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Don’t Let Ties That Bind Lead to Content That Strangles Online Growth

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By Lisa D. Jenkins

Last week, I was supporting a radio broadcast team covering a long-standing, week-long live event with tweets. This is the fourth year I’ve been part of the KOZE Sports team and this year I keyed in on something new. Not with the event but with the team of two announcers responsible for bringing the event to thousands of people across the nation.

NAIA media pass

Over the several years Brian Danner and Mike Tatko have been announcing NAIA World Series Baseball, they’ve developed a history. They’ve created and maintained off-air relationships with each other, coaches and players, families of coaches and players, fans, officials and a host of other people. A natural part of those relationships is personal experiences that spawned stories most of the listening audience knows nothing about, but those stories come up in on-air color commentary. Because that’s what sports color commentary is … stories to fill dead air between plays.

What I keyed in on, was they way these two men were able to share their histories. Instead of cracking a private joke on-air about something that happened in the past, they took the time to fill in the back story. Every memory reference was colored in. Every person listening was provided with an explanation that invited them into the conversation.

In the same way that Danner and Tatko have developed a history, brands that were conceived and launched online or brands that have been curating content over an extended period of time have a very real history.

One thing that makes a brand and its content attractive to people is a consistent voice that shares that history and the new events that continue to contribute to it. This takes on increased importance when you have a team of people managing that voice.

With any good team you want to encourage ties and relationships that give your team members a sense of connection. A cohesiveness that allows them to pull together to pursue common marketing goals. The danger comes when the intimate aspects of those ties and relationships begin to bleed over into the conversations that take place on your social media profiles.

I’m not writing about behind-the-scenes snapshots of Team Member Josephine caught sleeping at her desk during a quick power nap. Or teasers of an almost-ready-to-launch product. I’m writing about insider banter made up of private jokes and subtle references to previous events new followers might not be familiar with. Instead of being invited to participate in and contribute to conversations that occur on your Facebook Page, Twitter stream, Tumblr profile, or LinkedIn presence, your followers become observers, voyeurs if you will, over an exclusionary conversation.

An oblique reference once in a while shouldn’t damage your brand but if your team becomes comfortable with presenting too many tweets, updates or posts that have overly private resonances and not enough public appeal, people will stop retweeting, sharing or giving +1’s because they don’t have the contextual references they need to understand the content your team is publishing. It will kill your online momentum.

The best time to manage this situation is before it occurs by addressing expectations for your team’s online behaviors in a set of social media guidelines.

If you find yourself having to navigate the situation as it’s occurring online, you need to find a way to help your team bring the content back around to a place where your followers feel included and invited to take part in a conversation.

Author’s Bio: Lisa D. Jenkins is a Public Relations professional specializing in Social and Digital Communications for businesses. She has over a decade of experience and work most often with destination organizations or businesses in the travel and tourism industry in the Pacific Northwest. Connect with her on Google+

How to Start Speaking at Corporate Events

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By Stephanie Lynch

When most people start thinking about speaking in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people, they often think of their worst nightmare. However, there are a handful of us out there that would love to speak in front of groups about a particular topic or issue.

If you have been wanting to share your advice for quite some time now, a great way to start is via corporate events.

These events are designed to talk to people who want to learn about what you have to say. While starting out may not pay much, you may find down the road that if you become good enough at it — it could lead to some great money, potentially leading to a full-time gig. So if you have been thinking about speaking and don’t know where to really start, here’s how you should get started:

#1 Start Online

The best place to start is the Internet. Try to find some blogs or even consider starting one up yourself. The key here is that you’re going to want to start building a following that appreciates your knowledge of the topic. Once people start finding about you, they will be more likely to attend your speaking event.

If you don’t know where to find these blogs or even start with building a website, there are countless ways to do so. For starters, creating a website today is easier than ever. Content management systems, such as WordPress, can make your website look like the professionals. Most web hosting companies will be more than happy to install this system for you. Once it’s installed, play around with the themes and learn how to post. If that sounds like something that is too challenging, you may want to become a contributor to a handful of popular websites on your topic. As long as you provide value, 99 percent of the owners out there will be happy to take you in.

#1A Creating a Website for Speaking

This one kind of goes with number one, but I will label it as “1A.” If you’re serious about speaking, it’s important that you create a page that explains what you can do.

Since most organizers or conferences are going to ask for a “resume,” this website that you build will be a great way to give them all the information that they need. On this website, be sure to include the following:

– Overview: Talk a bit about yourself.

– What topics can you talk about?

– Show some sample videos or speeches you had done in the past

– Have people brag about you

– If you’re going to charge, let them know how it’s done.

– And lastly, don’t forget the contact information. Make sure that they can contact you through various methods.

If you can’t build a website, consider investing money to have it done by someone else. This can potentially be a deal breaker for serious speaking gigs.

#2 Network

Ah, the word “network.” This is a word that we just can’t get away from when it comes to the corporate world. If you want to learn how to speak at events, it’s so important that you network with other professional speakers and event organizers. This can be done via social media outlets, blogs or better yet — in person at the events. Some of the best people that you can get to know are the actual professionals who run the events.

#3 Submit your Ideas

No matter what industry you’re in, there are going to be a handful of conferences every year throughout the world. If the conference is serious enough, they should have a website, and on this website, there should be a “speakers wanted” page. If they have something like this, be sure to take advantage. Like applying for a job, take your time and make sure that everything is perfect.

Speaking at corporate gigs and events will take time. You can’t expect to make tens of thousands the first time you do it. Since I can’t cram everything into one post, I wanted to leave you with these amazing books as well:

– Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun

– Magic of Public Speaking by Andri Sedniev

– No Sweat Public Speaking by Fred E. Miller

Have you considered adding public speaking to your skill set?

Author’s Bio: Stephanie Lynch works for howmuchisit.org, a collection of cost helping guides. The next time you need to know what a surgery, professional service or something else costs in life, there’s a good chance it will be here.

Five Lessons Small Businesses Can Learn From Liz Strauss

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By Shonali Burke

Like many bloggers in the PR and marketing realm, I’ve been in awe of Liz Strauss ever since I became aware of the “name bloggers” in my professional world. When I started my own blogging journey, four years ago, Successful Blog was one of the first to become a regular stop; always for inspiration, and sometimes as I asked myself the question, “Will I ever be able tolike that?”

I met Liz fleetingly a few years ago, when she spoke at a DC-area event. Our meeting was brief. She was standing outside the event venue and, spying her in a rare moment of solitude, I couldn’t help but go up to her and tell her how much I admired her. She didn’t know me from Eve (probably still doesn’t), but that didn’t stop her from graciously thanking me. Later, she was kind enough to connect with me on various social platforms, even though the benefit was certainly skewed towards me.

As Liz recuperates from her illness, I couldn’t help but think of five lessons small businesses could learn from Liz Strauss.

1. You’re only a stranger once.

This is the tagline of Successful Blog, but is applicable to your business if you approach your customers as people first. Sure, customers come and go. But a successful business will convert first-timers into repeat buyers, and repeat buyers into evangelists. I don’t care how large or small your business is, this is possible and applicable…if you treat them as people first.

How do you start doing this? By using today’s myriad two- and multi-way communication channels to build relationships instead of email lists.

2. Building relationships takes time.

Especially with the number of (how many? I don’t know! Too many to count!) social media/self-help/gurus shilling their wares, I am not surprised at how many small businesses that think the way to use social media is this:

The path to social media failure

After all, once you have a presence, the rest will fall into place, right?

Wrong.

Connecting – i.e. following/being followed back – on a social network does not automatically translate into a relationship. All that that first connection means is that a door has been (slightly) opened to you; how you now conduct yourself will determine whether that door opens more fully or slams shut in your face.

How do you start doing this? Be a human super-collider. Find out what makes the people you meet, whether they are customers, or prospects, or business professionals you come across at networking events, tick.

3. When you build relationships, your community steps up when you most need it to.

Look at the way this blog has been running for the past several months. Liz’ health situation was announced at the beginning of 2013. The last post I read, as I drafted my own, was dated May 10, 2013. That’s a full five months later.

Had Liz not spent several years genuinely building her community via real relationships, do you think she would have had people like Rosemary O’Neill step up to manage the blog in her absence?

No way, Don Juan.

How do you start doing this? Part of the answer is in #2 above, so first I will say, “Read above, lather, rinse, and repeat.”

4. Educate and empower your community.

The second part of the answer is to educate and empower your community. Tell them, as you engage with them over time, what’s important to you… and why (and if your business is community-centric, chances are it’s what’s important to them too).

How do you start doing this? As you continue to engage with them, find people who can become your de facto or de jure community managers, and empower them with enough know-how – such as your engagement goals and guidelines, and your content needs – so that they can step into the breach if and when they need to.

The great thing about this approach is that you may never need them to fill a void in your absence… but if you do, they are ready and willing to do so.

5. Focus on what works.

A recent Constant Contact survey reported that 66% of small business owners use mobile technology. Continue reading, though, and you’ll see: “… it’s important to note that, of the 34 percent not using any mobile device or solution for their business, a resounding 65 percent have no plans to do so in the future, mainly citing a lack of customer demand.”

I don’t think this 65% of the 34% is necessarily behind the times. Being a small business owner myself, I know the conflicting demands placed on small businesses.

What will you pay attention to? When? How? Who’s going to do it?

It isn’t a question of never paying attention to technological advances, it’s a question of being attuned to the technologies your customers are using or expect, and providing the appropriate platforms, while planning for the future. Just as Liz does here on Successful Blog, by maintaining a framework visitors are familiar with, but by keeping an eye on what’s to come.

How do you start doing this? Stay on top of technological and industry developments. But don’t jump on the bandwagon until your business can sustain and recoup the additional investment… and don’t let anyone pressure you into doing so either.

I’m sure there are many other lessons you have gleaned, on a business level, from Liz’ incredible contribution to the blogosphere and our time. Would you share what you have learned, so that we can salute her collectively?

Author’s Bio: Shonali Burke takes your business communications from corporate codswallop to community cool™. She also blogs, teaches, and cooks. You can find her on Twitter as @shonali.

Thanks for the shout-out, Shonali! I was honored to be able to give back a tiny bit to Liz, who has shown her generosity and kindness to so many over the years. She is the nougaty goodness at the center of this amazing community.

Rosemary

How to Become a Psychic Blogger

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By Nathalie Lussier

How To Write The Blog Post Your Reader Really Needs From You Now

Are you a psychic bloggerIdeas. We all have them. Ideas for blog posts, new projects, and things we need to remember to buy at the grocery store.

Sometimes you get a flash of inspiration for a blog post, and if you have the time to sit down and write it, that blog post can turn out to be the exact thing your reader needed at that moment. Other times, you find yourself re-reading your piece and asking yourself what you were thinking when you penned that jumble of words.

It happens to all of us. In today’s post I’m going to talk about the tricks I’ve learned in my 10 years of blogging, that have allowed me to read the minds of my readers. I regularly get emails and comments from my audience telling me that my post came at just the right time for them, or that I must be psychic because that’s exactly what they were wondering about.

Do your blog posts currently hit the “psychic spot” for your reader? If not, keep reading to find out how you can hone your idea generating and selecting process, to deliver the best content on a consistent basis.

TRICK #1: Know Who You’re Talking To

When brainstorming for a blog or video post, can you think of a specific person, reader or client of yours who would benefit from what you’re writing about? Who is this reader? Whether you are writing for industry leaders or newbies, knowing exactly who you’re talking to and how they’re going to take action based on the information, stories, or advice you share with them is key.

For example, when I first started my blogging career as the Raw Foods Witch, I used to write to my peers. I just didn’t know any better, I thought that the world was full of raw foodists.

Silly? Absolutely.

It was only when I shifted my attention towards the everyday person who wanted to eat healthy but didn’t really know how, that I was able to capture my readers’ attention.

Today, at Nathalie Lussier Media, I talk a lot about technology, and I need to remember what my audiences’ burning questions are so I can share the most relevant new tech tools.

I would never do a video about a complex programming solution, because I know that my audience is not filled with not software engineers like myself and this information just won’t resonate with them. Instead, I talk about ‘done for you plug-ins’ and solutions that solve their problems easily with no coding required. By focusing on what my readers need to know, I can connect directly to them.

TRICK #2: Ask For Feedback

I often hear these statements. ‘I know there are people out there, but no one is reading my blog’ or ‘I’m not really sure who reads my blog.’ Does this sound familiar?

If you don’t have a large readership on your blog, simply asking your current readers to leave a comment should get the ball rolling. Alternatively, you can send out a survey and ask people what they need help with and what they wish they knew how to do better.

Beyond just asking, you also need to connect with people more than you might currently be doing.

TRICK #3: Connect With Your Current Readers

Before you build your castle in the sky, I highly recommend that you get in touch with your audience, the real people who are actually reading the words that you write and find out what they need from you the most.

Send the people who comment on your blog a quick e-mail asking them what you can do for them and what kind of content would really change their lives.

TRICK #4: Answer The Burning Qs

The benefit of blogging and creating great content is that you only have to do it once, and it lives on the Internet forever. If you find yourself getting the same question from your readers all the time, share the answer in a blog post.

Not only will this save you the time of answering this question over and over, you will actually attract more people who need that particular problem solved just like your original audience.

So here’s your filter question for the next time you sit down to write a blog post or create a video: Do I know a specific person in my audience who will benefit from me answering this question?

Follow these 4 tricks and get ready to have people showing up and telling you how amazing you are, because you’ve actually tapped into what they need from you the most.

Are you ready to join in the exclusive club of psychic bloggers who comes up with the best content all the time? Leave a comment below with any tips or tricks you’ve found for getting great blog post ideas.

Author’s Bio: Nathalie Lussier is a digital strategist for the ambitious business owner. She’s the creator of the Website Checkup Tool, a free tool that gives you specific steps to improve your site’s traffic and conversions, no matter stage of business you’re at right now.

Image via CC by Thomas Hawk

You Are Not Your Audience

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By James Ellis

Right now, go look at your website. In about ten seconds you can probably think of five small things you’d like the site to do better, whether it’s load faster, sort product listings a certain way, maybe even (shudder) that the logo should be a little bigger.

Maybe all those things are going to get done, but maybe they aren’t the right things to focus on. This year, you’ve got a limited amount of resources to manage your site, and you can’t do everything, so you have to make choices. Instead of making choices with your gut based on what you see and what annoys you, maybe you should ask your audience.

I’ve heard the argument that you are enough like your audience that you don’t need to conduct field tests or focus groups or surveys. You don’t need their feedback because you know best on behalf of your audience.

I’m going to set you straight: you are not your audience. It’s not that you can’t understand what your audience wants, it’s the fact that you are a content expert where your audience is not.

Perspective is Important

You are blinded by the curse of knowledge (and yes, maybe this is the first time that someone has said that you are cursed by knowledge, but we’ll let that go). You know, after months and years on the site, where every button is, where every button leads, what every obscurely-named tool is designed to do and who should use it. And that’s the problem: your audience doesn’t have the same knowledge.

You have maybe, MAYBE three seconds to get your brand new user to understand who you are, what you’re here for and a good idea of how to proceed or they bounce. Bounce, the scariest word in any user experience designer’s vocabulary. They came, they saw, they bolted. Sure, some of your audience isn’t looking for what you sell, but without a well-considered home page or entry page that helps frame your story to make it super easy to comprehend, some of your bounces are going to be potential, now lost, customers.

Design for your Customer, Not Yourself

Look, I know you. You’re gonna name every online tool something clever and cute, but something that completely obscured the purpose of the tool because you came up with the name by yourself in a hurry as you were about to push the product out. I’m guessing that’s how Qwikster/Netflix happened.

Or maybe you think that a series of big pretty pictures of food in your restaurant site should push down things like location and hours.

Have you asked your users what they want? What they come to your web site for?

You don’t need to spend hundreds or thousands for a professional focus group or eye-tracking studies. There are plenty of cheap and free ways to collect simple information on what your users want. For example, http://www.4qsurvey.com/ will put a super-simple four-question survey on your site and gets to the heart of the issue, helping you learn what the customer came for and if they were successful in accomplishing that task.

Because their purpose is going to be different from yours. And they aren’t cursed with your knowledge. So embrace this curse and stop trying to think like your audience. Because you are not your audience.

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is a digital strategist, mad scientist, lover, fighter, drummer and blogger living in Chicago. You can reach out to him or just argue with his premise at saltlab.com.

How to Gain Influence and Earn Trust – 3 Things to Be First

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Influence and Trust

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Two relationship words — influence and trust — can be found throughout this social business culture. Those of us who authentically enjoy the influence of high-trust relationships with a large audience are finding that to be almost a currency evidenced by the way that we are pursued.

Influence is valued because it wins attention, moves people to action, and sometimes even changes how and what people think. Trust is valued because it extends and deepens influence into a stronger bond. The power of influence and trust has become so studied, demonstrated, and valued that major corporations regularly include influencer outreach in their marketing strategic plans because a few words or a blog post from the right ones can bring thousands of potential customers to them.

How does a person gain influence and earn trust like that?

How to Gain Influence and Earn Trust – 3 Things to Be First

If you’re a person or a brand who wants to establish your own community of fiercely loyal fans, it’s natural that you’d be interested in how to gain influence and earn trust. Building a platform or making an offer as a means to attract an influence network establishes a fragile and at best. The sort of influence and trust that consistently moves people to action comes not from something that we build or offer, but who we are.

If you want to gain influence and earn trust, here are 3 things you need to be first.

  1. Be clear about your values. Be an example of your values in action. Values establish common ground. When we act from our values we attract people who share them. When we share values, it becomes easy to predict decisions you’ll make and responses you’ll have. So when you point something you believe in or recommend, we can trust that we’ll have the same experience of it.
  2. Be more than credible. Be honest. Trust is goes beyond believing to knowing. We trust people we know who are what they appear even when we’re not around. The only consistent way to live up to that is to be honest with everyone — including yourself — about your your competencies, your expectations, and your commitments. Take care not use honesty as a weapon. Trust is the hard truth spoken gently. Tell the truth with respect.
  3. Be a generous, collaborative, and open source. Bring your expertise and your beginner’s mind. Share information. Share expertise. Share your thinking — as a learner as well as a teacher. Share by introducing people who would benefit from knowing each other. Share in gratitude, without expectation of receiving back. Connecting people to good ideas and other good people with good ideas builds influence and trust. Keep your focus on valuing the people who already trust you and providing value for them. They will share you with their friends.

Take a long hard look at anyone who has a truly lasting network of influence and trust. You’ll find these three traits are attracting people to them. People who enjoy a position of influence and trust give attention, move to action, and often change how or what they think because of the people who listen to them.

Influence and trust aren’t one-way streets. No lasting grant of influence or endowment of trust will be gained or earned without an equal openness to influence and a willingness to trust. We think of influencers as teachers, but the greatest teachers never stop learning. And learning requires trust.

What have you learned about influence and trust?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss