missing it. Can’t blame this one on my mother, but I am totally going to get to one of these Parties, Mom!!
Peer Pressure
I don’t think I have to explain to any of you that there is a ton of Peer Pressure that teens face in High School. We have all been there. I vividly remember the amount of pressure that I was faced while I attended High School and for that reason, among others, I don’t think I would ever want to go back to High School again. Social Media has there own Peer Pressure as well. The pressure surrounding the Social Media community is a bit different, but the pressure feels the same. The Emails, Instant Messages and Shouts to Vote-up, Thumbs-up, and Submit posts are insane.
It can be intense. I’ve reached my 200 friends limit on StumbleUpon and I started to clean house. You couldn’t imagine the emails I received asking why I am no longer a friend with whoever? Are you kidding me? I only got rid of people that hadn’t produced activity in a long time or that I no longer had anything in common with. UGH!! Peer friggin Pressure!!
Gossip
Ahhh, High School Gossip… The who’s dating who, who skipped school to meet their boyfriend, who cheated on who, who has been accepted to the 50 best colleges, or wasn’t accepted at all!?! Standard Gossip from all High Schools. Well, Social Media has their own gossip….. Facebook, baby!! Gotta love it!! In one day’s time on Facebook I can find out who body slammed who, who got dry humped, where someone is right now and what they are doing, and who drunk dialed who. I can get my fill of gossip and not even feel guilty for it. Well, maybe a little…. after all, I probably could be doing something much more productive. But, it’s called social networking for a reason, right?
Just as with High School we are all trying to find our spot that we fit into with Social Media. It’s a ton of fun, a bit stressful at times, the pressure can be intense, but I wouldn’t change it for the World.
Posted in Social Media | 22 Comments »
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
…or more importantly, the way most people seem to be going about it, including me at times.
Social Media is currently being touted as the answer to life, the universe, and everything online, but there is a lot more to it than just hitching a ride.
Lets take a look at some of the things you need to think about before you even contemplate a social media marketing strategy.
- Undefined Goals vs Specific Goals
I would regard the following as fairly undefined goals:-
- I want more customers for my business
- I want to launch this new product with a boom!
- I want more people to read my blog
- I need more links to rank higher
With social media marketing, whilst many items are difficult to determine, if you start out without specific goals, you may well be wasting resources.
Here are some ideas for more specific goals:-
- My business is mainly local, thus I need to target regional specific venues, or vertical venues that might broaden my reach locally.
- My product has a niche focus thus I will target venues frequented by media within my niche aimed at bringing in 20 media mentions in the first wave of my viral marketing campaign.
- I want Danny Sullivan, Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Robert Scoble to subscribe to my blog – obviously I need to target people in my niche – specific linkerati and influencers.
Aim for targets within your reach, thus if you don’t have a strong enough hook, don’t try to land a big fish.
- Random Activity vs Planned Method of Attack
Whilst it is possible to become a bridge between online social circles and to target multiple niches simultaneously, it is certainly a lot more time consuming to do successfully.
Defining a single core audience and becoming a thought leader in that single marketplace is ultimately a better long-term strategy than trying to become “all things to all men”.
- Random Stats vs Accountable Statistical Measures
This one is a hard one to pin down – lots of aspects of social media are extremely difficult to track accurately, especially things like RSS Subscriptions or votes on social voting buttons.
Try monitoring things like open rate in your feed stats, compared to number of comments and the number of links your receive on your blog. Surprisingly they do not always correlate.
One of my most read posts in my RSS Feed on Andybeard.eu has but 2 comments – it is actually quite recent. Conversely my discussions relating to Google’s PageRank updates in October are poor performers in my RSS stats, but bring in a lot of links and traffic.
- Random Content vs Planned Content Strategy
Plan your content strategy around your previously defined goals, not what is happening in the blogosphere. Look on discussions and events happening outside of your niches as opportunities if they are related to your goals, or can be leveraged.
- Random Encounters vs Optimized Role Management
This is more on the corporate front. When you enter social media marketing channels, there will be a need for 2-way conversation – with customers and clients, members of the press and bloggers, raving fans and detractors in the public eye.
A decision needs to be made on how you will react to different instances, preferably in advance with multiple options and a “plan B”. People do go on holiday, and things will not always go as you plan.
- Random Pathways vs Defined Traffic Funnel
Again an enigma – traffic will be coming in from multiple sources and often they will have different preferences in how they can be treated whilst visiting your website.
If you have ever done PPC advertising with multiple landing pages, think of how that can be applied to Social Media Marketing by offering a different landing page to traffic from different sources.
- Traffic vs Targeted Traffic
Ultimately you are looking for people visiting your site who have some value, though that doesn’t necessarily mean direct financial value. A popular stumbler or digg user who likes your content but would not be looking to buy from you would be a good example, or possibly potential link partners in a similar niche.
Even people visiting your site who ultimately just click away on some advertising are valuable, not just with PayPerClick advertising but things like site sponsorships. Bringing value to your site sponsors is also important in brand recognition and traffic.
- Topical Linking vs Strategic Linking
- Link to a regular reader in your niche who doesn’t get much traffic
- Link to someone in your niche who has never read your blog
- Promote someone’s niche ranking list to get included
- Included someone in your niche ranking list to get traffic
- Link to like minded dofollow blogs because you get a link from their trackbacks
Think out of the box with your linking
Use tools such as Technorati, Google Blogsearch, Techmeme & Megite to your advantage – use them strategically.
- Reporter vs News Epicentre
If there is a large conversation about a topic related to your niche, do you want to be a spoke on the wheel or the hub of conversation?
Whilst it might not initially be possible to become a source for explosive stories, it is possible to become an acknowledge filter of the conversation.
Services such as Techmeme and Megite allow you to identify hubs of conversation, and also to identify other bloggers who are also hubs of the conversation. Hubs of conversation are more likely to write followup articles on the same subject, and in general are link friendly, thus if you offer insight along with links to other sources of information, the chances of being brought into the conversation increase.
Techmeme is itself a hub, but has the disadvantage of not offering commentary, and does get criticism for not covering niche bloggers as well as a human.
- Self Orientated vs Customer Orientated
Social media is just that… social – if your motive for getting involved is purely for personal gain, you are wasting your time.
Social media site users are smart, and opinionated. If they feel they are being manipulated or gamed, they are going to call you out on it, and there can be negative ramifications.
The best way to demonstrate to future subscribers and hopefully customers why they should be reading your content, or doing business with you is to interact with them.
In some lines of work you must be prepared to “move the free line” thus you will be giving far more of yourself than you might initially receive in return.
I will be addressing each of these topics in much greater detail in future posts, but I would love to ask you which aspect of your social media marketing strategy you find most difficult to pin down?
Posted in Social Media | 87 Comments »
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
When I became a Webmaster in 2001 the Web was so different than it is today. Becoming successful was much easier. I started making money fairly quickly. My rules were pretty simple as a Webmaster back then.
- Create a beautiful site,
- keep up with SEO and tweak my site often,
- create fresh content.
But, what wasn’t included in my rules for success back then was personal relationship. And, for me, that is what I found was the biggest change between the original World Wide Web and Web 2.0. Yes, the above is still true. Having a beautiful website that is constantly being optimized and fresh content added often is still extremely important, but it is not enough anymore. Personal Interaction with readers and other Webmasters and Bloggers in your Business Niche is a must.
Times have changed. If I had continued down that Anti-Social path I would have lost everything I had worked so hard to create. With the evolution of the World Wide Web into Web 2.0 came Social Media. Social Media is the way we converse with others over the internet. And, all Webmasters should be adding Social Media to their Business Plan immediately.
Here are some of the ways a Webmaster who is stuck in Web 1.0 can start using Social Media.
Social Media brings back human Relationship to a standard Website. In order to be successful you need to add personal relationship to your business equation. Without adding Social Media I promise you that you will not see the true ability of your site.
Ruud Hein wrote an amazing post, “It’s
the participation economy, stupid!” In his post he points out that attention requires participation. Hein writes,
“If you’re not participating, you willingly give up mindshare and fail to influence.”
There is no room for Anti-Social on the Web today. So, if you are not a “people person” then you need to look inside yourself and figure out if this truly is what you want to do. If it is, move past it. The fact of the matter is that anyone can have a Website or be a Blogger. But, not every Webmaster or Blogger can be a Success.
There is only one Equation for success on the Web today. And, that equation includes Social Media. If you want Online Success there is no room for AntiSocial!!
Posted in Social Media | 23 Comments »
