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!

Carrying a Social Media Tune

Because there is so much material out there on writer’s block in social media, it is an obvious challenge for many. Or, maybe bloggers blog about blogger’s block to try to work through their own block! One of the beauties of social media technology is that it brings potential topics, relevant discussions and the associated metrics to our fingertips. Staying on top of trends can be overwhelming but we cannot complain for lack of resources.

To help crack a writer’s block, it is essential to stay on top of trending topics by adapting a few of the following techniques:

• Monitor Twitter & Facebook discussions and industry leaders.
• Read the blogs you have sought out and subscribed to.
• Poll your community.
• Use LinkedIn Answers to troll for what questions are being asked in your industry.
• Visit trending sites or social bookmarking networks to see what gets the most votes.

 

But at the end of the day, it is the tone of our delivery that can hold or dismay our audience. In music, striving for perfect pitch, a note out of tune can be sharp or flat. In social media, I'll meld tone and tune and equate a “sharp” delivery as one that brags or is delivered from a lofty space above the crowd. “Flat” would be the negative approach of conveying a success by pointing out failures of others in a demeaning way. Reaching that perfect pitch takes practice and requires writing with passion (not drama – drama and passion are very different!). And, of course, the “selling of the CD at the end of the show” needs to be handled delicately, respectfully, subtly and never overdone.

I recently read a blog post by Scott Weighart of Bates Communications who nicely summed up the tone of content to which he is attracted. I would draw up an identical list, so I thought I’d share his with you: 

• Here’s a really provocative, interesting article that I wanted to share with you.
• Here’s a funny observation or a counter-intuitive take that I have about something relevant to you in the world today.
• I’ve got a concise thought about my area of expertise that will really make you stop and think differently about a topic that interests you.
• I wanted to share a little story with you that will entertain, challenge, or move you emotionally.

I especially like his last point which includes the “out” to write about a side topic, but one in which your target audience may be interested. As I exercise my own communication strategy for my business, I like the flexibility to include blog topics beyond my industry in order to develop a closer relationship with my readers. Those off-topic posts won’t solidify a reader’s opinion of my social media skills, but it might help shape in their mind whether they would like doing business with me.

The more posts (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) we read from others, the better “ear” we will develop for recognizing tone. Understanding the differences between flat and sharp enables us to develop our own unique business or personal tone.

Let the music begin!

Back-to-School Reality Check

This has been a busy week, dominated by Wednesday’s mark as our town’s opening day of school. There are so many mixed feelings that come with back-to-school: sorrow that the summer is over, parental joy in watching the kids moving forward into a new grade or school, stress and anxiety at the anticipation of the unknown, frustration sitting in gridlock as Boston tries to move-in tens of thousands of college students all at once, claustrophobia in Staples trying to get the right supplies in a frantic setting equal to the shelf-clearing hysteria caused by an impending New England Nor’ Eastern.

This year, my back-to-school experience was broadened by learning that our high school athletic department is now on Twitter. I’ve watched Facebook become the grand communication tool for my son’s athletic teams, officially and unofficially. Now we have stepped it up to Twitter. It will be interesting to watch it catch on. The combination of Parent and Child audience should be an interesting, challenging target for the director. But it just reminds us all that this generation lives and breathes by social media. As email falls off the radar of these young adults (foreshadowing the demise of the e-newsletter), businesses need to keep in mind the evolving communication tastes of their target audience. Even though I’m referencing current high school students, the adults 5 and 10 years older than this crowd are already spending their new or newish paychecks. Businesses need to engage this crowd with social media in order to stay competitive.

While everyone moves forward with mixed back-to-school experiences, it is interesting how personal social media tools such as Facebook carry, primarily, the up-side of the experience. It has been analyzed that the bragging nature of Facebook can carry with it stress for those who read posts of others and feel left out or inadequate. It is human nature to want to report on good things that happen. But there is ample evidence of the dramatization of reality, as well as the flat-out pretending. Especially on the college scene, someone eager to fit in can get depressed at how much fun others are having – or seem to be having - without him or her (on Facebook, that is). The exaggeration is giving Facebook the reputation of dramatizing life. It is a real turn-off to many while to others who can’t see through the fabrications, it is a real source of anxiety. 

In business, it is important to remain true to your followers and true to your mission. Exaggerated claims only lead to trouble and a backlash of un-followers. Followers can be very savvy and quick to rat out braggarts. Businesses do not need to market themselves with false claims or pretend to be something they are not in order to attract a crowd. If you have a good product or service, don’t embellish it to earn followers. That is a short-term strategy. Win with creativity, engaging content, humor, information and truth. Oh, and hard work.

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.

Got Balance?

I had two revelations today as I was reading a piece in the Globe Magazine on the power of moms. From it, I learned that I, not being in possession of a smart phone, am in the 7% minority of moms who have internet access from any location (courtesy of Edison Research). Last week, I could have gone to the local library or borrowed my sister’s laptop and hotspot to check email while on vacation. But I chose to remain off the grid. 
 
My bigger revelation is that working moms need to leverage networking more and better. The mom-based groups highlighted in the article consist of new and relatively new moms who have collaborated via social media to create very powerful, collective voices, weighing in on new mom and toddler issues. I was in that seat not that long ago and I love the efficiency of the parenting listservs, discussion groups, and Facebook Pages that pull interested parties together (none of which I was lucky enough to utilize – dating myself!) 

 
Coming off of a recent experience of helping my employer find a replacement for me as I move on to a new opportunity, I read about these social media parenting groups and realized a need exists for moms in a different chapter of life: Moms working full time or part time, trying our hardest to find the right balance between work and family. 

In my replacement search, I sent emails to about 40 women I know who might be interested in my position or who might pass my message to someone who is interested. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a local discussion group for moms in the workforce or on the verge of entering? It would have been the perfect place for me to share my job posting. It could also be a great resource, as the membership grows, to share joys, frustrations, opportunities, and tricks of the trade. It would be perfect for women who are contemplating returning to the workforce after time off to raise children – a place to get motivated, to feel the momentum of a group of women who are succeeding in roles that seem daunting to anyone peeking through the doors. It would be a great place to go when the balance is tipping precariously to one side and we need the virtual support of women in the same boat to get our determination back on track; or to laugh about the insanity!
 
I had the great fortune to have a role model in my life who raised her family and then returned to the workforce as college tuition loomed. My mom didn’t go back to work as a hobby or just to exercise her brain. She went back for financial reasons, to enable us to attend private colleges. She didn’t want to leave my youngest sisters at home to fend for themselves in high school. But she did it. And what started out of financial necessity grew into a career that earned the organization she steered an honored spot on President George H. W. Bush’s “Thousand Points of Light.” Taking that huge step back into the workforce is at least twice as hard without a good role model to help keep your backbone steady and strong. As I found myself eerily, but not uncommonly, in her shoes, I am grateful to have first-hand knowledge of her successes.
 
Women re-enter the workforce for a variety of reasons, some not always exactly as planned; spouse job loss, relocation, death, divorce, or financial hardship. The happier stories are re-entry because we miss the work or it is simply "time." And there are plenty of those stories, thankfully. All of these scenarios could use a good network to help jump-start the process. I know they are out there, but I'm taking a pro-active approach.

In my own little corner of the world, I’ve set up a LinkedIn Discussion Group called "Got Balance? – Needham, MA." If you are in Needham, on LinkedIn, in or nearly in the workforce, and still raising a family (seems like a lot of criteria, but that is just the tip of the iceberg of our personal definition!), I hope you will consider joining the discussion. If you are outside of Needham, consider starting a local network of your own. If you are male and know a woman who might benefit from this idea, send her this post! I am optimistic that these local discussion groups will grow into useful networking tools for many people for many years.
 
If you are a small business that markets to young mothers, the Globe Magazine article is required reading. If you are a small business that doesn’t market to mothers, you might want to start! In addition to the stunning fact that at least 85% of family spending is controlled by moms, here are some of the statistics from the article:
 
How and How Often Moms Connect (Edison Research):
 

• 93% have internet access from any location,
• 61% have a smartphone,
• Moms spend an average of 2 hours 43 minutes per day on the Internet – that’s up from 53 minutes per day in 2002,
• Moms check their Facebook page an average of 4.7 times per day (compared to 2.1 times per day for dads),
• 46% use social networking websites several times per day,
• 35% have 5 or more devices in their home connected to the Internet,
• 74% have a wi-fi network in their household.

 
Got Balance?

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.

Social Media Fun House

Cedar Point, the great Ohio amusement park, used to have a Fun House that was scary, good fun. Along with the standard Room of Mirrors, black-lit ramps and undulating floors, it had a rubbery floor which made you feel as if you were walking on the stuff they used to fill Stretch Armstrong! There was also the darkened section where some panels were fixed, while others gave way to new paths or nightmare-invoking clown bobble-heads. As a non-risk-taker, the Fun House was one of those places where the fears I wrestled at the entrance were overwhelmed by my sense of adventure and pride, as I held my breath, ducked my head and pushed my way in. It was an attraction that gave me many sensations I really didn’t like, but ones which I couldn’t resist.
 

This memory came to mind this weekend as I assessed my stance on social media, in light of Saturday’s Social Media Day. The commemorative day debuted in 2010 when Mashable introduced it as a way to recognize the digital revolution happening right before our eyes.
 

I have experienced and read of the wonders of social media for small business. These tools level the playing field for the smaller players, enabling us to directly connect with industry experts, capture attention of global vendors, gain notice from target audiences and critics, and reach into buyer homes we never before could access. With social media, spare bedrooms can be transformed into home offices capable of offering products and services with an expertise level on par with the industry experts. Dining room tables can become Command Central for small businesses whose online presence explodes overnight.
 

The Internet and social media tools enable us to know our new customer or boss before she or he steps in the door; qualify leads in an hour when it used to take weeks; become a thought leader as our creative posts gain traction; reach across continents and oceans to find the experts we need to take the next step in our business and/or professional growth.
 

The positively charged power we are given to expand our presence with social media tools comes as a package containing the risks of receiving negative (however warranted), viral feedback, and managing those experiences publicly, with composure and realism. I could use the House of Mirrors as an easy analogy to the social media experience where the potential for distortion and surprise dead-ends is perceived as too risky. It is true that some control is sacrificed by putting ourselves out there for public consumption. But the potential outweighs the risks. And businesses that wait outside the social media “Fun House” because the perceived risk is too high will be left behind.
 

From a personal standpoint, social media brought my far-flung family and friends to my fingertips through Facebook, enabled old school friends and business colleagues to find me on LinkedIn, and gave me a vehicle with which to spread my thoughts and ideas through blogging. As these tools became accessible to me, so did the tools and social games become accessible to my children – the flip-side of the fun being the serious, constant job of policing my children’s access. There are too many choices – some taken intentionally, some taken with a complete lack of understanding. What starts out as fun can turn dark in a flash, private info can spread to an incomprehensibly large audience, bullies are given a vehicle for destruction, and predators are allowed unprecedented access.
 

This personal piece of social media is what most distinctly reminds me of the Cedar Point Fun House – the kids march through with their hearts in their throats and the bravery of an explorer, hit a panel that takes them off in a different direction, and what opens before them is unbridled access to worlds we do not control. Society pulls us in to social media, as wary parents hold off allowing their 'tweens access to Facebook, until they realize that is how the coaches communicate with the players. In we go.
 

Social media has been blamed for making us more disconnected and distancing ourselves. I see this perspective and recommend that we respect it in order to effectively execute a social media strategy in business. But I stand in the camp that sees social media’s great value as a connector – professionally, politically, personally, and culturally. I also strongly believe that no amount of technology will ever take the place of the value gained from live, in-person, face-to-face connecting. 

So don’t pass up the opportunity to foster or cement any relationship with a face-to-face meeting.

Time-Saving Social Media Tools & Tips

Facebook & WordPress Collaborate: This week, Facebook introduced a social plug-in for use by WordPress bloggers. The Facebook for WordPress plug-in is receiving positive feedback for enabling bloggers to cross-post WordPress content to their Facebook Timeline and the Facebook Pages they manage. If your blog is based on WordPress, this new feature is good news for you! It is another great way to intertwine your content across your social media tools – broadening your reach, efficiently. 

How are you saving time?

I almost wrote “cross-pollenate” instead of “cross-post,” above! But really, that slip is not that far from the truth. If you spread your posts across social media tools, you will capture new followers who are connected for different reasons. If you can spread your posts across social media tools with less keystrokes, you just bought yourself time as well as exposure.

 
Clients have asked me whether they should choose Blogger or WordPress and I haven’t had a compelling case to choose one blog application over the other. I use Blogger, so I have been partial to that. But I have to admit that the advancements I have read about on the WordPress front make me a little jealous! I don’t consider Facebook the supreme judge of all things social, but their pick of WordPress for their new plug-in might be a (potentially temporary) leg up for WordPress in its survival-of-the-fittest race against Blogger. I fully expect Blogger to reciprocate. Sometimes Blogger will beat WordPress to the punch and, at other times, it will be reversed. That is what is called healthy competition. This time, WordPress got the head start.
 
Get further synchronized: If you are using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, be sure to synchronize those three tools so that your posts on one tool are published to all of these tools. Another purchase of invaluable time.

 
Still adjusting to Facebook’s Timeline? Recently, HubSpot published a handy little (free) Guide to Facebook’s Business Page Timelines. It is a good resource for taking advantage of the new Facebook features which your business can use for marketing. It offers short explanations of:

• Six Facebook Timeline Features You Should Know
• Best Practices for Using Facebook Timeline
• Examples of Great Business Page Timelines

 
Get a handle on these features and concepts and you will be in a great position to better use Facebook Timeline for your business.
 
Keep an eye on your past: Don’t forget to analyze your own activity. Use analytics (from WordPress, Blogger, Google Analytics or through social sharing plug-ins such as Digg Digg or Shareaholic) to discover what is driving traffic to your blog, website, Google+ or Facebook Page. Try to identify what topics and/or keywords are drawing the larger crowds, as well as what falls flat. Stay in tune with trends in your industry and continue to blog about them. Your opinion is important to those who have chosen to follow you. Give them your creative perspective on your common interests and they may pass them to their circle of followers. 
 
Let me know if any of these new tools or tips helped you, and how!

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!

Getting Pinned Never Felt So Good: A Pinterest Story

I have been passively curious about Pinterest, but have to admit that I didn’t visit the site until this past weekend when my neighbor had an unexpected, wild experience as a result of being “pinned” on Pinterest. I decided it was time to see what the fuss is all about.

The best way I can describe Pinterest is to ask you to visualize a bulletin board of things you might clip out and pin to it if the Internet were a big multi-subject magazine. Recipe, craft and travel ideas abound on Pinterest, enhanced by beautiful photos. The social networking side of it kicks in as people, whose pinning activity you follow, add more pins and others, seeing those interesting pinned items, request to follow the pinners. So even if you don’t pin anything (me, so far), you can find your friends (like my friend Maria, fabulous quilter/artist who invited me to Pinterest) who do pin and find complete strangers who pin on topics you enjoy, and follow them.

Now my neighbor’s story: I live in a micro-hub of interior, web, jewelry and graphic designers. One of the talented graphic designers is Nancy Bradham, the creative owner of momgoodz.com; a terrific site for inspired gifts and gear. The momgoodz motto is “Cheeky gifts for overextended moms.” If that doesn’t get you smiling, the subtitle is “Why? Because I said so!” Whether we’ve said that because we were quoting our moms, or because we absolutely meant it with every stressed fiber of our being, we’ve all said it! Nancy promotes her brand locally, on her websites and on Etsy.com – a virtual marketplace for handmade goods, art and supplies.

Last Tuesday, someone discovered one of Nancy’s mugs on her momgoodz.com website and pinned it on Pinterest. It was then re-pinned 272 times in five minutes! In the next hour, Nancy received 40 sales orders! She and her husband spent a “crazy-fun night printing orders, packing mugs and thanking the social media gods!” Sales have continued to be high in this terrific example of the power of social media in the small business world.

According to a new study by Experian Hitwise, Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the US, behind Facebook and Twitter.

Web traffic to Pinterest jumped 50% between this past January and February, enabling the invitation-only site to overtake LinkedIn, Tagged, and Google+ in total monthly visits.

In addition to these stats, visits to Pinterest reached nearly 21.5 million during the week ended January 28, 2012, almost 30 times the number of total visits recorded six months earlier. That is explosive growth.

Momgoodz.com seems to be experiencing a similar growth explosion! Just in time for Mothers’ Day, I highly recommend momgoodz.com for the overworked mom in your life! I’ll go over and help Nancy bubble-wrap if she gets overloaded with orders.

Keeping calm and growing the business!

Discovering Yourself in the 1940 Census

Have you had a chance to stop and think about what you might find hidden within the 1940 US Census?  Or maybe you have already taken a look. What a marvelous snapshot of our country in the throes of the Great Depression, teetering on the brink of World War II. In fact, some questions were added which reflect the stressed economic conditions under which Americans where working then; such as a person’s usual occupation, not just what they were doing the week of March 24-30, 1940.

The US Census Bureau teamed up with the National Archives to stage a great social media campaign to build interest in the April 2^nd first-ever online release of US Census records. They so successfully used Twitter (#1940Census), Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube, and blogs (NARAtions and Prologue: Pieces of History) that followers' queries overloaded the servers shortly after release, followed by sincere apologies as the administrators realized they did not have the capacity for the interest they had generated. It was definitely a disappointment to those who had anxiously awaited the big release. Over the weeks, months and years to come, we can all satisfy our curiosity of how our ancestors, communities and country were reflected in those records.

The house on W. 74th Street

One of the amazing elements of this Census, for me and for many of my contemporaries, is that this is the first time our parents appear in a Census. When I look at a digital copy of the census document, I can imagine the census-taker, standing on the porch of my great-grandmother’s house on West 74^th Street in Cleveland, talking to my grandfather, who was home during the day from his job as a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. This census includes an indicator of which household member answered the census questions. The census-taker was undoubtedly male, wearing a bowler hat and, most likely, a tie. My grandfather would be giving him the names and ages of his household: besides himself, my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother (almost 3 years old) and my uncle (almost 2 years old).

Timmy & my mom

Although the handwriting of the census belongs to the census-taker, it was written in the presence of a grandfather I barely remember, recording a conversation so full of information, I wish I had been there to gather those facts, and more, myself. The facts the government collected are pieces to the puzzle I long to complete – the family tree on the side of my family known more for record-burning than record-keeping. I admit the 1940 Census has no new news on this little family: I know that my maternal grandfather’s parents were born in Ireland and that my grandmother’s mother was born in North Carolina, her father in Ohio. But there are other paths for me to explore that, I know, will give me countless hours of pleasure: Find my great grandparents in Columbus and see who was living with them then; find my father (3 ½ years old) and his family and see whether they were living in the house I came to know so well; Find the McCarthys in Findlay and the Learys in Cleveland; find my father’s cousins in Ashtabula and see if Great Aunt Winifred was still alive; find my step-grandfathers’ families; find my North Carolina relatives and see how the 10 years since 1930 treated them in births and deaths; find everyone’s occupations and incomes to put together an image of their lifestyle; the list goes on and on.

Aunt Winifred, my dad & his sisters

I am a map lover, and the census data across the decades are a rear-view map of the life journey we are on. We are products of our ancestors. Even generations ago, their experiences weigh heavily on our station in life, our view of the world, the foundation of our soul. 

Time to do a little time-travel.

My Top Reasons to Love or Hate Social Media

1. Small businesses with big ideas and small marketing budgets can become thought leaders and big businesses.
2. I can research my book topic and my ancestry, in my slippers and bathrobe, on blogs, websites, chat rooms, and discussion groups.
3. I can round out a photo slideshow gift by collecting photos of events I missed by downloading them from my ‘Friends’ Facebook Pages.
4. I can read ebooks, watch webinars, read blogs to get smart on what happened in digital marketing while I was off changing diapers.
5. I can Skype my young nieces and nephew and see their Halloween costumes, real time, and my niece studying in Cyprus can give me a virtual tour of her apartment.
6. I can utilize LinkedIn and online alumni career services to drive a job search and candidate search without stepping foot in a career center.
7. My friend can launch a Twitter smear campaign against the luxury hotel that gave a lame response to his room break-in.
8. Communities to make businesses and the world a better place can be created by making connections between people who are 1,000 miles away or 100 yards away but who may never otherwise connect.
9. A granny in Fargo can become an overnight social media sensation without having the time to bother with Twitter, Facebook and all that other “crap.”
10. Arab Spring. Enough said.

1. That the woman at the table next to me in the restaurant (on the rare occasion I get out for a peaceful dinner) can only get off her phone long enough to send texts.
2. That bullies can shove my friend’s son in the high school bathroom, take his picture and send it viral through texts and Facebook.
3. That my husband won’t change his Facebook setting to stop getting emails with every Facebook update he receives, and that he reports them to me each day.
4. That a message’s tone is open to wide interpretation.
5. That big talkers with little minds can look important in the blogosphere (but they eventually get ratted out).
6. That Facebook keeps changing how we have to set our privacy settings.
7. That our culture is accepting that social media tools are adequate replacements for face-to-face social interaction.
8. That not only do I have to monitor my children’s time on Xbox, TV, the Internet, iPods and iPads, I should also be policing their chats, Facebook accounts, email, Minecraft allies and something new tomorrow.
9. That I never feel caught up.
10. That Google knows way too much about me.

What did I leave out?

Locate Your Customer

Identifying customers is sometimes an overlooked step in designing a social media strategy. Established businesses can fall into the routine of targeting the same groups or making marketing decisions based on past successes. It is important to perform a bit of self-inquiry to keep up with shifting customer behaviors and the changes which have occurred in how potential customers look for products and services.

I like to compare the customer identification process to my experience of defining a target market for the potential publisher I hope will consider my book draft for publishing:

Who is my target audience? Well, how about “people who read?!” Hmm, too broad. Okay, “adults interested in stories of women who came of age in the Great Depression.” Oh, specifically Midwestern women. And don’t forget young adults who want to learn about a period of American culture that is so different from today that it seems also to have occurred in a foreign land: Mapping change through one woman’s personal journey. The more I think about it, the more sharply I can define the target.

The same holds true for business. Whether you are a yoga studio seeking to pinpoint your student’s demographics; a water filtration company trying to reach new customers through new channels; or a new social media consulting business looking for clients: The questions to ask ourselves are the same. 

Who do you serve now?

Yoga Studio	Middle-age, Senior, young adult, suburban
Water Filtration	New home buyers and sellers
Social Media Business	Small businesses lacking social media strategy

Why do customers/clients come? 

Yoga Studio	Exercise, stress relief, build self-esteem, mindfulness
Water Filtration	Long-term cost savings, reduce waste
Social Media Business	Seek to expand customer base

How do customers in your market find their new products and services? 

Yoga Studio	Word of mouth, search engines, signage, promotions
Water Filtration	Search engines, trip to hardware store
Social Media Business	Search engines, social media, industry associations

The more we analyze, the more we can pinpoint the behaviors and demographics that will help us paint a picture of our target customers and how to best reach them. In the process, we learn about the marketplace in which we compete, discover groups we are not serving, find needs to be filled and learn from our competition. We may find surprises along the way – traits and trends we hadn’t anticipated.

With people heading first to the Internet to find what they are seeking, a business’ web presence is critical to its continued success. Through effective use of keywords and links in websites and blogs, businesses can achieve the page rank that gets them noticed. Through ongoing Facebook and Twitter activity, businesses expand their reach as their engaging content gets passed through the social network. Through targeted Facebook and Google ads, businesses pop into the view of exactly the potential customers they hope to reach.

Traditional methods such as local newspaper ads and mailings don’t have the tailored reach or the breadth of the Internet. Now if we do our homework and learn the specific type of consumer we are trying to reach, social media enable us to appear on their proverbial doorstep.

Social Media Explained in Donuts

It can be hard to wrap your mind around social media, especially if you were busy with other more important things in life when it emerged, or if you watched it emerge but just hoped it would go away. With social media clearly here to stay (as 1,600 staffers at P&G – the world’s largest marketer - are being laid off upon the CPG giant’s realization that Facebook and Google advertising is more efficient than traditional advertising), anyone with a product or service to market should become knowledgeable on the subject and start actively marketing through social media.

To a social media newcomer, explaining the differences between the tools can be confusing. Not to mention, new tools keep popping up. Here is a great whiteboard breakdown, from Douglas Wray, via geek.com, to set us all straight.

This is great! It is all clear to me now. What do you think?

I think I need a donut.