5 More Secrets to Writing New Content

When you make a commitment and then fail to follow through you feel bad about it.

There is a cost to social media, time and energy for the most part.

Here's 5 tips from the CopyBlogger site.

#'s 2 & 4 I follow all the time...

5 Ways to Quickly Write High-Quality Content

Every blogger wants to write supremely useful and insightful content.

The question is — how do I pull that off consistently without my blog eating up every waking hour of my day?

And if you write for other sites in addition to writing for yourself, there’s even more pressure to keep the quality up. Whether you’re getting paid in cash or traffic, you can bet your host blogs are counting on you for great posts — every time.

They can write crappy posts on their own, thank you.

There was a time when I was on deadline to deliver nearly 60 blog posts per month — mostly for paying clients — so I learned how to do it efficiently.

I didn’t really have a choice, unless I wanted to give up sleep and raising of my children.

Thankfully, there are a few simple, universal habits that will help you do your best writing in less time.

Here are my five tips for becoming a creatively prolific content producer:

1. Always keep a stack of good ideas up your sleeve

Nothing wastes a writer’s time more than sitting down to write and not knowing what you want to say.

If a deadline is looming, you’re just stuck in that chair until inspiration strikes. This is a major time-waster. That pressure to deliver a great post idea — right now — also inhibits creativity for many writers.

Prevent this problem by scanning many and varied sources for ideas.

Keep a running list of possible content topics — I keep track of mine with the free WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin.

I also keep newsletters and possible headline sources in an email folder together. With my raw idea material organized, it doesn’t usually take more than a half-hour to scan through everything and add enough ideas to my list to hold me for weeks.

By contrast, trolling for ideas one at a time can easily consume countless hours.

Planning ahead with an editorial calendar also helps you consider the whole month’s blogging needs instead of just thinking about your next post. This shift in mindset helps ensure any special events, holidays, or other “time pegs” are on your radar and don’t get missed.

Thinking ahead can help you see how your posts’ topics relate to each other, which can spotlight gaps that additional posts could fill. Presto! New post ideas.

You might also spin related posts into a content series. Grouping topics helps the writing flow faster. If some breaking news crops up you want to write on, you can always move another post idea forward.

Now that’s far preferable to finding yourself with no idea for tomorrow’s post, and little beads of sweat forming on your furrowed brow.

2. Blog in batches

Blogs involve a certain amount of technical grunt work.

You may need to find photos, upload them, enter a photo credit, write your alternate and title tags. And of course you definitely need to write a great headline.

It’ll save a lot of time to sit and do a whole slew of these basic tasks at once.

Now that you’re planning ahead, you could find and upload the next five photos you need all in a batch, instead of hunting them down one by one. Get all those photos installed on their posts, even if you’re not writing those entries today.

Then, when it’s time to write, you’ll feel like your post is already half done. Taming the administrivia frees you up to get into a better flow with your writing, instead of stopping with each post to search for the right image or tinker with the headline.

While you’re thinking in batches, consider writing several posts in a sitting.

Once you’re writing in the style of your blog or your client’s blog, keep rolling with that tone and knock out several entries.

This is far more efficient than writing each post in a separate sitting, and trying to recapture that groove the next day or even a week later.

3. Know your chronobiology

Every human being has a different natural rhythm to their creative life.

Some of us reliably do our best writing before breakfast, while others would find it difficult to write a coherent sentence until after noon.

Scientists call this chronobiology — your natural, internal biological clock.

Simply put, you’re hard-wired to be more naturally creative at certain times of day, and you’re less brilliant at other times.

Whenever possible, don’t fight your biology. Don’t try to write in your least productive time periods. It’ll take you longer to do the same amount of work, and the results probably won’t be as good.

Instead, try to organize your life so that your peak creative time is free of trivial tasks, phone appointments, or twitter.

Then, write like mad.

4. Write ahead

One of the biggest threats to producing quality content is time pressure.

If you’re writing content the same day you need it to go up, you sacrifice one of the most powerful tools for improving your writing: The chance to read it again tomorrow before you click “send.”

Essentially, if you’re writing and immediately posting, you’re posting a first draft. Also known as a rough draft.

This is not your best work.

Instead of writing frantically and having to post right away, back up all your deadlines by at least 48 hours. Now you’ve got time to dash off a first draft today, leave it alone, and revisit it tomorrow.

That fresh perspective will help you spot the weak areas and buff them up (or cut them) quickly, where you could torment yourself all day trying to squeeze out the draft in one go.

5. Keep it simple

Too often, writers let blog posts ramble on too long, or wander off onto multiple trails and tangents.

Good blog posts are concise and stick to a single topic.

Posts that follow one train of thought also take less time to write. Over-thinking it can waste hours, and you’ll end up pruning out the miscellaneous observations in the end anyway.

Got more ideas on a topic? Split them up and create a series. Don’t try to cram it all into one post.

Be on guard against side issues that will end up as deadwood anyway, and send them over to your idea list instead.

Mix a little advance planning with tightly focused topics, and you’ll crank out better content in less time.

Maybe you’ll even get to catch a nap.

How about you? What’s your favorite tip for kicking your writing efficiency into high gear? Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Carol Tice plans ahead to create useful, insightful posts for her blog, Make a Living Writing, which offers practical help for hungry writers. Her next free teleclass is 20 Tips to Rock Your Query Letter.

How to Be A Twitter Hot Dog

So, you're grillin' dogs today as you enjoy the unofficial start of Summer in the USA kicks off with Memorial Day Weekend and an extra long weekend, unless you work in retail.

Just as you are ready to spoon some relish on your hot dog, you overhear a conversation about Twitter and think to yourself, "If Uncle Steve knows about the Twitter, maybe I should check it out".

Here's a quick start guide from MediaBistro to help you out:

Twitter Tips

40 Tried And Tested Twitter Tips For Newbies, Apprentices And Pros

By Shea Bennett on May 18, 2011 6:30 AM

Whether you’re brand new to Twitter, been chugging along happily for months, or have been there for years and consider yourself something of a veteran, one thing that makes the network so great is that there’s always something new to learn.

As the platform expands and new people join and make their impression on others, attitudes shift and what we thought of as norms become relics and clichés. That’s both inevitable and healthy.

But some advice is still golden. Some tips are still wonderful, and some truisms are just kick-you-in-the-crotch and spit-on-your-neck fantastic. And at the very same time, some rules are meant to be broken. Everything is just a guideline. And there’s nothing more important than going it alone. The trick is blending all of that together.

Here are 40 tried and tested Twitter tips.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

1. Don’t be intimated. Twitter’s learning curve can be a little steep at first but it essentially boils down to three things which you’ve been doing all of your life: reading, writing and sharing.
2. Twitter isn’t Facebook. Twitter isn’t really anything, but whereas the public side of Facebook skews towards being friends with people you know in real life – which you might call ‘friends’ but they’re often, at best, almost-forgotten acquaintances – Twitter is more about making new connections, sharing information and riding the information curve. And after a while, those differences will become obvious.
3. That said, everybody needs a mission statement. Why are you using Twitter? What are you hoping to accomplish? What could you accomplish?
4. Twitter is a public network. The things you say are visible to all 200m+ users on Twitter (at least, theoretically) and are also tracked by Google and numerous other search engines and aggregators. So, be bold, and be brave, and be remarkable, but also be mindful about your online legacy, which has already started and is about to get monitored even more closely and likely be visible forever.
5. All that said, relax. It’s meant to be fun.

YOUR PROFILE

1. Use a photo of YOU as your avatar. Not a celebrity, not your pet, not your baby and not your partner. You. That’s who we came to see. And we don’t want a close-up of your eye, either. Also, your picture should get bigger when we click on it. Trust me: you’re a lot better looking than you think.
2. A tailored background is nice, but not vital. Most people pay no attention and since Twitter changed the profile specs it’s finicky and less important. You can’t add any functionality and given the range of screen sizes out there (PC, Mac, netbook, laptop, iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia 3310) they tend to look like crap (or at least wrong) the majority of the time. Be unique if you can, but don’t sweat the details. A nice tile is good enough for 99.99% of users.
3. Fill out your bio. It’s OK to be witty, but not at the expense of clarity. Leave the abstract, wacky bios for celebrities, attention-seekers and good, old fashioned weirdos. And if you want people to get in touch, include your email address.
4. If you don’t have a website that you are proud to be associated with, don’t link to it. Avoid shortened links as they make people suspicious. And don’t link back to your Twitter profile – that’s several shades of pointless.
5. The rest of your profile settings are personal preference, but I strongly recommend you don’t protect your tweets unless you really, really have somebody out there you don’t want seeing your stuff. And if you do, maybe a public network isn’t the best place to hang out.

YOU

1. Be polite.
2. Be useful.
3. Be interesting.
4. Be unique.
5. Be yourself.

YOUR TWEETS

1. You only have 140 characters, so make them count.
2. Manual good, automatic bad. It’s OK to schedule tweets, but don’t automate anything.
3. Despite what you think or other lousy spellers people will tell you, you will be judged by your ability to write, which includes (but is not limited to) spelling, grammar and punctuation. Take a moment to write the perfect tweet. It’s always worth the effort.
4. There’s an important difference between crediting others for their work (courtesy) and thanking for retweets (noise/egotism).
5. Likewise, don’t be a metweeter.

FINDING FOLLOWERS

1. Engage, engage, engage. Repeat.
2. Want to know how not to get somebody to follow you? Ask them.
3. If you tweet it, they will come. Behave in the manner with which you wish to be noticed, and write about the subjects you wish to discuss. (Or do the opposite and crash and burn.)
4. All the following systems, Twitter trains and that kind of thing are complete garbage. Don’t waste your time or (in some cases) money. However, mass following people does work. Assuming, that is, you’re happy with a large but empty network of eternal strangers, none of whom are paying the slightest bit of attention to you. Ever. Hey – at least you’re all like-minded.
5. Strive for 100 true fans, and be remarkable. The rest will take care of itself.

TWITTER ETIQUETTE

1. Avoid text speak – if you can’t squeeze a proper sentence into 140 characters (or, ideally, less), try, try again.
2. Find the balance between being overly negative and happy clappy trappy. Neither camp is enormously popular except with others like them. Don’t be somebody you’re not, but if the real you is a jerk, a sap or a fraud, you should probably work on it.
3. It goes without saying, but trolls, bullies, spammers and stalkers are not welcome. (Try MySpace.)
4. Act as if.
5. Don’t send people automated ‘welcome!’ direct messages when they start following you. We hate that stuff. Again, never automated anything.

YOUR TWEETS (PART 2)

1. Become an authority in your niche. Everybody is an expert on something. (And if you’re not, read more.)
2. People look for and value consistency. It’s OK to go crazy once in a while, but find out where your middle is. Middle doesn’t mean boring. It means balance.
3. The same applies to how often you tweet. After a period of time (usually a few months) you’ll find a natural place where both you and your audience are comfortable with your daily number of tweets.
4. You always have a choice in how you behave and react to others.
5. Don’t shoot the messenger.

LINKS

1. Always, always, always use bit.ly to shorten your links. It comes with built-in stats (tip: add a + to the end of any bit.ly link to see anyone’s stats for that URL) which are great, but that’s not as important as the fact that bit.ly is trusted by the Twitter community.
2. It’s OK to share your own stuff. In fact, I recommend you do it twice per day so you cover the major timezones. For example, I share my content mid-morning in the UK and also mid-morning (late afternoon) in the USA (ET).
3. If you want to get retweeted, leave enough space.
4. If you’re retweeting somebody else, always credit them. And by them I mean the original tweeter – don’t go mad trying to squeeze everybody and their uncle in.
5. Even for the Twitter elite, the level of engagement measured by click-throughs and retweets is incredibly low. So relax, and remember it’s all about your long game.

FIVE (FREE) BONUSES

1. There is no perfect Twitter client – whatever works for you works. (That said, I recommend HootSuite for your desktop and iPad and the official Twitter clients for everything else. I’m not an affiliate – these are, in my opinion, the best products.)
2. Regularly monitor and clear out any dubious applications authorized in your Twitter profile. Don’t be that guy.
3. Become a Twitter search kung fu master.
4. Don’t be afraid to block people, doing so for the right reasons. But be aware that Twitter’s block is junk. Don’t rely on it to protect you.
5. Make Twitter a part of your life, but don’t make your life a part of Twitter. You often do your best thinking offline.

Twitter is a work in progress, and that includes the platform itself and the way that we all use it. Everything is constantly changing. As I said above, there are no rules, and there is no spoon. Knock yourself out. But if using Twitter actively for more than three years has taught me anything, it’s that some things do matter. Some things do count. And some of this stuff is proven. Soak it up, suck it in and push on forward.

Creating Content to Sell Your Services

First off I do not recommend using Facebook as the home for your content, I recommend your own site, with a link on your Facebook page.

But, you need to follow the principles and create appropriate examples mentioned in this article from Content Marketing:

Shocking! Great Facebook Marketing from Naples, Florida Electrician

Posted: 23 Apr 2011 09:14 AM PDT

Solopreneur Firm Understands How to Engage, Educate, and Entertain

There are dozens of electrical firms in Southwest Florida. Many of them have lots of employees. But, one of those firms stands out on Facebook: Martin McMurtrie’s Grace Electric with 601 Facebook friends.

Making Vivid Visual Points to Engage Facebook Fans

This photograph from his Facebook page shows the kind of scary electrical fixes customers often attempt , sometimes with disastrous results. It typifies the kind of engaging content he provides regularly and that has enabled him to accumulate those hundreds of Facebook friends.

By contrast, the only local competitors I could find on Facebook provided very little useful information and managed to accumulate fewer than 10 Facebook friends.

For example, one well-known national franchise with numerous Florida locations manages a Facebook page for its Southwest Florida franchisee. But, it has only 9 fans. And, the only content on its Wall is spam from a provider of Acai berry services.

Grace Electric: Lots of Real Content from a Real Person

Martin proves that you don’t need an MBA from Harvard to create an effective presence on Facebook. What comes through on the Grace Electric Facebook page is Martin’s natural friendliness and sense of humor, as well as his obvious knowledge of his profession.

His Facebook posts vary from helpful advice (often shared with great good humor), reminders of the need to fix electrical problems before disaster strikes, special offers, mentions of worthwhile local charities, and sometimes just goofy stuff. Amazingly, he manages to post something almost every day. For a busy Solopreneur, that’s pretty darned impressive.

Below he uses a pretty scary photograph of a customer’s improvised, but dangerous, electrical fix to point out how risky it can be to do electrical work yourself.

If you are intrigued and engaged by his Facebook Wall, you’re likely to take a look at his info page. There you will find a nice, personalized description of himself and his company and the services that they offer.

My name is Martin McMurtrie and I own Grace Electric, Inc. in sunny Naples, FL.
I am originally from Syracuse, NY and I proudly served in the US Marine Corps.
I have been an electrician in Naples for over 20 years and I am fully licensed as a Master Electrician. I specialize in helping homeowners with everything from ceiling fan installation to landscape lighting to troubleshooting. I work mainly in the Greater Naples/South Lee County area.
I pride myself on being on time, every time and I never charge extra for evenings and weekends. To reach me, call (239) 248-0000…I look forward to hearing from you!

Martin sure sounds like somebody I would trust doing electrical work in our home. And, I suspect that the same is true for hundreds of his Facebook friends. Take a look at what’s he’s up to on Facebook.

Who says that great electricians can’t be great marketers, too?

Digging Deeper

A story from Mediapost today highlights a problem with using statistics only to measure success.

I've been saying this for years, make that decades, since my early days in the marketing/advertising business in Detroit.

You need to dig deeper.

Not just numbers, but the why's and how's and who's.

The Stories behind the raw numbers is the peoples stories.

These are the stories that will help you connect with your clients, customers and friends.

This is the basis of Social Media, not announcing 10% off deals on your Facebook page.

Read more:

What Your Customers Aren't Telling You In Social Media by Alan Zorfas

The emergence of social media has greatly changed social behavior. Instead of pulling the manager of a restaurant aside after a bad meal, people now write one-star reviews on Yelp; instead of asking a friend a question in person, people now outsource their queries to Quora; and instead of providing feedback on a product or experience, people are turning to Facebook and Twitter to divulge what's on their minds.

Social media has also changed the face of marketing forever, but capturing the "conversation" isn't quite the Holy Grail of consumer intelligence. Discovering the motivations on "why" consumers "like" you on Facebook, tweet about your brand or forward information about your products to friends is what marketers should be striving to understand. Simply put, marketing needs to be driven by the connections that brands establish with consumers. These connections aren't the physical interactions that occur between consumers and their brands, nor are they the likes and dislikes about product features, or even the so-called "levels of engagement" used to observe and frame online behavior.

Building a brighter future. Fitting in with co-workers. Becoming a more interesting person. Consumer connection occurs when an individual consumer emotionally "connects" with your brand as a means to realize these ends. Combined with the right rational messages about your brand and its products, consumers can connect to your brand beyond the Web 2.0 level. These valuable connections drive steep increases in purchase, loyalty and advocacy, which is what every brand tries to achieve.

Connection. The Missing Link

Unfortunately, what's measured by social media as well as traditional market research largely misses the upside of consumer connection. And without tangible, data-driven intelligence on connection, marketers and their agencies will be more reluctant to go out on a limb to recommend emotionally driven creative ideas.

For example, satisfaction has been a measure of customer loyalty for decades, but it alone doesn't explain why a customer becomes a brand advocate. Nor does it really address what may attract a prospective customer to the brand in the first place. New consumer connection data from Motista illustrates this.

We recently analyzed the levels of connection for social media moms and non-social media moms in two disparate categories: banking and eReaders. We looked beyond what moms were saying in social media to focus on what was truly motivating them to advocate for their eReader or bank. We found that moms who feel emotionally connected to their eReaders and banks are far more likely to advocate for their brands in social media, recommend their brands directly to friends, be more loyal and purchase additional products.

While connected and non-connected moms both give their brands almost identical scores on satisfaction, features and quality, connected eReader moms are significantly more likely to feel that their eReader brand helps them be closer to loved ones, express who they want to be and fit in with friends. The same kind of emotional connection was revealed in the banking study with all segments and categories across the spectrum.

Can't You Draw the Same Conclusions about Connection from Social Media?

A lot has been riding on social media and sentiment analysis to derive insight into consumers, because knowing what consumers are saying about your products is, of course, important. However, consumers do not readily reveal their true and personal motivations in this forum.

People do not always admit how a product really makes them feel about life or themselves, and unconscious motivations that lie beneath the surface just don't come across naturally in social media conversation. A consumer may tweet: "I love my new white iPhone 4," but they may not divulge that the reason behind the purchase was because it made them feel cool and hip.

Facebook may be a great way for people to express themselves and share "what's on your mind?" However, marketers working on campaigns need to know what's in the consumer's heart -- what's really motivating them to act in the first place? This deeper "why" is how marketers can put a real jolt into their marketing results and take full advantage of social media's power.

A Tool to Find The Twitter Spammers

Last week I wrote about Social Spam.

Click here if you missed it: http://www.sclohosocialmediaadventure.com/2011/05/social-spam-is-real.html

Kevin Mullett created a video recently that shares a website that I've used, and his perspective on what to do about Twitter Spammers:

The Facebook Numbers Scam

Originally I had the title "What So The Numbers Really Mean?"

Despite the increasing number of ways to connect with people in real life and on social media channels, we have something in common with our ancestors from 100 or 200 years ago.

Everyone of us has only 24 hours a day.

This means that despite the developments in productivity since 1811, we are still limited by basic needs to sleep, eat, and work.

The number of viewers watching any one network television series have been declining as the number of options have increased.

The same is true with all media, expansion of options generally means less participants for each option.

Which brings me to the big social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

How many people are on Facebook? 600 million.

This does not mean you will reach 600 million people by advertising on Facebook.

It does not mean you will reach 600 million people with your Facebook page.

Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

Signing up for Facebook is like owning a television.

Just because you have one doesn't mean you are watching it.

And even during the limited time each day you are watching something on television, you are not watching all of the channels.

Think for a moment what causes you to change the channel.

Commercials.

Program that you don't want to watch.

The same is true with Social Media.

Back to Facebook.

You know how many people you might be reaching.

Facebook tells you how many friends you have. It's not 600 million.

And whatever the number is, they are not all paying attention to you.

If you are constantly trying to sell me something, you will sound like a commercial and I will tune out.

If you are boring me, I'll find another way to spend my time too.

After all I only have 24 hours today and when this article was published my day was already 1/2 over.

4 Questions to Ask Yourself

One of the things I've noticed is that I have a huge variety of friends.

They have come from different places.

Since I moved back to my home town in 1998, I made a few from the places I have worked, but even more from reaching out due to my involvement in a variety of "things".

8 years ago, I returned to the advertising world as an advertising sales guy for a group of radio stations and that led to my meeting lots of business owners.

I also was really active in some local in-person networking groups, involved with a few non-profits and sit on a board or two. (As in Board of Directors, not a piece of wood!)

What does this have to do with Social Media?

I'll let Heather Schoegler explain in her recent article on her personal website. By the way, I don't recall how I originally met Heather, but we keep bumping into each other even though she is closer in age to my kids...

Online, Offline. It doesn’t really matter.

I’ve observed some conversations online lately centered around what social media channels/tools to use, how to use them, when to use them, etc. I don’t really think it’s that difficult. Here’s why…

Are you concerned about being “successful” at social media? (First, you need to define success for yourself.) I don’t think you should be. Ask yourself a few questions before you become concerned:

• Are you good at offline relationships?
• Do you have a wide circle of friends?
• Are you a connector for those in your network?
• Is your network diverse in industry, age, gender, etc.?

If you can answer yes to any (better yet, all) of these questions, you’ll be successful with relationships online. After all, that is what social media is at its core - relationships.

So, if you can do relationships offline and online, you should behave online as you would offline. Don’t overlook this simple point. For some reason, people get stuck here and it can hinder their success.

Say things online that you would say offline. And not the reverse. You may feel a sense of liberation and/or anonymity when online. Don’t. You are actually more accountable for information that is placed online. Don’t say (or post) something online that you wouldn’t say in public.

Form connections online with those you may connect with offline. Determine how and why you make these connections, but remember that you are in control. You get to choose who you connect with, what you share and how you use the information you exchange.

For example, do you need to be concerned about how and why to use a tool like Foursquare? Not really. Yes, most people do not want to know where you’re eating lunch. So don’t share it. But if you’re interested in promoting local business, do share it. You get to opt in to information sharing but of course you don’t have to share. You also don’t have to connect with any and every one on Foursquare. Remember, if we behave online as we behave offline, why would you “friend” someone on Foursquare that you wouldn’t meet in person at the location or even worse, someone that you’ve never met in real life.

What’s the old adage….keep it simple stupid. I’m not calling anyone stupid, but let’s try to keep it simple. Behave online as you would offline. And if offline sharing of information and growing your network are not currently part of your life, you may find it a struggle to grow relationships online. And that may be ok. It’s all about how you define success.

Read more about Heather on her site by clicking here: http://hschoegler.tumblr.com/

Who's Really On This Thing?

Advertising Age recently released this data:

The Demographics of Social Media

Ad Age Looks at the Users of the Major Social Sites.

Published: May 16, 2011

In this week's Ad Age, we collected a lot of social media demographics based on actual user profiles, not just Web traffic. But knowing how you love to pass around your #infographics we thought we'd pull it all into one handy file for you. And also knowing how you like deep-dive data, here's a more detailed table of the age breakdowns of Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

Detailed Facebook Demographics
Age range	Male	Female
14-17	9.8%	9.1%
18-20	13.7%	13.2%
21-24	17.5%	16.6%
25-29	13.2%	11.7%
30-34	10.2%	9.7%
35-44	15.3%	15.4%
45-54	10.4%	12.3%
55-63	5.5%	7.2%
64+	4.5%	4.8%
Source: Facebook.com ad platform. Percentages include those Facebook members who include a gender in their profiles. Data collected in May 2011.

Detailed MySpace Demographics
Age range	Male	Female
14-17	14.8%	19.6%
18-20	27.2%	19.0%
21-24	14.7%	14.8%
25-29	12.0%	12.5%
30-34	6.8%	7.1%
35-44	8.4%	7.5%
45-54	12.1%	11.8%
55-64	0.9%	1.1%
65+	3.0%	6.6%
Source: MySpace.com ad platform. Percentages include those MySpace members who include a gender in their profiles. Data collected in May 2011.

For the latest social media demographics and user breakdowns, and all your favorite data, follow @adagestat on Twitter.

Copyright © 1992-2011

Crain Communications | Privacy Statement | Contact Us

Who are You, Where are You?

This question includes social media and goes beyond social media too.

When I get a friend or follow type of request on Facebook, Twitter, 4 Square or any of the other social media channels I use, I don't auto-add, I want to know who these people are.

I check their profile, I want to know if they are local, what they do, why they want to connect and in some cases it is for classification purposes.

(Everyone I follow back on Twitter, goes on a list or two.)

So this morning I asked on Twitter:

ScLoHo Scott Howard

Should a company website include what city they are located in? Pros/Cons... What Do U Think?

Almost instantly I got some responses. Here are a few:

bodaciousgirl Heather ツ

Depends on the type of business.

tyler_allen Tyler Allen

absolutely. i like to know who i'm dealing w/, where they are (to judge shipping, etc) & to know they have a "home base" not to mention it shows pride in being local to their community.

jstalter Justin Stalter

I would say it depends on the industry and target market.

bethannbud Bethann Buddenbaum

Contact info should always be on a website. Is the question about the city being featured prominently? If so, depends on target.

patmcgraw patmcgraw

physical location means 'real' 4 many

jonathantullos
To me it makes sense to let people know where you are, especially of the co doesn't do e-commerce.

LAzuber Lauren Zuber

Yes. Not including location would look sketchy to me.

JeanBansemer Jean Bansemer

One con to consider is your city, state, or country's stereotype- especially if your audience is larger than the immediate area.

All of these are good answers. No one is right or wrong, except this one which pretty much sums it up:

ajuliano Anthony Juliano

This is always the answer: only if it's relevant to audience. Most of the time it will be, if only for contact info, but not always.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I want to know as much as possible about someone before I decided to connect with them. And as Anthony said, "if it's relevant to audience."

I am revealing information about myself on these social media channels. I am also deciding if I should follow back.

On my own home page, I give my direct phone number. Some folks warned me against that saying it was crazy, but I've challenged my own clients to forward their business lines to a cell phone for 24 hour emergency customer service. Rarely do I get weird calls and a few times I have been able to take care of a client because they could reach me on the weekend.

One more thought on the matter:

fredcannon Fred Cannon

I think if you're a brick and mortar business, yes. Internet based, less so-do I really care where amazon.com is physically located?

Thanks Fred, that was where I was beginning to go with my thinking too.

If giving a physical location is required to make a business real, then I have plenty of examples to prove that theory wrong which mirrors Fred's question.

Where is You Tube?

Where is Twitter?

Where is Google?

Where is 4 Square?

Where is Angies List?

(answers below)

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

You Tube: 1000 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA, 94401 Twitter: 795 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

Google: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043

4Square: Somewhere in New York City

Angies List: 1030 E. Washington St., Indianapolis, IN 46202

Social Spam is Real..

Spam.

The junk mail of email has gone social.

I hope you are not falling victim to it,

But I really hope you are not contributing to it.

When the mail man delivers junk mail to your home or office, you probably glance at it and then throw it away.

Email can filter most of the spam that is sent to your inbox. I receive about 900 spam emails per week, which I glance at, (but don't open) and simply delete it. It's the price we are willing to pay for a free service.

But Social Spam is a little different.

With Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and all the other social channels, you get to select who to follow, friend, like and subscribe to.

There are a few people that I used to follow on Facebook that I learned to ignore or unfriend because they were simply pushing stuff at me to buy, instead of engaging me.

If you are simply pushing your products or services without engaging or conversing you are not being social.

You are Spam.

Avoid These Social Media Marketing Mistakes

It can be very difficult for an established company to tap into the online and social media world if they don't understand:

1. What the strengths of their company are according to their customers.

2. What the strengths of social media are that they can tap into.

Laura Ries shared this recently:

Social Media is a Tactic not a Strategy

It’s the headline of our times “Brand X Moves to Social Media.” It’s the hottest trend in marketing with executives from the corner offices at Coca-Cola to the front lines at the local barber shop talking up Twitter, Foursquare, Groupon and Facebook.

Since the Great Recession hit, we have been forced to do more with less and what better way to accomplish this than with social media. Compared to traditional advertising, a social media campaign is cheap. But is it effective? It all depends.

After we wrote the 2002 book “The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR” a lot of companies got excited about PR. They ran out to hire PR companies and to launch PR campaigns. This resulted in a lot of lame and ineffective PR campaigns.

Any company can run an advertisement, but with PR there are no guarantees. You can hire an agency, host an event, run a contest, pay a celebrity, launch a website, pitch reporters and bloggers alike and sometimes the media doesn’t cover it, nobody notices it, nobody tells their friends or hits the “like” button on Facebook.

And the same is true with social media campaigns. What is social media anyway? It is an evolutionary development of PR and word-of-mouth marketing. The internet has allowed people to interactively communicate in real-time, 24/7 on a global basis. Both PR and social media are tools but to be effective they need the right brand strategy first. That was the point of our book. We didn't talk about why "doing" PR was good for any brand, we talked about how PR gives new brands credibility and how to develop the right brand strategy to help make a PR campaign effective.

The goal of marketing is to get your brand into the mind of the consumer. To own a word or a category in the mind. Starbucks owns high-end coffee shop. Google owns search. Twitter owns tweets. BMW owns driving.

The first question any company must ask itself is, what does our brand stand for? Unfortunately, that question rarely gets asks. Instead, the focus is on what social media can we get into? Too many companies get PR, social media or advertising campaign all wrong. They forget that the brand strategy should come first and the execution should follow. Doing it in reverse doesn’t work.

A typical example is a headline in today’s NYT “The Tupperware Party Moves to Social Media.” The Tupperware Brands Company has decided to greatly increase its presence in social media like Facebook and Twitter. They will have a Facebook page devoted to the theme “Chain of confidence” and feature women who will be confidence counselors. The company hopes to use social media “to reach out to a younger demographic in a more interesting and dynamic way.” The goal “is to find more disruptive methods to dispel perceptions that we are your mother’s Tupperware,” said Rick Goings chairman and chief executive of Tupperware.

First thing first. What’s a Tupperware? It’s a party your mother bought plastic tubs at. Changing that perception in the mind is going to be difficult. A Facebook page and a few YouTube videos about confidence are unlikely to change that perception at all.

“Chain of Confidence” what the heck is that? Since when do confidence and plastic tubs go together? Sure, I get what they are getting at: Women who work for Tupperware gain confidence and skills. But Tupperware doesn’t own confidence; it owns plastic tubs sold direct.

Broad ideas like confidence and quality aren’t specific enough to be ownable. And even if you want own something like “great customer service,” you don’t do it with a “we love our customers Facebook page.” You do it with a specific and tangible concept like: “Free shipping. Both ways.” The concept that put Zappos in the mind and gave Tony Hsieh something to tweet about.

What Tupperware needs to do first is focus on the idea. What idea can Tupperware own in the mind? They have to start from where they are at and slowly shift that. Plastic tubs save food. People are eating at home more, bringing lunches to work and school more. I would start with that. There is also the idea of saving the environment. Instead of throwing cheap plastic containers away, you buy Tupperware and keep them around a lot longer.

Nothing is going to help overnight. The problems at Tupperware have been brewing for a longtime. And many of these ideas would have been better implemented years ago. Nothing works better than pioneering an idea or movement.

Instead, most brands muddle along and introduce brand extensions like Tupperware stainless-steel pots and pans and rush to do social media not because it makes sense for the brand but because it is the trendy thing to do today.

Marketing isn’t trendy. It’s simple.

Focus. Own a word in the mind. Then decide the tactics.

And if your brand is yesterday’s news, consider the possibility of launching a new brand.

Social media actually works the best for new brands that are (1) focused (2) appeal to a new generation and (3) have news value.

The Ultimate Goal

...of a website is to be found.

The Ultimate Goal of a Blog is to be found.

The Ultimate Goal of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and most of the other social networks is to be found.

Not found, because you are lost, but found by others that are looking for you or what you have to offer.

Companies paid tens of thousands of dollars 20 years ago for someone to build them a "home on the world wide web".

Then the technology improved and the price dropped at the same time. It was the law of supply and demand.

While the professionals were creating and recreating all of these business websites, I discovered another way to be found.

Blogs. "Blogs" are short for "Web-logs".

By publishing a new article on a regular basis, I discovered that Google started listing me in their search results for certain topics. A few years ago I was on the first page for "Starbucks History".

As I saw these results occurring I learned a few things about how to be found.

For instance, a blog is a website.

And Google likes fresh information, which is what I present on my blogs.

As a matter of fact, I am in the process of weening myself from the term blog because it sounds limiting.

Now despite my own success, I've also discovered something else:

The more I know, the more I discover that I don't know.

So while I can help get you started in establishing your presence online, there may come a time when you need to actually pay someone to really be found.

Depending on your needs, you can pay me, or I will recommend other professionals that have established their own track records for themselves and their clients.

Just remember your Ultimate Goal = Be Found.

ScLoHo Moving Day

Just a quick note that it is moving day for the 4 ScLoHo Blog sites.

I will continue to use the Google Blogger hosting platform, but each now has their own domain name:

ScLoHo's Really is moving from ScLoHo1.blogspot.com to ScLoHoReally.com

ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom is moving from ScLoHoNet.blogspot.com to ScLoHoCollectiveWisdom.com

ScLoHo's Social Media Adventure is moving from ScLoHoSocial.blogspot.com to ScLoHoSocialMediaAdventure.com

The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo is moving from ScLoHonet-TheBook.blogspot.com to ScLoHo.info

I am doing this on a Saturday which typically is the slowest traffic day for the ScLoHo sites because there may be some downtime as the transition occurs. They say it could take 24 to 48 hours for a transfer to complete, but so far, it has been less than an hour.

All of the sites should automatically redirect, however for future reference, I would urge you to save the new domains in your bookmarks.

Thanks for your support.

Out of Sight, Out of Your Freakin' Mind

Random is sometimes good. But not if you are using social media.

I write, edit, publish over 40 times a week on one of my 4 ScLoHo websites.

Fuel Your Blogging has some advice on this subject:

Establish A Publishing Schedule

Posted: 09 May 2011 04:32 AM PDT

If you’re like a lot of bloggers, you might find it a bit difficult to create a consistent flow of content as a publisher, which, as we all know, might mean the difference between capturing a reader and losing a reader.

There are plenty of tricks and tips out there designed to help you think up new ideas and create content, but let’s take a step back — even before we get to the content creation process — and think about how we approach the content creation process … and most importantly, when we approach it.

Content Isn’t Just About What … It’s About When

The single most important thing you can do to overcome your lack of discipline or drive to publish content — even if you feel you’re passionate about the content — is to establish a publishing schedule. If you want to take blogging seriously and reach that next level, you need to step up your game and act like a pro.

Depending on how often you can or want to post, consider throwing a schedule together on paper or whiteboard and stick to it.

Dedicate your efforts to creating content for the week during the weekend. Get yourself ahead of schedule so you’re not frantically throwing content together at the last minute.

Set yourself to a schedule, whether it’s a post a day, three posts a week, two posts (as copyblogger did), or even one post a week. The key is to create exceptional content that gets noticed and provides value.

Set yourself up and hold yourself to it … this will help you overcome your own inner block and help you get to the next level.

How frequent do you post a week? How often would you like to post a week?

photo credit: Chad and Kellye

Important or Popular

Which would you choose if you could only be one?

Important

Popular

Popular in real life can help you win elections, can create a fan base, can create opportunities that can lead to money, fame, and other perks.

The downside?

Popular is temporary. You can't have the number one book, movie or song forever.

There is always someone who will replace you.

And so being popular isn't the same as being important.

Important people make a difference.

You can be important to just one person and it would not lessen your importance.

I bet you are important to someone. It could be a friend, a spouse, or a child. All it takes is one.

What does this have to do with Social Media?

Last week I was looking at a couple of websites that measure the popularity and importance of people on Twitter and on Facebook, and was surprised.

There are a few local folks who have tens of thousands of friends and followers yet I rarely hear about them nor do I know why they are popular.

It really doesn't matter.

Be you.

Be yourself.

Be genuine.

Be social online and offline.

Be Important, because you are.

If I had to choose just one...
I choose important.

How to Separate Business from Pleasure on Facebook

Interesting article from Blogworld.com:

How You Can Use Facebook Both Personally AND Professionally

By Nikki on May 9, 2011

I’ve heard it time and time again … people saying they ONLY use Facebook personally (for family photos and high school friends) or professionally (networking and articles). But, honestly, with a little extra time – you can use it in both ways without anyone ever knowing the difference.

It’s called Lists.

How to Make a List:

If you haven’t yet made a list, it’s pretty simple. Login to Facebook. Click on Account/Edit Friends. At the top you’ll see a link for “Create a List”. You’ll name the list and then start adding people to the group (you can edit this at any time).

It’s All About Exclusion:

Now here’s the key. This isn’t a list for people you want to INclude. It’s a list of people you want to EXclude. Facebook doesn’t allow you to post a picture and choose the list you want to share it with. Instead it lets you post a picture and choose the group you do NOT want to share it with. So I don’t have a List called “Family”. I have a list called “Others” (yes, not very thoughtful, but I’m the only one who sees it!). I also have a list called “Non-Gaming” for times I want to play a little Frontierville but don’t want to spam my wall with requests for food.

I started off by creating my lists and then going through and editing my Friends list – adding people into the groups they belonged in. And now, every time I accept a Friend request (or initiate one), I automatically assign them to the lists as part of the process.

Using Your Lists:

Now that you’ve got your lists set up, and people assigned, you can use them whenever you upload a photo, post an update, or even use a request for a game. Here’s how you do it:

• If you’re in a Photo Album, go into “Edit” and select “Privacy”. If you are creating a status update, click the little padlock and scroll down to “Customize”.
• This will open another pop-up.
• From there you’ll see a section called “Hide this from”.
• In that field, enter your list name.
• Click “Save Setting” and you’re good to go!

Yes, it’s an extra step (and something to remember) whenever you’re on Facebook. But it saves the hassle of figuring out how you want to use Facebook, or even setting up two accounts to maintain.

Note: If you use a mobile device you probably won’t have the ability to exclude lists. One option (especially with mobile uploads) is to log on via your browser and change the Mobile Uploads album to exclude the lists you choose. Then every time you upload another photo, it will be only available to those people you wish to see it.

6 Ways to Measure your Social Media Impact

Some of my thoughts on Social Media are changing.

As recently as a few months ago I was asked about the Return On Investment of Social Media.

I really didn't like the wording of the question, which was "What do you consider to be a good R.O.I. for Social Media".

I told her that the true Return on Investment is impossible to measure.

She didn't like my answer.

But while I stand by that answer, there are some measurement tools and methods you can monitor.

Check out this article from Lisa Barone from the SmallBizTrends.com site:

6 Social Media Metrics for SMBs To Track

Yeah. You get it. You need to develop a presence on social media to help you grow your small business and form that all-important relationship with customers. But…how do you know if you’re doing it right? Or if it’s even working? What are the social media metrics you should be watching to ensure your company is headed down the right path? Is there any way to find out?

You betcha.

The truth is tracking social media doesn’t have to be any more difficult than tracking your other marketing campaigns; you just have to know what to look for. If you’re just getting started, below are six metrics worth watching to help you determine how this social media thing is working for your SMB.

1. Increased awareness/mentions

For many small business owners, this is how they’ll begin tracking social media because it’s an easy way to get started, especially as building awareness is one of the core goals for a small business. To gauge how well you’re doing, take an initial baseline count of your Twitter followers, your Facebook fans, LinkedIn group members, etc, and then monitor those numbers over time to see how they grow. The exact number of followers/friends/devotees isn’t important in itself (remember, we’re shooting for quality, not quantity here), you’re just looking to spot the trend. Hopefully, you’ll find that you’re numbers are increasing over time. If they’re not, this is a good indicator that you’re headed down the wrong path and you should revisit your strategy.

You can also track awareness by looking at how many mentions you get in a particular day/week/month and benchmark that number as well. How often are you being brought into the conversation and is that number increasing with your social media participation or not?

2. Sentiment analysis

Of course, you don’t just want to benchmark the number of mentions your brand is receiving, you also want to look at the type of mentions and whether it’s positive or negative. Or, said simpler, when customers are talking about you, what are they saying? Are they singing the praises of your product and talking about how responsive you are? Or are they complaining that your product sucks and how they can never get you on the phone? Ideally, you should be seeing brand sentiment improve the more you engage and make yourself visible. You’ll also want to document frequent complaints and the ratio of positive to negative mentions to help determine where the social media pendulum is falling for your brand. There’s no sense increasing your brand’s awareness if the conversation isn’t one you want people to be having.

3. How social users act

A user exposed to your brand via social media will act differently than a user exposed to your brand via search. They show up with different expectations, under different pretenses, and with different goals. To make sure you’re properly targeting social media users, you’ll want to segment this part of your traffic and take a look at how they’re interacting with your site. Do they stay on your site longer or shorter than traditional search users? Which social users (Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc) are more engaged with your content? Do they become repeat visitors? How much social traffic do you get and how does that traffic compare to search? What types of social media users do you most attract? Who is sharing your content? Understanding the different behavior patterns and buying cycles will help you optimize the different experiences. It may also give you some insight into which social media networks are worth your time and which ones you hadn’t even thought to engage with.

4. Conversions & Micro-Conversions

Not every social media campaign will be tied to a direct conversion on your site, but if you are running some type of a social media promotion (maybe you’re selling an ebook or you’re running a Twitter special on rooms at your bed and breakfast), this is obviously something you’ll want to track. You want to not only know where these leads come from, but which actions or campaigns prompted them. What calls to action were used? What landing pages? What sites did you target? These are all things you can track so you can tweak or re-use next time.

You also want to look at micro-conversions. For example, maybe someone didn’t book a room with you right there, but they did sign up for email newsletter, subscribed to your blog or they liked your brand on Facebook. These small successes can build larger successes down the road and are also worth noting. Don’t ignore them.

5. Links to your site

We can’t talk about monitoring an online marketing campaign without talking about links. If you’re running a contest, creating content or doing anything else designed to build interest in your brand, then monitoring your backlinks is a good way to see if it’s working or not. Using a simple tool like Yahoo Site Explorer or Google Webmaster Central can help you find links coming in to that specific URL or to your site as a whole. While this is one way to gauge how widely a specific piece of content was spread, it will also help you find new blogs and authority sites that you’ll want to participate on to grow your brand even more.

6. New rankings

With new links and increased buzz opens up an opportunity to build your rankings for new terms, assuming you’ve taken the time to optimize your social media campaigns for search. Dig into your analytics to see which keywords are bringing in additional traffic to your site, how well those terms are converting for you, and what content piece or promotion generated those additional rankings. This can help you identify the effective of specific campaign, while also opening your eyes to keyword opportunities you may have missed before.

Above are six easy metrics for small business owners to track to help the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. What else are you tracking?

About the Author

Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an Internet marketing company that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services. She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.

Are You A Social Media Expert?

(There's an update at the end)

This is a trick question.

You cannot answer it by yourself.

Unlike certain professions that require you to attain a degree or certification based on learning and passing tests that proclaim you have the background training in those professions, we don't have that in the social media world.

I believe only others can give you that "expert" crown.

And it depends on who those others are and what their own level of expertise is.

So as you wander into this social media world, beware of the self proclaimed experts.

Instead, look at what they have done, and what they are doing and see how it compares to what you want to do in the social media world.

Personally, I prefer to be a mentor, teacher, trainer, inspirer, motivator,and equiper than a self-proclaimed expert.

As I said to some friends this week, one definition of an expert is a former pert.

Whatever that is..

Image from http://www.freewebs.com/dlfordivinelegacy/rk.htm

Update on 5/24/11:

The past couple of days the Twitterverse that I hang out with has been debating the Social Media EXPERT title.

My friend Kevin Mullett finally spoke out on it with a video which you can watch here: http://www.kevinmullett.com/the-term-social-media-expert-overused-over-vilified/

Another friend, Anthony Juliano wrote about it too: http://anthonyjuliano.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/why-youll-never-hear-me-refer-to-myself-as-a-social-media-expert/

And another friend sent his 2 cents in an email:

One of my problems with the self-proclaimed "expert" or "guru" is the lack of humility. While some truly great leaders refer to themselves this way, I disagree with it, and I find humility in a leader to be one the most valuable assets one can have. In some fields, the posturing of one's image through superficial titles is broadly shunned. The term implies that one knows all there is to know, and whether that's an accurate definition or not, the stigma is still there. In fields like marketing, SEO, and social media, where so many frauds abuse this term to trick people, true professionals do well by steering away from such cliche and abused titles.

Thanks for the great contribution, Scott!

------------------------------Josh Humble



Thanks Josh for your comments too, (Yes, that really is his last name!)