Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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The Only Way to Attract a Vibrant, High-Trust Community

Filed Under Comments, Community, Design, Inside-Out Thinking, Liz Talks Corporate, Marketing, One Way to CC It, SEO, Successful Blog, Tech/Stats, Tools | 35 Comments

Last summer at AdTech, a VP at huge corporate brand extended her arms completely — way out in front her — and used her hands to gesture as she said something close to this about her goal for building a community:

I want to build a community in which peers are talking to peers openly.

I’m sure she didn’t mean it the way it looked … Her hands were so far away from her. — or sounded … peers talking to peers?

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I couldn’t help thinking … Where will YOU be? Studying me? Is that what you think of me? I’m not a peer. I’m a person. I only do well in places where people “get” me.

Users. Consumers. Buyers. Customers. Leads. Eyeballs. Peers. Those are faceless, flattening labels. They come from the time of one-size-fits-all.

People are individual human beings complete with aspirations, intentions, ideas, opinions, habits, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.

Which community would you join?

More Communities and More Time for Them

Online social communities aren’t a new thing. People have been linking and sharing via blogs since the 20th century. Organized social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn have become a part of our lives.

Our communities are becoming more about communicating and being creative about what interests us. It’s all about making it relevant to the people we want to attract. As this Pew Internet Slideshare describes …

Social Media – Making it Business Relevant
View more presentations from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.


We’re participating more. We’re spending more time in communities. We’re building more of them. How do attract people to the communities we’re building that are perfect for them?

The Only Way to Attract a Vibrant, High-Trust Community

Just as a building is not a business, a community is not a collection of profiles or a url. People won’t visit our community because it’s pretty. People will come because it offers them something they value.

From two people to more than plenty, a community is a social structure that shares personal values, cultural values, business goals, attitudes, or a world view. What binds it is a culture of social rules and group dynamics that identify members. In the most concise terms, an online social community is a group of like-minded individuals connected by relevant interactions and protected by a high-trust environment.

A high-trust community is an agreement, a pact or contract, like love or friendship. We can’t order, build, or wish our way to one. What we can do is attract people who want to join what we’re doing. The only way to do that is clear passionate commitment, obvious generosity, trustworthiness, and a touch of intentional serendipity … which looks something like this.

  1. Be a person (or people) who likes people. People work with, talk with, and relate to other people not a business.
  2. Articulate a clear and passionate vision worth investing in. Live your commitment. Get your hands dirty.
  3. Seek out people who would love what you’re doing. Find them where they are already gathering and talking. Join THEIR conversations. Get to know them.
  4. Be a beginner, but keep the vision. Learn from everyone who’s been anywhere near where you’re going. Learn to sort wrong from unexpected or different. Ideas that jar you could be the best ones.
  5. Invite everyone who “gets” the vision to help build this new thing. Look for ways to include their skills and their passions.
  6. Keep participation efficient and easy. Curb the urge to add cool things that get in the way of conversation and sharing.
  7. Let trust sort things. Model the standards of behavior. Keep rules to a minimum.
  8. Be visible authenticity. Lean toward full disclosure, but avoid over-exposure. Most of us look better with our clothes on.
  9. Protect everyone’s investment. Forgive mistakes. Ignore little missteps. Eradicate what is destructive. Know the difference by holding thing up to trust, values, and the community vision.
  10. Stop doing what isn’t working. Be lethal about keeping things easy, efficient, and meaningful.
  11. Promote your members … and honor your competition! Secure communities need both to thrive and get new ideas.
  12. Encourage mutation. Let the environment change to meet the changing needs of the people it serves.
  13. Celebrate contagion. Make it heroic to share what’s going on!
  14. Be grateful and always about the people. The community wouldn’t be a community without them.

An online community isn’t built or befriended, it’s connected by offering and accepting. Community is affinity, identity, and kinship that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions. –What Is a Social Community?

We create vibrant, high trust community by letting other folks raise the barn with us, by being their first offering trust and a passionate vision, and valuing the trust and energy they give us.

What attracts you to a community? What keeps you coming back again?

-ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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How to Be a Successful Blogger . . . Without a Blog

Filed Under Basics, Guest Writer, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog | 6 Comments

A Guest Post by Ali Hale

The Living Web

“Can you be a successful blogger without a blog?” It sounds like a trick question, doesn’t it? The sort of thing you might ask on Twitter when you’re bored and wanting some funny responses.

But I’m here to tell you that it is possible. I’ll explain how, but first, you might want to think about what being a “successful blogger” means to you. Here are a few possibilities:

We all have different definitions of success, but chances are, one of the above will resonate with you. They’re all ways in which I’d judge my own success as a blogger – and I achieved them all without my own blog.

Guest Blogging

Most bloggers – even most people who read blogs but don’t write them – know that it’s possible to get a guest post onto another blog. Some bloggers have never attempted this, but for me, it was the first step in achieving blogging success.

(If you want proof that you don’t need a blog to be a guest blogger, check out Scott McIntyre’s excellent guest series from a non-blogger’s perspective.)

Having just one post published on a big blog can win you dozens of appreciative comments and emails from readers. If you can get a regular guest-posting slot, you can take this even further: you’ll have a chance to write about topics that interest you, and you’ll have a ready-made audience of thousands.

The one drawback to guest blogging is that it’s unlikely to give you the financial success that you might be after. So…

Paid Blogging

The next step up from regular guest blogging is to get a regular and paid slot on a blog: what I call “staff blogging”, as you become a “staff writer” for the blog.

Many bloggers aren’t even aware that this is possible – or if they are, they dismiss it as not being for them. This might be because their concept of what “blogging success” constitutes is a little limited. Maybe they’re fixated on getting our own blog into the Technorati Top 100, or winning a certain number of RSS subscribers.

If your goals are financial, though – if you want to earn a living from blogging – the easiest and quickest way to do it is to write for other blogs. This is exactly how I’ve been paying my rent and bills for the last eleven months, so I’m proof that it works! Unlike the more traditional model of blogging, where you start from scratch on your own blog and slowly build up an audience and various revenue streams, staff blogging will earn you good money from day one.

Plus, as well as the financial side, I enjoy all the other successes I listed above: big audiences, appreciative feedback, and the chance to write on numerous topics for several different blogs.

So how do you go about finding yourself a staff position on a blog? You could trawl through online jobs boards, or places like elance and Craigslist – but you might well find that it’s a frustrating and time-consuming process. I outline four methods of finding paid jobs in my Staff Blogging Course, but the one that’s worked best for me is to contact editors directly.

Don’t just start writing to all the blogs which you read, asking for a job, though. You need an action plan – and here it is:

Step 1: Check the blog uses paid writers
Many blogs, even quite large ones, are one-man bands: Darren Rowse at ProBlogger doesn’t use paid bloggers, for instance, so you’d be wasting your time by trying to butter him up for a job!

How can you find out if a blog does have regular paid writers? A couple of big clues are:

Step 2: Send the editor a guest post

How can you convince a blog editor who’s never heard of you that you’d be a great addition to his/her team? Simple: send a guest post. Check the blog for any guest posting guidelines, and if you can’t find these, carefully read a few posts and make yours a similar length and style.

Write a short, polite email to go along with your guest post, and send it off to the editor.

When your guest post is published (and if you did your research and took the time to write it well, it will be!) make sure you email the editor to say “thanks”. Keep an eye on comments and respond to any that come up.

Step 3: Ask for a job

This is the scary step! Assuming your guest post went down well, write to the editor again. Say how much you enjoyed guest posting, mention that you’re a freelance blogger, and ask if there are any vacancies on the blog.

In some cases, you’ll be told that the blog has a full contingent of writers – but that there might be a slot coming up in a month or two. I’ve found that patience, and the occasional polite follow-up email, works well in these situations.

This three-step method is how I landed several of my blogging gigs (and twice, I just sent a guest post and was offered a job without even asking). The last two blogs I’ve started working for headhunted me, having seen my work on other blogs.

So there you have it: proof that you can be a successful blogger without a blog. Even better, if you do decide to launch your own blog (I launched mine just a few weeks ago), you’ll be able to bypass the frustrating first few months of having almost no readers – you’ve already got name-recognition in the blogosphere, and there’ll be plenty of readers keen to come and see what you have to say when you’re on your own ground.

Could you branch out by guest posting or writing for pay on blogs other than your own? Why not shake up your definition of being a “successful blogger”?

—-
Ali Hale is a freelance blogger and part-time post-grad student of creative writing. She’s the author of the Staff Blogging Course, a complete guide to becoming a well-paid, successful blogger. She’s recently launched her own blog, Aliventures, where she writes about getting more from life.
—-
Awesome, Ali!
Great connecting with you. You’re a blogger to me. :)

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Have You Got a Change Manager?

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 7 Comments

The Value of an Outside Observer

insideout logo

A while back, I was at lunch with a consultant from a top tier strategy firm, a specialist in change management. Her company works with international mega-corporations. They investigate communication disconnects, process model breakdowns, and unproductive beliefs, habits, and behaviors. Their studies are qualitative and quantitative. Their strategic reports are solid, multi-leveled, interdepartmental, focused and team-based. It’s fascinating to hear how it works.

At the core of the process is helping corporations and individuals see themselves so that they can change to accomplish their goals. No one knows the value of an outside observer better than a world class firm in the business of doing do so.

Yet as the conversation continued, I heard the fatal flaw. The top-tier consultancy was performing a “change management” project within their own firm. No outside professionals were invited to help.

“We can do it ourselves. It’s our business,” was what she said.

I thought, I suppose every one of their clients thinks the same thing.

…

Of course, we’d never make that sort of mistake.

Have you got a change manager?
I started working with mine right after that lunch.

I make connections.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Need a change?

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Do You Know the Six Stages of a Dysfunctional Project?

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 7 Comments

relationships button

Sometimes it’s nice to do work things on the weekend–to use the free time you have to get a jump on the next week.

Some projects raise the bar to meet our ability to put in extra time. Don’t give up your life to make your work go faster. You could find yourself living less and less and working more and more instead. And in the end, you might end up a wreck rather than feeling like you’ve done something worth accomplishing.

Project problems can seem like one-of-a-kind things — certainly they’re only related to this awful project, this difficult client, this inexperienced team member. But if every project has it’s problems, then something dysfunctional is happening.

The Six Stages of a Dysfunctional Project
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment to the Innocent
6. Praise and Glory to the Non-Participants.

How do you spot a dysfunctional project on the horizon?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Two Things Successful People Do to Get Where They’re Going

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

Things in Twos

Yesterday Karen emailed to say that she won’t be able to attend SOBCon. Her company is sending her to California next weekend.
Karen has been a good friend to the conference and an attendee since the beginning. This year she was also going to speak with Glenda on accessiblity. Later in the day, I found out that Saul Colt had a similar situation.

It was the kind of news that happens. That doesn’t make it less disappointing. I got two for the price of one.

How did I get to be so lucky?

Two Things Successful People Do to Get Where They’re Going

Yesterday was a day of twos, I had two speakers to replace and two last minute contracts to write up. I had two kinds of people come knocking — people who wanted to help and people who wanted me to do something for them. The event prep for two events came through — two key things were missing. I had two other projects that I wanted to move forward. The details to be handled seemed to be multiplying by twos every time I communicated with anyone about anything.

I had two choices — to take a nap or to keep going.

At about 2pm, I was going through more SOBCon preparations and my eyes landed on the name of man I admire. I got thinking of something simple and profound he once told me.

Successful people do two things to get where they’re going — talk and move.

It only took those two things to get everything back in order.

I’m pleased to announce that Jeff Willinger will be partnering with Terry Starbucker Friday afternoon at SOBCon to bring a spectacular session on the infrastructure of an online business. And a second plan is in action for Karen’s session with Glenda. Can’t wait for that.

Two more things about talking and moving …

Thanks to all of the people who’ve been helping!

What sort of positive talking and moving have you been doing?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Register for SOBCon09 NOW!!

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