Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

9 Things I’ve Learned About Social Media

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog | 3 Comments

Guest Post by Tom O’Brien

photo by Tom O'Brien

photo by Tom O'Brien

Two weeks ago I was on a panel for the AC Nielsen Center for Marketing Research at UW talking about social media and market research to executives from Wal-Mart, General Mills, Kraft, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson and 50 or so others. I was asked to share some lessons learned about SM – from the perspective of a brand marketer.

Here are my lessons learned personally and professionally over the last 10 years of heavy involvement in this space.

1. What people say to each other is more important than what we say to them.
2. People no longer rely on brands for information.
3. Advocates are more important than influencers.
4. Brand mentions are just the tip of the iceberg – somewhere between 5% and 30% of the relevant category conversation. You should listen to the whole conversation.
5. If you want to participate be helpful, human and humble.
6. When you participate, put the community’s interests & motivations first.
7. Connect to existing passion, don’t just make stuff up.
8. If you want new ideas, look beyond your category.
9. Brand advocacy is the most important metric today – are people recommending your brand to others.

Of course I could elaborate – for a LONG time on each of these, but I think you will get the gist.

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Tom O’Brien is CMO at MotiveQuest LLC He also writes for A Human Voice. You can find him on Twitter as TomOB

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Yeah, Tom. Those points are familiar and could take volumes to explain and discuss. Hope we get to have that conversation one day soon. Thank you!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Going It Alone as an Entrepreneur

Filed Under Community, Marketing, Successful Blog | 12 Comments

Guest Post by Debba Haupert

debba-haupert-girlfriendology-founder-sq

It’s somewhat ironic, I know. But I write a write a blog and run a business about female friendship – all by myself. In theory, I should have started Girlfriendology LLC with a girlfriend (or two) and collaborated in building the brand and company. I should have women who share the work load and assist me in creating a business around women supporting each other. However, the reality is that I’m a passionate entrepreneur and I didn’t know anyone else crazy enough to start it with me, so I jumped in the entrepreneurial pool alone!

As entrepreneurs, we’re often alone. We typically work long and strange hours from home or finally get dressed to have occasional meetings in coffee shops. We wake up with ideas and do the research to explore them. We create and market products and solutions, and we generally are accountable to only ourselves. That’s a great scenario if you’re self-motivated and prefer not to deal with group decisions. It’s also a wonderful arrangement if you’re creative and dedicated to seeing your dreams become reality.

Self-motivated, creative and dedicated – I am, and I’m very thankful to be that way. But that doesn’t mean I HAVE to go it alone. I have received amazing support from other entrepreneurs in several groups that I’ve started or joined. For example, I’m working on eCommerce for Girlfriendology.com (to sell girlfriend gifts). I knew of several other women in town (Cincinnati) who sell products online. I also tweeted about it. Two weeks ago seven of us met to talk about our online stores, what worked/didn’t, technologies, trends and prep for the coming holidays. We plan to do this on a monthly basis as well as feature each other on our websites. I’m also part of an entrepreneurial group, LegacyConnection (www.legacyconnection.com) that shares resources for entrepreneurs as well as keeps us accountable in weekly group calls.

In addition to these groups, I am blessed with great girlfriends, supportive guy friends and a wonderful husband. My girlfriends share feedback, connections and ideas; my guy friends often look out for opportunities for me and my husband, who is a writer, has edited copy, helped with events and had many brainstorming conversations where we strategize on my business as well as his.

So, I don’t feel so bad that I ‘should have’ started Girlfriendology with a girlfriend. I have the support and assistance of a ‘village’ of friends who care about me and my business. As I share on Girlfriendology, if you need a friend, you to need to be a friend. The same goes for us entrepreneurs. Reach out to others, get to know their businesses and collaborate. Life (and business) really is better together with the support of friends and family.

How do you go it alone, but do it together as an entrepreneur?

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Debba Haupert is founder of Girlfriendology . She considers herself a ‘marketing mutt’ based on her 20 years of corporate marketing (from designing consumer products, studying trends in Europe, to writing an award-winning book, selling products on QVC and being a bank VP). She founded Girlfriendology LLC in January 2006 as a way to support and inspire women. She is a passionate entrepreneur and student of social media with over 850 blogs, 150 podcasts/BlogTalkRadio shows, 15000 Twitter followers (primarily ‘girlfriends’), and 1000 LinkedIn connections. And she loves Liz Strauss and is honored to call her a girlfriend! (-;

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Thanks, Debba. The respect, admiration, and friendship is mutual. I’m grateful to have met you.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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When An Apology Can Open the Door to Trust

Filed Under Business Life, Marketing, Successful Blog | 8 Comments

In case you missed this … I wrote this about a year ago, yet it seems just as valid now.

Not All Apologies Are Equal

In relationships, things go wrong. Person to person or in business, mistakes and missteps can be life changing. A wrongly placed word or deed can bring in question what had gone without thought. Suddenly trust, integrity, honesty, sensitivity, authenticity and the core values that connect us are tested.

Mistakes. No human enterprise or individual gets by without making them. We might not mean them. No harm might have been intended. Yet, we’re not harmless — we can cause hurt or damage by the way we behave. How we respond when we do, is what makes a leader.

In a business relationship recently, my property was mishandled. When I asked about it — when and how it happened — the representative said something like this …

I hear you. We’re sorry it happened. We’re looking into it, but I doubt we’ll ever know the exact sequence of events. Can we move forward now?

Not all apologies are equal. I’m not the only one who wouldn’t call that an apology.

An apology that deflects attention, that says “I regret it happened,” is not an apology.
An “I’m sorry” that doesn’t own the damage done won’t rebuild trust.
An incomplete apology is a missed opportunity to build a stronger relationship by learning from what went wrong.

Apologies that Rebuild Trust, Relationships, and Reputations

Mistakes. No human enterprise or individual gets by without making them. We might not mean them. No harm might have ever been intended. The fact remains, we’re not harmless — we can cause hurt or damage by the way we behave. How we respond when we do, is what makes a leader.

Meet a mistake with trust, the mind of a learner, and a truly other-centered apology and a newer, stronger relationship can be the result. To offer a relationship-building apology, we have to show up whole and human — with our head, heart, and purpose reaching out to fix the bonds that we’ve broken.

No person has lived a life without once behaving badly. Apologies can connect us on that point. A relationship-building apology includes many parts and a whole human behind them.

Apologies are about admitting human error. If you worry about saying the wrong thing, write it down and offer a choice the other person a chance to read it or listen while you do. The point is to be human and mean what we say.

Keep the apology simple. Don’t use an apology to move other issues forward. Save other conversations for other days.

Never lose the opportunity to apologize.
Never take that opportunity away from someone.

Which Social Media Apologies Rebuild Trust?

In the online world, every mistake has a potential for magnification. Every word has millions of opportunities to be misread. The ability to apologize with grace and respect can build respect, relationships, and reputation. In a trust economy, the apology is a powerful form of communication. Simply said and complete, a sincere apology shows respect, inspires confidence, and makes a great step toward rebuilding the trust to move forward.

Here are five well known social media apologies …
Dell’s 23 Confessions
A Commitment On Edelman and Wal-Mart
JetBlue Launches Cross-Media Apology Campaign
Turner Broadcasting Apology Letter
Motrin

In your opinion, which social media apologies rebuild trust with the community?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Happy 4th Birthday to SOBs Everywhere!

Filed Under Community, Marketing, SOB Business, Successful Blog | 40 Comments

All Weekend It’s a Party!

Today is Successful-Blog’s fourth birthday.

happy-birthday-4

On October 24, 2005, I wrote my first blog post on Successful-blog. That week began the story and the wonderful relationships this blog has made. Some facts about what that has been:

Thank you everyone who has stopped by to read, leave a thought, be a part of this blog and my life.

It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

Here’s how it works.

open mike night

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.


Help Celebrate!! Bring a Link! Bring a Link!

That’s right, you’re invited to bring a link to your most successful post. When you leave the link, please write a comment about how you chose the most successful post to bring.

I’ll compile a list like this when the party is over.

Stopping to Celebrate! 100+ Party Links that Mark Our History

C’mon in and get to know us! There’s free beverages and snacks in the sidebar. Join the party. See who you meet. Stay and come back again. Happy Birthday, all of you! Thank you for making what we do meaningful! -

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Building a Career: Combining a Personal Blog and a Company Job

Filed Under Branding, Marketing, Successful Blog | 5 Comments

When we are talking about building your own career, there is nothing more personal to you than your own blog.  When you are working for a company, there are many different kinds of situations which may cause you to leave or to stay temporarily.  But as you are building your career in the “real world”, you can start picking up your working knowledge and build them into useful information around your own blog in the “virtual world”.

Start building a career around your own blog today!

4 Do’s and 4 Don’ts in your blog while working on your job

Do’s

  1. Ponder about what you have learned today.  Start taking down notes, and build useful information that people will love to read about.
  2. Be an expert in your own topic.  This is your time when you can show off what you have learned.  Even though you may make mistakes at your own job, this is the time when you can learn from your mistakes and blog them.
  3. Start building your community and help people to build theirs by contributing your efforts.  Help others when you are approached if it doesn’t take you much in your time and money.  Be real and treat this like a hobby.
  4. It’s good to leverage on useful software and other people’s services.  You have a job, so start investing time and money in yourself to build a good portfolio!

Don’ts

  1. Don’t be influenced too much by all the hype about making money online. It can cause you to have information-overload syndrome  Good to listen, but just carry on building your blog.
  2. Don’t be fake.  If you are just not that kind of person, don’t do it!  If you are not the kind who will want to excel in your job, you probably won’t create a great blog anyway.  Very soon, your blog may just fade away.
  3. Don’t expect immediate results.  Blogging is just for building personal brand awareness.  If people like what you are blogging about, you will get your audience for sure.  It may take a while for the traffic to be aware of you.  Hence, start blogging if you have the patience to build it one post at a time.

Linking social media back to your blog

There are tons of networking opportunities in the social media through the exposure of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Social media brings the world even closer now that we are able to communicate and do business together in two different worlds of ours.

As you are communicating more and more in the social media, people will tend to find your blog if they have connected with you socially via an exchange of messages.  The blog can offer assurance to visitors about your worth in that industry you are in.  

Today, there are a lot of attractive blogging themes that we can leverage on, both free and paid versions.  All we need to do, is to populate our social media profile in our own blog accordingly, and to start blogging!

What may happen when you continue to do this?

  1. You may be able to make some money out of it through the huge audience that you may have created.  There are more and more people who seem to be able to work full time on their blogs just because of what they have shared.
  2. Or, you have actually done yourself a very big favor in your career path because this may lead you into a job opportunity or even a business opportunity!
  3. Or if you have gotten far enough in your blog and your industry, there are tons of businesses out there who are looking for bloggers who are either influential in their blogs, or are experienced in the social media.

Is this for real?

Seriously speaking, it is not easy.  The whole journey can be really tough and unexpected.  As for myself, I am actually perform a full time job e-marketing while I am blogging about what I have learned from my job experience.  In fact, I got my job because I used my blog as my resume!

My job is helping me to learn a lot more about the Internet, making my exposure even far greater than I have thought I would achieve on my own.  And with that experience, I actually “document” them down in a meaningful way in my blogs, and allowing my visitors to enjoy what I have learned so far.

Even if I am not going to be able to make a full time job out of blogging, I still get to know more and more fantastic people (such as Liz Strauss here!) through my online journey.  I really thank God for that.

The whole blogging experience is really a fruitful one for me, and I will continue and do even more than what I am doing today!

My question to all of you: What career values or opportunities have your blog brought you today?  Do share with us, I will love to hear about it  too!

This post was written by Charles. He has been an Internet reviewer since June 2007.  He pours his passion for Internet marketing and Internet branding into his Twitter account actively at @charleslau.

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