A Blogging Alternative

Guy Kawasaki poses an interesting concept in an interview with Social Media Examiner: As an alternative to blogging, it is easier to drive traffic via Google+ and Facebook. As a blogger, I am definitely not opposed to or offended by this idea. I think it is a legitimate claim. And as someone who has assisted small business owners who are not really interested in dragging themselves into a blogger role, I’d like to present this idea to non-bloggers as a potential piece of a small business social media strategy.

Guy is a former chief evangelist for Apple and the author of several books – most recently: What the Plus! Google+ for the Rest of Us. Once you have evangelized for Apple and wrote a few books, your opinion is asked on many things. And that is exactly what is done in this interview. But I will concentrate on his thoughts on this alternative to blogging and later hit a point he makes about the evolution of publishing.

The two main constraints felt by many bloggers are (1) running out of things to write about and (2) finding time to write. Working through that experience, Guy has found Google+ as his new base platform. Google+ and Facebook give ample space for lengthy posts, (LinkedIn, not so much, but it can still fit the bill for shorter posts). If you can capture your point in the space of a Google+ or Facebook post, maintaining a blog becomes secondary or non-essential. In fact, the sharing features of Google+ and Facebook make it easier to drive traffic to those posts than to blog posts.

Guy also describes the benefits of evolving from a blogger to a curator – that is, moving from standard blog posts toward spending his time discovering quality content he then shares with his Google+ audience. He doesn’t try to create new content as his primary communication. Instead, he acts as a curator of good information he finds that he thinks his audience will appreciate. His philosophy is, if you curate good stuff, people will still follow you. They will appreciate being fed the info they don’t have to find themselves. Guy makes a practice of daily visits to Top 10 lists from various sources such as NPR and TopTenz (and there are thousands more). A good curator must keep on top of what is happening in order to capture and hold an audience (Guy’s established reputation certainly doesn’t hurt either, but any of us can be rock star curators if we work hard enough).

For those adverse or reluctant to maintain a blog, this is a great concept for expanding your social media presence on Google+ and Facebook. It is certainly less of a commitment than maintaining a blog site. And the possibility of building a large following by leveraging the Google+ and Facebook sharing tools has great potential. Whether you choose to create or curate content, you still need to perform the legwork to find what your audience wants. But the bight-size info delivery idea is very inviting - from both a production and consumption standpoint.

Since I enjoy writing my blog, I have no plans to abandon it any time soon and adopt Guy’s approach. In fact, as my own style has evolved over the past 10 months, I have found a balance between original content and curated content. As more of a mix than what Guy suggests, I think there is great value in finding a good piece of information and sharing it in a blog post with my own perspective. I will certainly take his advice and apply the curating aspect more directly to my Facebook Page management – which can definitely use a boost!
 
If you listen to the podcast, you will also hear Guy’s thoughts on the evolution of publishing. Since his first book in 1987, he has seen publishing options evlove from a 6-9 month turnaround time in hardcopy, to a less than 7 day turnaround in electronic books. This piques my personal interest as I approach my goal of publishing a book before year end. I’m curious: Do you read books made of paper or delivered electronically on a Kindle, Nook or tablet? I wonder what my potential audience would prefer. Your opinions on this are most welcome! I won't make you read it!

Coyotes Circling the Henhouse

I was awoken Friday night to a din that sounded like a pack of dogs. “A pack of dogs” was the first thing that went through my mind, even though I’ve never actually witnessed a pack of dogs! It was 2am and it sounded like the many neighborhood dogs had gotten loose and were staging a mutiny. Then there was a whistle or a yell and all went quiet. The next day, we discovered that three coyotes had been spotted a short block away, bringing the occasional news stories of wildlife encroaching suburbia that much closer to home.
 
Earlier in the summer, a black bear wandered into our town, to later be tranquilized out of a tree by police in a nearby town. In that instance, the apprehending, social media-savvy, police department sent a humorous tweet, with all due respect to Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle: “Black Bear, Black Bear, what do you see? I see Brookline Police looking at me!”
 
I live in a sleepy little bedroom suburb of Boston. When did we begin to become so wild?! I suppose it has been gradual. There have always been the skunks, opossums, red-tailed hawks, and the occasional red fox. My friend helped the local animal warden corner a fisher cat a few years ago, which seemed rather exotic. I keep an eye out for deer off the exit ramp into our town and there is a definite spike in the bunny population. So maybe that is what is bringing the coyotes into town. From where?! The woods where my children play?! Hmm. Getting off-topic.

So, part of this realization about my surroundings is an evolving learning process for me. My neighbor diagonally across from me has three chickens, and has had them for years. It is a little unusual, but it fits with their strategy to acquire every potentially domesticated creature known to man, in their (successful) attempt to avoid getting a dog! I’ve gotten used to the chickens in the morning, as I lay awake, unable to sleep past 5am but equally unable to get out of bed until 6am.
 
But I was still surprised to hear, on further evaluation of the coyote situation, that my neighbor three doors down also has chickens (5 or 6!). And my friend who lives across the street from the coyote siting has chickens! I am certainly late to spot a trend. Those are only the ones I now know of. Now I see why the coyotes like my neighborhood so much!
 
All of these neighbors are Facebook friends with Red Cupboard, so I felt my worlds colliding as I read about a Facebook Page contest in which one of the finalists is none other than “The Chicken Chick,” an advocate for backyard chicken-keeping!
 
So for my favorite chicken-keepers and everyone else looking for small business Facebook page ideas, here are some great examples of small business pages with commanding Facebook presence and whose owners have faithfully kept them updated, generating high marks for fan engagement: The Social Media Examiner Top Small Business Facebook Finalists post. If you are looking for ways to improve your Facebook presence and engage your fans, these finalists offer some real-world examples of how it can be done.
 
Now, to see about getting myself some fresh eggs.

Get to Know Your Audience

One of the most amazing elements of social media tools such Twitter and Facebook is that they serve up free information about our audiences, if we take the time to roll up our sleeves and poke around. So put on your research hat and take a hard look at your followers, those you follow, friends, and the chatter in which they engage. The findings of this valuable research enable us to build the profile of our social customer. With an accurate profile, we can fine-tune our message and the timing of its delivery.
 

Social Media Examiner recently covered the 4 Ways to Discover More About Your Audience With Social Media in its blog. I’m giving it a quick summary. The short post is worth a read for all of its great tips and some of the specialized tools available if you want to take your analysis to the next level.
 
The bios of your followers often describe what is important to them, where their passions lie. While some people don’t take their bios seriously, most take considerable time to come up with the perfect abbreviated description of their social media persona. These bios can reveal useful information which, in turn, can be applied to fine-tuning our marketing messages.
 
Knowing when people are reading our content is a key component to delivering our message in a timely fashion. Check the timing of your followers’ posts. Try to tailor your posting schedule to their activity schedules to avoid your posts getting lost in their news feeds while they are off-line. For example, if you are trying to reach young mothers, they are most likely to be socially active in the early mornings and after 8pm. If social media is a large part of your following’s day, posting during regular business hours will most likely hit them while they are paying attention. Monitor the timing of the chatter for a while to get a sense of the best time(s) to try to engage your audience.
 
Twitter and Facebook give us the opportunity to connect with the top influencers in our respective niche businesses. Take advantage of it by following the gurus in your industry. Learn from their social expertise and mistakes. Engage them and you may find you catch their eye, leading to increases in your own traffic.
 
The social sites our audiences frequent can help us develop our content. Understand our audiences’ interests and we can post content that will draw them to us.
 
Take the time to learn from your audience, whether it is large or still building to a respectable level. There will be surprising discoveries as well as expected trends.  Twitter and Facebook are handing this information to us! We should get as much out of it as we can.

Financial Services Connect To Their Audiences With Social Media

Financial services firms face specific challenges when it comes to social media. Between being heavily regulated and meeting client confidentiality objectives, they may seem unlikely users of tools designed to broadcast information and invite dialog. However, financial services firms are embracing social media tools to their great advantage. If you are in financial services and have considered yourself out of the running for expanding your web presence through social media, perhaps the following example will inspire you. It may make you re-think your approach.
 
I first learned about OpenView VenturePartners from Social Media Examiner which highlighted the Boston venture capital firm in one of their blog posts about creative social media marketing. I watched their video of “OpenView in 60 Seconds” and I was impressed! I mentioned it in a previous blog post about adding YouTube videos to the social media mix. In the OpenView video, Managing Partner, Scott Maxwell, sums up his firm’s focus and gives his personalized view of his involvement in less than 2 minutes. The video lives in a library of other OpenView topical videos on YouTube. They obviously understand the impact of personalizing their business, delivering a crisp, creative message and catching viewers’ attention with insightful, low-commitment video productions.


OpenView’s lively website offers links to a number of social media tools (Google Currents, Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and an RSS Feed). Take a look at their Facebook Page to understand how a financial services firm can present a creative social presence without violating any regulations or client confidentiality. Their topics are ones any financial services firm can use to personalize their business -- attracting an audience and keeping them there with upbeat updates. The topics they cover include:
 

• internal happenings such as rites of Spring and employee promotions
• sharing links to other creative marketing ideas
• offering thanks for media coverage they received
• reporting on events in which they recently participated
• updating an album called “Faces of OpenView” with pictures of employees at work and play
• tips on how they keep their own creative juices flowing
• fun things they discover along their own business journey

Announcing new clients and showcasing events they sponsor are about the only ways they directly report their business operations. The rest of the time, their Facebook Page focuses on providing a deeper understanding of the people who make the company hum. They allow their public to get to know their employees’ interests outside of OpenView, attaching a very human quality to a business.
 
Last month, Financial Times reported that financial services firms are embracing social media, a trend in line with the industry’s tendency to be on the cutting edge of technology (Financial Times, April 15, 2012: Financial Services Firms Embrace Social Media). FT references a study prepared by Corporate Insight who surveyed 90 financial services firms about their Facebook and Twitter use. Corporate Insight confirms the importance of connecting with targeted audiences on a personal level, through social media (For the whole article, click here to register with FT for free).
 
The use of social media by financial services companies has increased substantially over the past few years, with great results for firms who have incorporated it thoughtfully into their marketing strategy. Revisit social media’s role in your financial services firm, especially if it is not already part of your marketing strategy. With some creativity, you could be cultivating a community of followers which could grow your business!

Get Creative, Get Personal: Online Video

It was my high school freshman who introduced me to Blendtec when he came home laughing about the YouTube videos he saw of a guy in a lab coat putting things in a blender that should never be near a blender, and standing by to see the resulting mayhem.  Blendtec’s "Will it Blend?" marketing campaign -- pulverizing marbles, iPhones, golf balls and soda cans, to name a few – experienced a 500% increase in sales since the company began putting their videos on YouTube.

Much has changed in the video world and companies of all sizes should consider this mode of social media as a great way to increase exposure to audiences. Certainly it takes creativity. But it also has a low cost of entry with very respectable videos being produced with as little as an iPhone! I watched a clip on the Social Media Examiner website where they were interviewing Steve Garfield who is a social media video guru. Steve offered the tip that his iPhone 4, which now has HD video, and a new handheld microphone (iRig Mic), could be your baseline equipment for producing a business-quality video. Now we can produce, create and share videos all on the same little piece of technology that fits in our pocket.

YouTube, in its early days, was a quick place to load any-quality, shaky videos. It has advanced to offer HD-quality viewing with annotation options used by businesses posting to YouTube: add a title to your video, provide a description for it, and be sure to include the URL for your website so people can find you from your video. Business websites now link to their YouTube pages where they store libraries of videos to promote their brands and solicit subscribers – building their communities. Bottled water company, Evian, successfully embraced this approach with their “Baby Inside” marketing campaign, which is worth a chuckle or two.

Where to put it? Embed your video in your website. Put it on your Facebook Page or Google+. Put it where ever your audience is found.

Businesses are adding video to their social media bag of tricks because it is an inexpensive way to get personal with their audience. A website with a video giving insight into a company’s personality is more engaging than one filled with text. Creativity can be showcased but video is also a way for consumers to identify core business principles as they seek brands or services. Reliability, professionalism, confidence and stability can be conveyed, even in an entertaining and personable way.

The Bark Side

While some of the most memorable videos involve big budgets and outrageous feats – check out Volkswagen’s barking Star Wars Dogs or Chevy’s video with the band OK Go – the small budget can still produce effective delivery that can bring a brand or service to life. Put some effort into the planning and you may be surprised at the results. Good promotional videos don’t happen by accident. Plan the script and venue, work with decent lighting and sound, and practice, practice, practice. Put some fun in it and humanize your brand. Updating your video periodically on your website helps it stay fresh and can keep your audience engaged.

Have you seen any fun promotional videos? What made them rock?

Create a Social Media Strategy for Your Business

The third step in effectively integrating social media into your business is to design a strategy. Social media is a long term commitment, not a quick fix or a jump-on-the-bandwagon strategy. Try to avoid the impulse to rush to use the tools without designing a formal social media strategy. 

Thoughtful planning and analysis is needed to create a social media strategy which can then be used to guide you and your organization in the ongoing use of social media tools – whether you choose to implement a few key tools or expand to include a broad array of tools. By formalizing your social media strategy – including gaining buy-in from your management team – you can prevent misunderstandings about social media’s purpose and what it can and cannot do for your business. There is a definite experimental nature to social media and making everyone clear on that fact is important to the long-term success of your strategy.

One of my favorite social media blogs, Social Media Examiner, offers seven key points to consider when designing a social media strategy:

1. Determine your goals and objectives: How do your social media goals and objectives fit within your overall business goals?
   Here are four common objectives, but there are many more:
   a. Improve brand presence across social channels
   b. Increase positive sentiment about your brand
   c. Develop relationships for future partnership opportunities 
   d. Increase traffic to your website
2. Research, research, research: Test the waters. Start by developing a list of social media sites where you can potentially engage with relevant people. Check out each of the social media sites on your list and search for your brand name, your competitors and your target keywords.  This research helps us determine how relevant each site is to our objectives.  By listening (hmm, I seem to remember a helpful blog post about listening ), we get a sense of who our target audience is, where they are and what is important to them.
3. Create a Digital Rolodex of Contacts and Content: Get to know the influencers who are relevant to your business.
4. Join the conversation and develop relationships: Post comments on blogs and forums, answer questions on Yahoo! and LinkedIn, join groups related to your industry and join Twitter chats. Begin fostering relationships by following influencers and others in your industry.
5. Strengthen relationships, when possible, with face-to-face interaction at industry events. While so much can be done with a keyboard, nothing beats the offline, in person conversation.
6. Measure results: Constantly return to your objectives. Choose the metrics that make the most sense, but stay open to considering others as your use of social media evolves. You may find, down the road, that different metrics help assess your success even better than the first few you chose. For example, measuring the increase in your followers and fans may take a back seat to measuring your brand’s positive mention ratio, as your brand emerges and grows.
7. Analyze, Adapt and Improve: Analyze your social media campaigns, adapt any new findings into your current processes and improve your efforts. Returning to what was mentioned in the introduction to this post – testing and experimentation are ongoing and help you fine tune your social media efforts.

Thank you Nick Shin, author at Social Media Examiner, for your guidance.

Relationship building is the overall purpose of social media. Be patient as your social media efforts gain traction. You are in it for the long haul! Use your well-designed, unanimously accepted social media strategy to help guide you as opportunities emerge and to ground you when it gets overwhelming.

What have you found helpful or difficult when creating your social media strategy?

Find Your Core

Identifying and conveying the heart and soul of your small business is critical to the success of your social media strategy. Author and social media guru, Jay Baer calls this your “One Thing.” Identify your “One Thing” and it will affect every content and posting decision you make. In Social Media Examiner’s blog, Amy Porterfield highlights Jay’s approach. With some easily recognized examples, mixed with two examples of small businesses with which I have been working, here is how we find the heart and soul of your brand.

Take off your marketing hat and ask yourself, what does my business actually do? What is at the core? If you have initiated a social media strategy and begun to build a fan base, it is important to ask yourself, what do my fans say when they are happy? The answers to these questions bring you to your “One Thing.”

Jay’s examples of the “One Thing” include Disney = magic and Apple = innovation. Your goal is to make the same simple equation for your small business.

Pipal Leaf Yoga Studio competes with a number of yoga studios as well as health clubs offering yoga, not to mention the other types of exercise which also appeal to the yoga crowd. What does Pipal Leaf Yoga actually do? It offers authentic yoga without heat and hype. The fundamental principles of yoga practice are at its core, rather than weight loss. The combined health of mind, body and spirit surround the core.

The architect who has hung his own shingle simply identifies his core as the design of buildings. He has other initiatives such as sustainability, value and timeliness. But his “One Thing” is simply, building design.

Take this “One Thing” and make it the voice of your strategy across every network.

Pipal Leaf Yoga can post content defending yoga when the practice is criticized in mainstream publications by steering the conversation back to the healing nature of a practice performed correctly – aimed at the health of the whole person. She can broaden her content beyond yoga by speaking to her audience’s soft spots with organic recipes, book and music recommendations, and a variety of topics such as how our bodies and spirits are affected by the phases of the moon. 

The architect can engage his audience by posting beautiful photos of buildings he admires but had nothing to do with, and support them with content on how those beautiful designs influence his daily work. He can blog about local legislation and its impact on the future architectural make-up of the town.

It all comes back the core - the heart and soul of your business.

Have you defined your small business’ core? How do you apply it in your content?

Ready For The First Step

Have you ever been with a person at the precise instant they realized a dream?  It just happened to me on Monday night and I am so privileged to have been sitting exactly where I was sitting at that special moment.

My yoga teacher, Margaret, owns her own studio which she has nurtured with loving kindness for over three years, maybe four.  Pipal Leaf Yoga Studio was about the size of a modest dining room, always filled with mindfulness and peace.  So popular are the evening classes that sometimes the students have to set up in the hallway outside.  When the absentee tenant next door continued to neglect his space, Margaret began inquiring about renting that space and breaking down the dividing wall to expand her studio.

Well, this Monday evening was the grand re-opening after weeks of sledgehammers, plaster and paint.  It is now twice the size, still intimate, glowing with candles and warmed by the honey-colored floors and earth-toned walls.  As I sat in front of Margaret as she gently brought the class to a close, I felt the extra warmth of a dream realized, in a single tear and an intense feeling of gratitude.

Now we have to fill it!  My first step in bringing Margaret’s business to the next level is to develop a social media strategy.  For a small yoga practice (and for many businesses, for that matter) we need to cut through the business-speak and raise the social media comfort level of Margaret and her team of instructors.  

A recommended first step is Understand what is involved, secure internal buy-in, and forecast required resources and costs. The best way to understand what is involved, without actually doing it, is by reading case studies -- look on popular social media websites such as Social Media Examiner for some great examples.  These sites also offer tools in the form of ebooks, podcasts, archived webinars, and blog posts by topic that can provide a crash-course in understanding how social media fits in small businesses.

Secure internal buy-in can seem like a mouthful.  But for many small businesses, this may be a non-issue.  As in Margaret’s case, she is totally on-board and now it is a matter of figuring out whether the other instructors want to participate and to what extent.  We might discover a closet blogger in the bunch; or a great photographer who can help dress up the website, blog and Facebook page.  The minimum buy-in we need is their understanding of Pipal Leaf Yoga’s web presence and having them talk it up with their students.

Forecast required resources and costs means how much time and money will it take to expand the website with a blog, create a business Facebook page and set up a Twitter account.  Then the fun begins!  It is important to be able to define how much time it will take to maintain this new web presence – posting blogs, inviting, responding to and engaging followers on Facebook, keeping up with Tweets and building a community around the things Pipal Leaf Yoga loves. It is evolving work whose demands will be more visible over time.  But once the mechanics are in place, the passion of the people behind the posts and entries will help grow the community.

That is step one!  More to come.  Namaste.