Does your business blog?

Have you been thinking it might be time to consider a blog, but aren’t sure (a) you can pull it off and (b) it will provide value?

Keep reading. This article will help you (or someone you know) understand the value of a business blog.

Is Google the Only Reason to Blog?

I have a question for you, and it’s a serious one: If you never garnered another single visitor to your company blog through search engine optimization (SEO), would you still have one?

For many, especially execs who don’t necessarily “get it” when it comes to content marketing, the answer would be, “No way!”

But for those persons and companies that have watched the magic of blogging and its effect beyond SEO, the answer would be a resounding, “Of course!”

That’s what this article is all about. There’s much more to having a company blog than just getting more visitors to your website because Google decided to send them there.

In fact, here are 5 other powerful reasons why you should be blogging, and I look forward to hearing what you would add in the comments section at the end.

#1: The Power of Team

Ever heard of HubSpot? The Boston-based company and all-in-one social media platform for small- and medium-sized businesses is one of the fastest-growing in the world, and considering Google just invested $32 million in the company, they seem to be on solid ground.

Although there are many reasons HubSpot is rocketing up the charts of the business world, one of the core components to their success model is the “team” feel of the company. Ranked two straight years as the #1 Best Place to Work by the Boston Business Journal, HubSpot allows EVERY single person in the company to produce content for the company blog. With over 300 employees, you can see why it’s nothing for them to post 3-5 articles on most days.

By allowing all employees to create content, companies like HubSpot have a constant flow of new names and ideas on their blog.

When it comes down to it, we, as humans, like to be part of a movement. We want to be part of a team. When all hands are on deck and each person is contributing to building the company’s content base, magic and momentum can truly happen, and all benefit together.

And keep in mind, this principle isn’t just for large companies. Whether you’re an army of 1, 5 or 500, working as a team to produce content can have a powerful effect on any company or organization.

#2: Blogging Sharpens Your Sword

Before I started teaching people about business and marketing, I was (and still partially am) a “pool guy.” That’s right, I own a company that builds in-ground swimming pools throughout Virginia and Maryland. Over the last 10 years I’ve had over 1000 in-home sales appointments.

Sales professionals constantly answer the same questions again and again. By writing out these answers, their ability to communicate with prospects and clients goes up exponentially.

Three years ago, when I embraced the power of content and started our company blog, I noticed many benefits. One of which was the fact that my sales presentations became much, much better. How so?

By creating 2 to 3 articles a week for my blog:

• I was forced to stay up to date with every new technology in the industry.
• I became much better at explaining things in a way the consumer could clearly understand. (In other words, I learned how to become a better teacher.)
• I found that I seemed to have an answer for every question a customer could throw at me.

Simply put, writing a blog post is like practicing for a game. The more one practices, the better their skills, timing and overall play—which ultimately leads to more victories, or in this case, sales.

#3: You Become the Trust Agent

When it comes to blogging, the process of making sales is not nearly as complicated as we sometimes make it. Look at it this way:

Do you remember your kindergarten teacher? (Yes, I know that was a long time ago, but try.)

How did he or she make you feel? Did you trust him/her?

Although there are many reasons why most of us love our earliest teachers, the biggest reason we respect and appreciate them so much is because they took the time to patiently teach us things in a way we could actually understand.

That’s right; they weren’t there to impress anyone, as their only goal was helping us understand.

When a company’s blog takes on this “kindergarten content” approach, they do everything in their power to answer consumer questions by seeing the world from the consumer’s point of view, not their own.

Once this occurs, walls of doubt are torn down and the trust level between the customer and the company immediately starts to go up.

Genuinely helpful articles, like this one above, will generate huge amounts of trust from consumers wanting to spend their money wisely.

And as I mentioned above, this trust will lead to more phone calls to your office, more forms filled out on your web page and eventually many more sales.

#4: Content is the Great Qualifier

Has your company ever gotten a lead that wasn’t exactly qualified or ready for your product/service? Chances are, if you’ve been in business for longer than a day, this has happened many, many times.

And when it comes to sales, the more time a sales department spends with unqualified leads, the less time they spend with qualified ones, which is obviously a very bad thing.

There are generally two types of consumers:

• Price Shoppers: someone only focused on lowest price to make their buying decision
• Value Shoppers: someone looking for a combination of product quality, customer service and reasonable pricing to make their buying decision

Ask any sales and marketing department which client they’d rather have and they’ll tell you “value.”

I mention this because with the advancement of the Internet, companies can now track behaviors of their leads when it comes to the content customers are viewing on their website.

For example, here are two leads my company has gotten in the last week. Which appears more prepared for a sales appointment?

Someone who has read 55 pages of your website.

Someone who has read 3 pages of your website.

100 out of 100 will say the first one, as that particular person has shown not only are they a serious shopper, but they’re also very, very informed as to the company’s teachings and product doctrine. (BTW, if you’re not blogging, there’s a good chance your company website doesn’t even have 55 pages, so let’s get busy!)

Remember, the more pages a visitor reads on your website, the closer they are to making a buying decision with your company, so integrate your blog’s content into every aspect of your sales approach.

Also, if you’re not currently using a technology that allows you to track lead analytics, I’d strongly recommend it, as it can save your company thousands and thousands in saved time alone.

#5: The Power of the Blog Comment

Does your company blog allow for comments and promote discussion? If not, you’re missing out on a golden opportunity to learn from readers and allow them to tell you exactly what they’re interested in.

Often businesses approach blogging from a very myopic and limited point of view, and simply don’t do a good job of seeing the world through the eyes of the consumer.

By promoting active discussion on your company blog and then truly listening to what is said, you will constantly get questions from individuals wanting to find out more, much of which can then be turned into another blog post.

As you might imagine, this cycle of “teach then listen” can become an ever-flowing content factory for any company that takes the time to do this the right way.

Also, the comment section of a blog is your great opportunity to build a community of passionate individuals who appreciate your company’s brand and mission, thereby becoming your greatest advocates, on- and offline.

Comments + Conversation = Passionate Community

Now It’s Your Turn

I’ve shown you 5 reasons (beyond SEO) why your company should have a blog. But I’ve also intentionally left out many others because I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter as well.

What do you think? Have you seen these 5 benefits within your company? Which one has made the most impact? Also, what would you add to the list?

Jump in, everyone! I love nothing more than discussing the power of great content, so please leave your thoughts and questions in the comments box below.

What if you could understand why your audience shares some information and not other? That would make your content stand out from the competition.

The Science of Sharing

30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month, including blog posts, links, news stories and photo albums.

HubSpot’s Dan Zarrella has found that three things must happen to get your content shared.

First, people must be exposed to your content (be a fan on Facebook or follow you on Twitter). Second, they must be aware of your content (meaning they actually see it). Finally, they must be motivated by something in your content to share it.

Many articles have been written on how to increase your audience size and make people aware of your content, including these by Mari Smith and Denise Wakeman. This article will focus on the motivations for sharing.

The New York Times recently partnered with Latitude Research to unpack the psychology of sharing. Based on their study of 2500 participants (and some other recent research), here are 9 reasons why your customers aren’t sharing your content.

#1: Your customers don’t trust you

Stated plainly, people won’t share your content if they don’t find you or your content to be trustworthy.

The 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer found that globally only 56% of people trust businesses to do what is right. However, in the US, the UK and Japan, that number fell significantly between 2010 and 2011.

Notice the evolution in trust.

#2: Your customers don’t care about your brand

That hurts to hear, but customers have short memories. They wonder “what have you done for me lately?”

Your customers are looking for valuable information, great deals and a chance to meet other people who share their interests. As soon as you stop offering these things, your fans will go looking elsewhere.

They may not feel a commitment to your brand, but you can keep them interested in your content. The next couple of points offer some remedies you can implement immediately.

#3: Your posts are boring

“Don’t be boring,” says Grandma Mary, the alter-ego of Social Media Examiner’s Facebook community manager, Andrea Vahl. People are far more likely to share something they find intriguing or funny.

Look at the case of Volkswagen’s videos. Their Cannes-winning episode, The Force, a spoof on Star Wars, earned over 40 million views. None of their other videos, more traditional marketing content, came close to 1 million views. Of course, most of us would love a million views. But look at the relative difference in sharing power.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0

#4: People care about causes more than brands

The New York Times found that people are more likely to share about something they are passionate about.

Let’s face it. People rarely wake up wondering what they can do for XYZ brand today. But they do dream of ways to help their favorite cause. Whether it’s ending poverty, supporting Greenpeace or advancing a local charity, many people give sacrificially to help things they care about.

Notice how CREE has taken a boring subject like lighting and made it a mission and revolution to change lighting in public places across America.

While not a cause in the humanitarian sense, this does get people excited about being part of something bigger than your brand or product.

#5: People share to build relationships with others

Research shows that people value relationships with other people, not necessarily with brands. They are definitely looking for community. Your brand might be able to create a platform for that community.

Here are two interesting factoids from The New York Times study:

• 78% of respondents use links to stay connected to people they might not otherwise stay in touch with.
• 73% of respondents said sharing content helps them find people with common interests.

Red Bull does a nice job of sharing content their fans might be willing to share with their friends.

Notice how Red Bull asks a question and then encourage sharing.

#6: Customers are looking for validation

Some things haven’t changed since junior high. We are all trying to build credibility in the eyes of our friends. We want to be seen as experts in some area(s).

The way we do that online is through the content we share.

68% of The New York Times study participants said they share content as an advertisement for themselves. They want to give others a better sense of who they are.

#7: People share to manage information

You’ve heard it said, “I’m just thinking out loud.” Today many people think out loud through social media.

In fact, 73% of the study participants said they process information more deeply, thoroughly and thoughtfully when they share it.

Additionally, 85% of respondents said that reading other people’s responses helps them understand and process information and events.

Social media scientist Dan Zarrella found the following words generate the most comments in his research.

Notice how popular words like "giveaway" and "jobs" are.

#8: You’ve misunderstood your audience

If you’ve been around marketing for very long, you understand the concept of a marketing persona. This idea has been around for at least 20 years and advocates understanding your customer profile by creating detailed pictures of your ideal customer(s).

The New York Times study found there are six sharing personas for online fans and I’ve listed a seventh based on my experience and our audience. Understanding who your customers are can help you identify common motivators:

1. Altruists—Altruists share content out of a desire to be helpful and aspire to be seen as a reliable source of information. Preferred tools: Facebook and email.
2. Careerists—Careerists are well-educated and seek to gain a reputation for bringing value to their networks. They prefer content that is more serious and professional in tone. Preferred tools: LinkedIn and email.
3. Hipsters—Hipsters are younger sharers who have always lived in the “information age.” They use Twitter and Facebook to share cutting-edge and creative content. They share content to build their online identity. Preferred tools: Facebook and Twitter.
4. Boomerangs—Boomerangs seek validation and thrive on the reaction of others to their content, even when it’s negative responses. Preferred tools: Facebook, email, Twitter and blogs, wherever people will engage them.
5. Connectors—Connectors see content sharing as a means of staying connected to others and making plans. They are more relaxed in their sharing patterns. Preferred tools: Facebook and email.
6. Selectives—Selectives are more thoughtful in what they share and with whom they share it. They personalize their sharing and expect responses to their content. Preferred tool: email.

Although this is not based on The NY Times research, I’d like to add a seventh persona to the list:

1. Trendsetters—Trendsetters are thought leaders, marketers and business leaders who purposefully seek to stay abreast of breaking news and trends in their industry, sharing it quickly and aggressively. These people are typically seen as experts (or aspire to be seen as such). Preferred tools: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

A couple of observations: 1) notice how many of these personas prefer email; 2) notice that the platform significantly predicts the motivation pattern.

#9: People are more personal with email

The study authors discovered that people have not abandoned email. In fact, participants share most frequently through email and consider it more private. Therefore they have higher expectations for responses through email.

Some final pointers

If you want a deeper understanding of the psychology of sharing, see this article by Dr. Rachna Jain.

One of the most overlooked rules in content creation is the rule of simplicity. Shorter posts (80 characters on Facebook) get shared 27% more frequently. Keep your writing style at a fifth grade or lower level of understanding.

Create a sense of urgency in your writing. Give people a reason to respond now. If they don’t act immediately, they probably never will.

Finally, remember that getting your content shared is just the first step. See this as part of longer-term strategy of building a loyal following.

Share your comments!

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear your comments on how you get your audience to share your content. If you have any stories, please leave them in the comments box below.

As a marketer or business owner, what in the world can you do to grow to your business? I’ve struggled with these very issues.

I’ve got good news and bad news for you. The good news: You really can rapidly grow a loyal following. The bad news: You may need to rethink the way you market your business. If you’re ready for change, keep reading.

In this article I’ll reveal a new (yet proven) method of achieving rapid growth in the social age. It’s the very model I employed to grow Social Media Examiner into one of the world’s top business blogs.

But let me warn you. I’m going to challenge much of what you’ve learned about marketing, but the ideas I’ll share here will resonate with your core.

Where’s Your Focus?

Have you noticed that everything is changing? Your industry advances, ideas expand, products morph and your customers move on. Similar to space travel, everything’s hurtling forward. Nothing remains still. Just when you think you have everything figured out, it all changes!

As a marketer or business owner, you’ve likely wondered, “Will my business survive?” or “Am I ready for the next big change?”

Here’s the funny thing. We’re all so focused on what’s next that we’ve overlooked the most important thing that doesn’t really change. Can you guess what that is?

The one thing that remains constant is people. I’m talking about you, your peers, your customers, your prospects and your partners. Yes, they might jump to the competition, but at their core they don’t really change.

Everyone wants access to valuable insight, great people and recognition BEFORE they want products or services. If you can focus on the true desires of people, you’re halfway to a successful mission.

Where’s your focus? Are you focused on yourself, your products and your company? Or are you looking outward?

Why Marketing Fails

Are you frustrated with the undelivered promises of marketing?

According to the American Marketing Association, “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Key in on the words “exchanging offerings.” That phrase implies a mutual interaction. We’ve been taught that marketing is like a gift exchange. Acme Company gives something and Joe customer is obligated to respond. In reality, marketing has become a way to force people into obligatory situations.

We’ve been treating people like fish. We’ve been taught to simply crawl into a boat, paddle out to where the customers are, grab our reel and cast out on top of customers. Then just jiggle that bait the right way and you’ll be able to force a customer into your boat!

It’s no wonder that customers don’t trust businesses! According to the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, trusting companies trumps good products and services. But let me be blunt: People don’t trust your business.

Add to this that marketing messages are raining down on people EVERYWHERE they go. You can’t escape marketing. Heck, it’s even in bathroom stalls. In fact, this channel overload has caused many people to seek refuge. Your customers have tuned out.

If people don’t trust you and aren’t paying attention, what can you do? This is a big challenge for businesses.

Naturally, you might be asking some of these questions:

• How can I attract quality leads, prospects and opportunity without actively selling?
• Is there an easy way to establish trust with prospects and customers? Can I break through the noise?

There is good news.

How to Build a Raving Fan Base

If you want to connect with customers and attract raving fans, the solution is very simple: Focus on people.

You can meet the needs of people by helping them solve their problems at no cost. Remember that people’s core desires don’t change. Your audience wants access to great insight and people.

When you help people with their smaller problems, many will look to you for their bigger issues. If you can multiply free assistance by hundreds, thousands or millions of people, you can rapidly grow your business.

Content enables this!

When you provide engaging “how-to” information and assistance in the form of valuable gifts (without strings attached), it triggers the “How much more?” question. “How much more value will I gain if I hire this company or buy this product?” is the response many will have when they see the great value you provide for free.

I’ve developed a simple formula to show you how to grow.

Introducing the Elevation Principle

Here’s my formula for growth. It’s called the elevation principle. When you follow this model, you’ll be able to take your business to new heights.

The elevation principle: Great content PLUS other people MINUS marketing messages EQUALS growth!

When you combine great content that's focused on the needs of your audience and lacks any obvious marketing messages with other people, your business can rapidly grow.

When you offer great content—such as detailed how-to articles, expert interviews, case studies and videos—that focuses on helping other people solve their problems, you’ll experience growth. Why? Because this type of content meets the needs of people. It doesn’t focus on you, your products or your company. It is a true gift to your audience.

The “other people” component not only means focusing on the needs of people. It also transcends your reader base and involves reaching out to people outside your company, such as industry experts. These outside experts possess amazing knowledge that your audience will find very valuable.

The last part of the formula is to deliver this content in a marketing-free zone. Once the marketing messages are caged, the focus of your company shifts from “What can we sell you?” to “How can we help you?” You shift from pitching products to boosting people. Instead of investing in ad space, you invest in creating content, experiences, gathering places and communities where people who need help can find it.

You have the chance to own the place people go to for help, eliminating your reliance on traditional marketing channels. You can become the center of your industry, niche or local market. And when that happens, you’re launched on an unstoppable trajectory that will take you places you never imagined possible.

The result: You no longer need to sell! Instead, you demonstrate your expertise by the content you produce, the ideas you showcase, the stories you share and the people you attract. By creating a platform for others, you can also build strategic alliances, quickly grow a large following and dominate your industry.

When you follow the elevation principle, your business will experience rapid growth while your competitors will struggle to survive.

With the old forms of marketing, you pitch and sell. People ignore you and your business is at risk. With the new method, you give gifts, people trust you and you become indispensable. Which course will you take?

The entire elevation principle is documented in the new book titled Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition. Click here for a FREE sample chapter.

What do you think? Have you employed content marketing with success? Are you working with outside experts? Please leave your comments in the box below.

As enticing as the saying is, “If you build it, they will come,” we all know that just because we build a social media presence, people don’t magically start knocking down our door.

Instead, we need to encourage people to come to our social pages and once they’re there, we have to create enough value for them to hang around. And through these repeated exchanges, casual users can become regular visitors as well as valuable leads.

In previous posts, I’ve written A-Z guides to help create the absolute best presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs. Now let’s turn our attention to harnessing the power of those efforts for lead generation.

#1: Assets

As part of your social media marketing plan, Michelle deHaaff suggests that companies examine social media and online assets to see what they can leverage for full social media engagement. She identifies seven key assets: location, people, stories, images, video, audio and words to help us think about engaging more fully.

#2: Brand Message

Ethan Lyon suggests that users want to identify with a brand. He offers Nike’s identity as an example, “Customers buy Nike because the brand gives them the confidence to succeed—much like an effective coach.” What is your brand message? What should users know about you? Can they tell that from what you’re posting?

#3: Compelling Messages

Use compelling messages throughout your communications. Craft messages that users can relate to and won’t be able to resist. These are generally the messages that speak like real people and not marketing spin. Below is an example from Pogue’s Post.

David Pogue uses a conversational tone and a bit of humor to drive home a point from Pogue's Post.

#4: Differentiations

Because there’s a tremendous amount of competition vying for consumers’ attention in the social media arena, businesses that can differentiate themselves will stand out and get noticed. Zappos Service Twitter page shows how to make it friendly and feel like you’re hanging out with a good friend. Create remarkable content.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=8364&message=1

Zappos employees tell you when they're signing off and when they're leaving for the night.

#5: Etiquette

Michelle Golden recommends in her book Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms to practice good etiquette. “Definitely don’t write about and link only to your stuff. Instead, go out of your way to promote others liberally.”

#6: Feedback

Users who write comments and ask questions appreciate receiving feedback. Make it a regular practice to take time to respond.

A fan poses a question on Social Media Examiner's Facebook page and Cindy King responds with a timely answer and directs the fan to a link.

#7: Google

Remember that the social media updates you post via your blog, Facebook page, tweets and YouTube channel appear in search results, too. The person searching is an active user looking for information, and bringing the user to your pages is an excellent way to get in front of potential customers.

A person looking for sources for how to choose a paint color would find blog posts and videos. This person is looking for help and the companies have provided advice and solutions. The companies have found ways to get in front of potential customers.

#8: Help a Reporter Out

Companies are often looking for ways to share experiences that might be referenced in blog posts and articles. You don’t have to be a big company to get picked up for a story.

Sign up for Help a Reporter Out and when you have a story to share on a topic, offer the information to the reporter. HARO is one good way to spread information and get high-quality, free publicity for your business. Keep your eyes open for other ways to distribute information about your business with social media press releases.

HARO serves as a vital social networking resource for sources, reporters and advertisers.

#9: Icons

Social media icons help users share your content and offer ways for people to like your content. Likes are valuable votes of confidence and go a long way with users who may have come to your site for the first time. Make your content easy to share.

#10: Joy

In Guy Kawasaki’s new book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, he tells us that achieving trustworthiness will go a long way for a business. People want to do business with companies and people they can trust. And sometimes it means that we may end up giving our time or some kind of service that we’re not compensated for. Guy suggests that we give with joy.

#11: Knowledge-sharing

Share your knowledge freely in blog posts and white papers. Some businesses are afraid they’ll give away all of their secrets. Your knowledge is a valuable asset; don’t be afraid to share what you know.

HubSpot's inbound Internet marketing blog regularly shares the blogger's personal experiences in marketing and is very generous about sharing tips.

#12: Leverage Content Products

Jeff Bullas recommends using 7 content products for marketing: social media, e-newsletters, blogs, white papers, article marketing, case studies and online videos.

Use a good mix of content, because not all users will read a case study or watch an online video. You’ll increase your odds of being seen by more people by using a mix of content products.

#13: Monitor Conversations

Monitor conversations about your brand and competitors. There are many social media listening tools that will help you keep a pulse on what’s being talked about. The more you know, the more responsive you can be.

#14: Nobodies Are the New Somebodies

One of the most serious mistakes we can make is to pass up a potential lead because we don’t perceive the company or person to be a valuable lead. As Guy Kawasaki says, “Nobodies are the new somebodies in the world of wide-open communications.” Treat everyone with the same attention and respect.

#15: Offline Skills

Online skills don’t have to be inherently different than the way we act offline. Erica Swallow suggests that we use our offline skills and go out there and “Meet people, communicate and build relationships… Be genuine, track conversations and respond to inquiries promptly and thoroughly.”

#16: Produce Content

Not only do we have to produce content, we also have to produce enough of it. HubSpot provides some interesting recommendations: “Businesses must produce enough content for their blog to kick off growth in leads, which starts with about 24 to 51 posts.” HubSpot found that more indexed pages on Google also translate to more leads. They suggest that every 50 to 100 incremental indexed pages can mean double-digit lead growth.

#17: Questions

Lisa Barone recommends that social media marketers should “answer questions because they’re a good way to establish your authority, but also for people to ‘test’ you out.”

#18: Relationships

Lisa Barone also suggests that “social media is an emerging lead generation tool because it lowers the barrier to the sale by building relationships, displaying expertise and through networking you’re able to bring in more people than cold calling ever could.”

#19: Showcase Your Experience

According to Erica Swallow, “The first step to engaging a community of potential customers is sharing content that showcases your expertise. A simple social media update usually isn’t enough to convey a full analysis on a topic. Include links with your updates that expand on key ideas. Keep in mind that your goal is to create value for your followers. Learn what your fans respond to and what they don’t, and then adjust your updates based on that information.”

#20: Target Personas

Buyer personas have been around long before social media hit our radar screens, but marketers have found that having a good picture in mind of the target customer is beneficial in terms of how we write our content.

A blog, for example, can have multiple categories of topics and so you may find that certain categories speak more to certain personas than others. And certain Facebook and Twitter updates may appeal to certain users.

Regardless of how you segment these groups, it’s incredibly beneficial to share target persona information with whoever is developing content for your social media channels.

Before writing, review your persona list to remind yourself whom you're conversing with.

#21: Useful Content

Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web, says that if our content isn’t supporting the successful fulfillment of our business objectives or our users’ top goals, then it’s a waste of pixels. She suggests adding two columns to a content inventory: value to user and value to business.

#22: Value

Guy Kawasaki says there are three types of value: 1) pointers to useful, inspiring or entertaining content, 2) personal insights, observations or content, 3) advice and assistance. Guy’s recommendation is to pass along these gems to friends and followers to help them derive more value from online resources.

#23: Word of Mouth

The Marqui Web Marketing Blog’s post 6 Ways Social Media Marketing Helps B2B Lead Generation says, “Word of mouth has been, and continues to be, one of the best ways to generate more leads for your business. Buyers tend to trust peer referrals more than any other source of information and since social media allows people to share their experiences (both good and bad) with a wide range of people, this can help increase trust in your company’s products and services.”

#24: Excellence

The Network Singularity blog says “there are 5 C’s to social media excellence: coordination of social media activities, commitment means engaging with your environment and deliberately pursuing social interactions, confidence in your social media activities, comprehension of social media, and cultivation of worthwhile and friendly relationships.”

#25: Yes

Being likable on social media enhances our potential for lead generation. Guy Kawasaki says one way to become likable is to “adopt a yes attitude. This means your default response to people’s requests is yes… By contrast, a no response stops everything… To make a default yes work, you must assume people are reasonable, honest and grateful.”

#26: Zeal

Enthusiasm is contagious. By showing the fervor you have for your business, products and services, and through the content you share on your social media channels, users will be inclined to want to stick around, engage and build a relationship. Reach out and show your enthusiasm.

What ways have you generated leads with social media? What would you add to this list? Leave your comments in the box below.

In this interview we talk about what makes for great content, how he came up with the title of his latest book, what Enchantment means for business, why businesses need to embrace nobodies and how he promoted his book. (Be sure to listen to the MP3 of this interview below.)

Mike: Most of our readers are marketers and business owners. Can you explain what Alltop does for them and why they might find it useful?

Guy: One of the functions of marketers, PR people and social media people is they need to keep on top of things.

The vision of Alltop was that we should aggregate RSS feeds for people by topic and create essentially an online magazine rack so that you could go to one place and say, “Okay, these are all the social media blogs and websites aggregated in one place.” It’s the five most recent stories from each source, and we give you a preview of the first paragraph of each story so you can see if you really want to click through.

This way, if your audience went to social-media.alltop, for example, they would see several hundred sources aggregated in one place, the five most recent stories from each source, and in seconds they could scan through hundreds of stories and get a good feel for what’s going on. That’s the vision of it.

Mike: Now you can create your own custom Alltop, right? How does that work?

Guy: Yes. We have about 850 topics ranging from adoption to zoology. A person who has a greater interest than just social media might have a few favorite tech blogs. Maybe the person has a desire to adopt kids, is a foodie, is a Macintosh user and is a real hockey buff. So he or she would want a couple of hockey blogs, a couple of tech blogs, a couple of social media blogs, some food blogs, an adoption blog, and that would be the person’s custom magazine rack. What we let you do is select from any of the 40,000 blogs that are at Alltop, and you can create what’s called “My Alltop.” That’s your custom magazine rack.

The difference between us and Google Reader is Google Reader says, “We’re giving you a container. Fill it up.” We say, “We have preselected 40,000 blogs for you. Just click on a plus sign and you’ll subscribe and create your own shelf.”

Mike: Obviously, you’re looking at a ton of content, and Alltop is really not just any content—it’s from the best content providers. Thinking about content, in your opinion, what do you think makes good content? What separates the best of the bunch? What makes certain blogs stand out?

Guy: For me, one of the easiest, quickest and most effective ways to determine if content is really useful is if it uses either unordered or ordered lists; i.e., bullets or numbers. Maybe it’s just my mind, but whenever I go to a blog post and I see 1), 2), 3), 4), 5) or bullet, bullet, bullet, my mind says, “Better organized, better thought out, more easy to use.”

When I go to a blog post that’s just paragraph after paragraph with nothing in bold and no sort of navigation tips, it’s hard to find the value. The ones I hate the most are “How to Be a More Effective Social Media Marketer” and you go to the post and it’s just paragraphs. There are no bullets. So you have to dig out of each paragraph what the tips are. Where are the tactical, actionable items? I think one very good indicator of a good blog post is, “Is it in bullet list format?”

Lots of people say, “Guy, that’s such a superficial way to look at things,” and “It’s not my style to write in bullet points,” but try looking at the world through the bullet point filter, and I think you’ll see that the best information is bulleted.

Mike: I’ve often said that I think the path to the mind is through the eyes, so if you can get the attention of an eyeball through formatting, then ultimately you can ensure your content makes its way into the minds of people. I think what you’re saying resonates true. It’s all about the way it’s presented, first and foremost. And you know, if it’s crappy content, then people won’t pay attention to it, but if it’s great content and it’s presented in a way that accommodates the eye, then I think you’ve got a magic formula.

Guy: With a bulleted list, I would make the case that even if it’s crappy content, it will be easier to determine it’s crappy with a bulleted list because you won’t have to dig through the crappy paragraphs to determine it’s crappy. You could just glance at a bullet, which is much faster.

Mike: Most of us are becoming inundated with content, so we have to make it easier for people to digest, and that’s where bullets come in.

Guy: I think a second and related point to this is that the greatest headlines to me are “Top 10 Tips…”, “How To…”, and “The Art Of…”. It happens that I’m a very tactical, action-oriented person. I’m looking for ways to do things better. Just give me what to do, tell me the 10 things to do.

Mike: Let’s talk about your story a little bit. Let’s talk about Enchantment. What is that word in your mind? What does it mean? Why did you choose it for your book? It’s quite an interesting word.

Guy: Well, I came at it from two directions. One very pragmatic, which is I needed a word that Guy Kawasaki could own in the same sense that Tom Peters owns the word excellence and maybe Geoffrey Moore owns the word chasm and Clayton Christensen owns the words innovator’s dilemma. Everybody has his or her word, and I needed a word.

The genre of this kind of writing is influence or persuasion, and those kinds of things.

Mike: Cialdini has the word influence, right?

Guy: Right. Cialdini owns influence. He’s also my friend, so I’m not going to try to steal the word from him. So when it came right down to it, coming from that pragmatic direction, enchantment was the word.

Coming from the other direction, which is a more philosophical direction, I wanted a word that went beyond influence and beyond wooing and beyond persuading. I wanted something that took it to the next level. It’s one thing to influence another person—it’s another thing to enchant the person.

Mike: What does that mean, especially for a business?

Guy: I think that a business that enchants a customer has a customer who’s beyond loyal. It’s delight. You can influence me and you can woo me and you can persuade me, but when you enchant me, that means that I’m head over heels in love. It’s the difference between like and love.

Mike: I think of Walt Disney World fans. People who are fans of Disney are enchanted, and they’ll do anything to participate in any of those kinds of activities endorsed by Disney because they’ve been enchanted, right?

Guy: Yes, and of course, the greatest example of all is Apple. What other company gets people to buy a phone that can barely go one day without charging, and that has the worst (until a few weeks ago) carrier in the world exclusively? That’s the power of enchantment. Anybody can sell a great phone with a great carrier.

Mike: What’s the benefit to a business of enchanting its customers?

Guy: Two levels. One is loyalty, repeat business, forgiveness at times. It just makes sense to have this relationship, this Nordstrom-esque kind of relationship with your customer. So that’s an obvious sort of business return, bottom-line answer. But I also think there’s a higher-level answer, which is that it’s a lot more fun to have a customer relationship based on enchantment rather than arm’s-length, sort of tit-for-tat, quid pro quo. I think that permeates the entire organization.

That’s a very different attitude than, “Oh, let’s just get up and see what our click-through rate is, and can we get a better CPM deal? How are we being rated in a statistical survey?” It’s a very different outlook on life.

Mike: Well, in Chapter 4 of your book, since we’re talking about Apple, you say the following about Steve Jobs: “Steve Jobs can enchant the shell off an egg without disturbing the yolk. But without Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, or iPad, Steve wouldn’t have anything to sell.”

You worked for Apple and you worked with Steve. Can you talk to me a little bit about the connection between being enchanting as Steve Jobs is, as you talk about him in your book, versus having something that is enchanting? What’s more important?

Guy: Neither, or both, actually. A great enchanting person with nothing to sell has nothing to sell. And a great product, without people who can enchant people and evangelize people to embrace, it is also a half-completed project.

Apple has this sweet spot of a CEO who really can enchant people with just his keynotes alone, and he has an enchanting product. So if you said to me, “Guy, you can either have an enchanting person or an enchanting product. Pick one,” I would pick the product. I would say, “Give me an enchanting product and then I can train people to be enchanting with it.” Whereas, if you give me enchanting people but a crappy product, it’s a lot harder to fix the product.

Mike: What makes an enchanting person?

Guy: I think an enchanting person starts off with a fundamental basis of being likeable. If you think about it, have you ever been enchanted by someone you can’t stand? Probably not.

The second component is trustworthiness, because you can like a person—you can like a Hollywood star, or their persona anyway—but that doesn’t mean you trust them. So the second component is trustworthiness.

The example I cite in the book of trustworthiness and competence and likeability is someone like Terry Gross of NPR. I don’t know her personally, but in listening to her on Fresh Air, you have a very good sense of her that she really is competent. She really can conduct a great interview across many, many subjects. She’s laughing, she’s teasing. You have a sense that she’s just not reading off a teleprompter that some producer put up 30 seconds ago.

So it’s between likeability and trustworthiness and knowledge and competence. And the difference between knowledge and competence is that knowledge is what you know, competence is the ability to apply it. A knowledgeable, competent, likeable, trustworthy person is enchanting.

Mike: Now let’s flip it over to the enchanting product. What are some qualities of an enchanting product? Can you give us some examples?

Guy: Sure, there are basically five or so key elements to the product. The first is depth—a product that is feature-rich. It does a lot.

The second thing is that it’s intelligent in the sense that its makers have intelligently figured out the customers’ problem and a solution to their problem, maybe even before the customers have.

The example I like to cite is that Ford Motor Company has a product called MyKey. What that enables you to do is program the top speed that the car can go. Imagine if you bought a really hot Mustang and you had to loan the car to your teenage son. You could program it so that the car could go no more than 60 miles an hour. I think that’s a really brilliant idea!

The next quality is completeness. Great products, enchanting products, they’re not just a physical entity and they’re not just a download. There’s a totality of the experience, which would be a string of enhancements, online documentation, technical support, all the good stuff. It’s not just the car. It’s the totality of the experience.

Another quality is elegance in terms of user interface. Someone has cared about the interaction between you and the product. That’s where Apple really shines.

The last thing is that I think enchanting products are empowering. That is, they make you feel better about yourself. A Macintosh is enchanting because it makes you feel more creative and more productive. Some computers you fight and some computers make you better.

Mike: I like the way you’ve analyzed that. I think a lot of businesses can really be thinking about this when they’re developing their products and services.

Guy: The acronym is DICEE. It’s deep, intelligent, complete, elegant and empowering.

Mike: Let me switch into a totally different discussion. You talk about the importance of embracing nobodies in your book. I’d like to explore this a little bit with you because so many people simply go after who they think is the highest profile individual when it comes to trying to get endorsements or support. I like the fact that you’re kind of going countercultural here and saying maybe you should not just look at those people. Can you explain what it means to embrace nobodies and why it’s important?

Guy: My theory is that nobodies are the new somebodies. In the old world, information came down from the mountain and trickled down to the masses. You had to look up at the mountain and see god, and god was the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune and Forbes, Wired and CNET.

So in a world dominated by gods or goddesses on a mountain, you had to suck up to the gods and goddesses, hoping that they would like your product so they would tell the great unwashed masses, “We, the gods, have decided that you should like Facebook, and you should like Twitter, and you should like Macintosh, and you should like Shutterfly, and you should like Delicious.” I guess Delicious is a bad example now.

That’s the old world. In the new world, with blogging and tweeting and Facebooking and all the other stuff, I think it’s just as likely that someone you never heard of who has absolutely no platform compared to any of these publications will love your product and spread the word.

LonelyBoy15 on Twitter might tell 200. But it may be that LonelyBoy15 who is really a database administrator telling people about your product is more powerful in aggregation than this godlike person on the mountain.

I’m not telling you to ignore the gods, what I’m telling you is that the LonelyBoy15s and the Tiffany65s, they all add up.

Facebook grew because nobodies signed up for it and these nobodies created this total force. Now the somebodies have to say that Facebook was interesting, and they had to cover Facebook because if they didn’t, they’d look stupid.

My theory is that you don’t know who LonelyBoy15 is. It’s not like there’s a LonelyBoy15.com that’s ranked according to Alexa or Compete in the top 500 sites on the Internet. What you have to do is plant a lot of seeds, and you just hope that some of them are LonelyBoy15s.

Mike: What kind of practical tips would you give to your fellow marketers who want to try to plant seeds with nobodies?

Guy: The more seeds you plant, the more likely some will take root. With my book, the typical business book rollout involves inviting a few hundred reviewers. Obviously, you try to get The New York Times and The Washington Post and whatever. That’s the traditional method.

I happen to have a very valuable asset that’s kind of unique in the world, which is I’m the co-founder of Alltop, which has 40,000 blogs created by 20,000 people. I sent an email to all 20,000 saying, “I’m coming out with a new book. Would you like to review it?” Of those 20,000 people, roughly 1,200 said yes, so 1,200 people are going to review this book.

In a perfect world, I’m going to send out all 1,200, so on or about March 8, there’ll be 1,200 reviews of Enchantment. I don’t think that all 1,200 are going to come through, but let’s say 500 do. I don’t think there’s ever been a book that rolled out with 500 reviews, to put it mildly.

One of them might be Silicon Valley moms blog, or it could be the homeschooling blog because I have homeschooling.alltop, so homeschooling bloggers got my email. If they responded and said, “Yes, we would like to review your book,” then my book might be reviewed in Homeschooling World. Homeschooling World might only have 1,000 readers, but God bless them.

Mike: And they’re probably very influential people, I would imagine too.

Guy: In homeschooling, absolutely they are. So do I care if the person who’s the homeschooling main blogger tells all the other homeschoolers, “You have to read this book”? That is my best-case scenario!

Don’t get me wrong. I would love for The New York Times Book Review to say, “Everyone should read this book,” but that’s highly unlikely. On the other hand, I think I’ll get a lot of homeschooling blogs, I’ll get travel blogs, I’ll get mommy blogs, I’ll get food blogs.

Mike: And social media blogs.

Guy: Social Media Examiner. And they all add up.

Mike: Just a few closing comments. I was skeptical at first, I’ll be honest with you, because I wasn’t sure what you were trying to accomplish with the word enchantment. But having read through it, I believe that it’s really powerful what you’ve done here, and I think that time will prove that what you’ve done is created your next bestseller, so congratulations.

Guy: Thank you. Everybody has to have goals. Do you know the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie? That book is totally awesome. It came out in 1937, and it has sold roughly 15 million copies. If you go to Amazon today, you’ll probably see that it’s in the top 200 sellers to this day. That’s kind of my goal.

Mike: You want it to be a timeless book.

Guy: Yes.

Mike: That’s awesome. I want to close with this last question. If folks want to learn more about you specifically, and your book Enchantment, where would you like them to go?

If you want to find out more information about Enchantment, go to Facebook.com/enchantment. It’s a fan page where I post all my information. Mari Smith opened my eyes to Facebook and she introduced me to the Facebook programmer who did my custom work. She also introduced me to Wildfire, that is doing an Enchantment quiz for me.

Mike: Guy, thank you very much. I know that you’re a busy man and I greatly appreciate your taking the time out. We look forward to seeing more great things from you very soon.

Guy: Michael, I know you would do the same for me!

Mike: You know it!

Listen to our complete extended interview (below) to hear some of the interesting ways Guy promoted his book, as well as the dark side of enchantment.

Click here to download MP3.

What do you think of Guy’s ideas? Leave your comments in the box below.

The growth and usage of Twitter is not surprising. Compete.com estimates approximately 21 million unique monthly visitors, and a quick search on Twitter yields a variety of conversations from music, sports, politics, events and products.

For business however, there’s an art to using Twitter, and the most successful at it follow an unwritten set of rules. The following are 5 important tips to follow on Twitter; all lessons that I have learned while working for companies like HP, Yahoo! and Intel.

#1: Do Some Research

Research is fundamental. I suggest that marketers or small business owners spend a few weeks understanding what types of conversations are happening on Twitter and then formulate a communications plan before actually engaging. This will help drive consistency in the messages shared on Twitter.

#2: Determine Your Goals

Not all businesses use Twitter the same way. Some, like @ComcastCares, use Twitter merely for customer support. Dell uses Twitter to sell products or share company-related information. Often, I see smaller, more local businesses use it to build relationships with their constituencies to drive customer loyalty programs.

Whatever your goals are, it’s important to think about what you want to achieve with Twitter before spending your valuable time and resources on it.

#3: Specify Your Twitter Profile

There are many options you can use when creating a Twitter profile. You can create a company-branded account, a personal account or a hybrid account.

Branded account:

A branded account is simply where your Twitter name corresponds with the name of your company, and usually the avatar is your company logo.

Personal account:

A personal account is a little more human and unites your own personal brand with that of the company you work for or own.

Hybrid account:

A hybrid account usually takes different elements from both the branded and personal accounts.

Every business is different, so whichever option you choose, there has to be a level of balance. Branded profiles are great for certain content—for example, industry news, contests, investor relations, etc. Personal profiles are more beneficial if your organization wants to leverage the employee’s personal micro-community or wants to have a more human presence.

When I worked for Intel, I used two profiles to build community: my personal Twitter profile and one I created for Intel. I followed an 80/20 rule that seemed to work perfectly for the community that I engaged with.  On my personal account, 80% of what I shared was conversational (i.e., asking/answering questions, sharing industry-related news, etc.) and 20% was Intel-specific content. The branded account was the opposite—80% of the content shared was Intel-specific and 20% was personal.  This worked very well and click-through rates on links I shared were well above industry average.

#4: Build Social Equity

To be successful on Twitter, you have to build trust and credibility with your community. The end result is an increase in your social equity. That doesn’t always translate to the number of followers, tweets, or retweets you may have either. Rather, it’s more about developing a reputation as a trusted source of information or being seen as an expert in a particular subject.

You won’t succeed in building your equity by pushing out one way marketing messages about your business. Instead ask questions, be personal, and engage people naturally within the community. Otherwise, customers won’t listen to what you have to say and your equity may even decrease.

Buying Twitter followers is not recommended either. There are a lot of companies that will promise you thousands of followers for a very low price. The problem is that many of the followers will never read your content, click through to your links and they’re probably just bots spitting out a multitude of Bit.ly links. Besides, if it becomes public that you did purchase followers, you will be called out by the community and your reputation may be damaged.

It’s not worth buying followers just to increase your “perceived” equity and influence because that’s all it will be, perceived.

#5: Track, Measure and Iterate

Any small- or medium-sized business should invest in a paid tracking service like Radian6 or ScoutLabs to better track Twitter conversations, identify trends, measure sentiment and get a quantifiable snapshot of what’s going on in the social web.

If you want to measure sales, you can simply use a tracking code or coupon code specific for Twitter that will help measure conversions. If you want to measure how much money Twitter has saved your company, you can track how many issues you resolved, leads you gathered, and dollars you saved through Twitter engagement versus traditional channels. If your goal is to handle customer support issues via Twitter, it’s wise to check if there are any decreases in the call volume to your customer support center.

The great thing about using Twitter for your business is that it’s very easy to iterate your metrics and communications plan on the fly. It’s important, however, to remember that your plan should always map back to your goals and objectives so you don’t lose focus.

What Twitter tips would you add? Are you tracking your Twitter activity?  Got a question?  Please comment in the box below.

During this interview, you’ll learn how Seth employed new media to promote his latest book and his thoughts on marketing and social media.  Note: Be sure to listen to the complete interview at the bottom of this article.

Mike: What exactly is a “linchpin” and how do I know if I’m one?

Seth: A linchpin is the person we can’t live without—the indispensable person who does work that matters, the person who is trying to stand out as opposed to fit in, the one who’s not easily replaceable, the low-paid cog in the giant industrial machine but, in fact, the person whom we seek out.

If someone says, “We’re going to see Bruce Springsteen,” you know that it isn’t going to be someone who’s like Bruce Springsteen performing. It’s going to be “the” Bruce Springsteen.

I guess the question is, “Can someone put the word ‘the’ in front of your name?” You are “the” Michael Stelzner. There isn’t anybody else who could be doing this interview about this topic because you’re him.

Now, thanks to the Internet, Google and the way the world is changing, anybody who chooses to become a linchpin can.

Mike: Do you think most people who are linchpins know it?

Seth: I think that anyone who is at the edge of what they can be doing is doing that on purpose. They are going through the pain and the difficult work and the risk necessary to do their art, to stand out, and to not just be a noisemaker.

Mike: Do you think anyone has the potential to become a linchpin or is this something that only a small percentage of society will ever achieve?

Seth: The first four words of my book are “You are a genius.” I honestly believe that.

When you were 3 years old and painted something with fingerpaints that had never been painted before, you were a genius. You solved the problem in a way that no-one else ever had.

Everyone has the capacity in some way to do the work of genius. I am not saying that everyone can build a profitable company, that everyone can start a Google, or that everyone can fill a stadium with screaming fans.

What I am saying is if you pick the right endeavor, you ought to be able to do work that matters.

Mike: I love the fact that you regularly talk about how you could even be a linchpin in your “day-to-day” job, like the guy behind the deli counter who’s smiling and greeting the customer. You can play a linchpin role in almost any endeavor, isn’t that true?

Seth: That’s right.

I got a note yesterday from a guy who has a fast-food pizza chain. His pizza is better than any other pizza in the chain. The people who run the chain are giving him a hard time, saying, “We want it all to be the same.”

The reason they want it all to be the same is because then everyone is replaceable. Then all the power goes to the person who writes the manual.

But if you look at your job as a platform for doing art, for being generous and for making changes in people, then you’re both getting paid and stretching yourself to become indispensable. When they hire someone to take your place when you move on to the next job, the place won’t be the same, because you won’t be there.

Mike: Let’s talk about you now. When was the first moment in your life when you realized you were a linchpin?  What was the turning point where you recognized that perhaps you were unique?

Seth: It was in 1976. I was on a lake in Algonquin Park, Canada, teaching a 12-year-old girl how to paddle a 17-foot-long canoe all by herself.

As I was sitting there I realized that I had a tremendous responsibility because I could either just do my job, in which case this girl would go back to her day unchanged, or I could take a chance—I could lean forward. I could connect. I could do something that wasn’t asked of me and maybe, just maybe, I could impact her life and help her deal with her bad temper and help her see a different way of navigating through her day. I did it and it worked.

Mike: What happened next?

Seth: It was an extraordinary feeling. Joanna went from slugging people several times a day—anyone who disagreed with her, boy or girl, she would just deck them—to being somebody who was smart and generous and connected and kind and enjoying her life a lot more.

Fifteen years later, she contacted me and it had stuck. In that moment, I got the chance to matter. That’s sort of addictive.

Mike: Was there some sort of resistance going on in your head, like, “Should I do this? Is she going to snap at me? I’m just going to do this?”

Seth: In the book, I talk about the resistance, which was a term coined by Steve Pressfield in a book called The War of Art. The resistance comes from the lizard brain; the part of our brain that is afraid, that doesn’t want to get laughed at and doesn’t want to make a mistake.

If we look at the people who are reading Social Media Examiner and we look at the huge momentum to fit in and follow the standards, as soon as someone does something interesting on Facebook or Twitter, a hundred people copy it. A thousand people copy it. There’s a lot of desire to not get laughed at and to not be the one who did that thing that everyone talks about. That’s the lizard brain. That’s the part of us that wants to fit in.

What I’m arguing is that the last person in on anything happening on the Internet never profits. The people who win are the ones who figured out how to win before anyone else was even paying attention, before there was a manual, before there was a Dummies book and before it was the standard operating procedure.

Mike: Thanks Seth.  On another topic, did you promote this book any differently than your other books?

Seth: Every time I write a book, I try to take my own advice. With Permission Marketing, I set up a website, www.Permission.com, which cost $400. You give me your email address and I send you one-third of the book for free. That led to 200,000 people giving me permission, which changed everything for that book.

In initiating the Ideavirus, I gave the whole book away for free because it was a book about giving stuff away for free. If you Google the words “idea virus,” it’s still there. It’s still free.

With Linchpin, what I said was, “The mainstream media is clearly dying.” The number of book critics is diminishing.  So I’m going to ignore all those people. I’m not going to send out one piece of mail. I’m not going to send out one review copy to the mainstream media. Not one.”

Instead, I reached out to bloggers and people with followings online and said, “Let me do an interview with you, if you’re interested, because you are the new media.”

The second thing I did was go to the people I have permission to talk to, readers of my blog, and said, “If you make a donation to charity, I’ll send you a review copy of my book a month before anybody else gets it. No strings attached. Review it and share it when you’re done if you like. The only reason we’re asking you to donate money to charity is because we can’t give one to everyone. We just want to give one to people who really care.”

Almost 3,000 people took me up on that offer. The book has been reviewed online probably more than any other book I can think of. The day the book went live and Amazon opened its doors, more than 110 people gave it a review.  All of them had read it. None of them had any other incentive to review it.

The end result of this is that it was the biggest launch of any book I’ve ever done and one of the most successful book launches of the year.

Mike: I’m looking at your book right now and on the back cover, there are a thousand little pictures. Tell me what that’s about. Note: That’s me holding the back cover up…  See any subliminal messages?

Seth: Last year I put a post on my blog that said, “If there’s someone you can’t live without, someone indispensable in your life, send me their picture.”

Flickr has a feature that gives you an email address where you can email pictures to yourself and they show up in your Flickr account. I published that email address. Everyone was sending me pictures that ended up in my Flickr account.

I downloaded those pictures and put them into a mosaic. Here is a gallery of people—ordinary, everyday people like you and me—who matter. That’s the essence of the book.

Mike: I thought that was really brilliant.  In your book you talk about gifts.  Can you explain what gifts are and how social media plays into the whole gifts concept?

Seth: A gift is not a gift if you give something to someone hoping they will give you something back. That is sort of an unequal transaction. It is not a gift.

A gift is what Pablo Picasso did when he painted a painting and you get to see it in a museum. He knew you’re never going to be able to buy one of his paintings. He wanted you to see the art. The point of the art is to change people.

When you help somebody out who asks you a question on Facebook or Twitter because you hope one day they’re going to become a consulting client, you’re making a mistake. While that might be an interesting marketing strategy, it is not a gift.

My argument is that linchpins make art. Art is a generous gift that changes other people.

Mike: If I’m a marketer and my goal ultimately is to market a product or service, can I still give a gift even though my intention is to try to sell something?

Seth: I don’t want to call that a “gift.” I want to call that an opportunity to put ideas in front of people so that you can up-sell them after they trust you. That’s fine, but let’s not get confused.

There are plenty of people who read your site who are happy to respond to a pop-up window: “Welcome to my blog. Sign up for my free newsletter.” That newsletter is designed to have valuable content but also to up-sell people. That’s all good. But that’s not a gift.

What I’m talking about is somebody who gives $100 to charity and doesn’t sign his or her name to the letter. There’s no opportunity for anything to come back to the giver, except for the fact that he or she now feels closer to the mission.

Mike: At the end of your book, you mention Frank Eliason from Comcast as a great example of a linchpin. Why?

Seth: Frank works at one of the most hated companies in America, a cable TV company called Comcast.

On his own, without permission, he started searching Twitter for mentions of the word “Comcast.” If you mentioned Comcast in a tweet, he would get back to you, sometimes within five minutes.  He would tell you who he was and ask you to call him directly, or he would try to troubleshoot you right then and there so that you could get back online or back to TV.

It worked. It worked because it was so out of the box, so generous, so remarkable, so opposite of the way people felt about Comcast.

As a result, Frank’s standing at Comcast goes way up and so does his career.  That’s not why he did it. He did it because he clearly loves the company and he wants to help people. The side effect of his generosity is that he’s set for life now because he’s “the” Frank Eliason.

Comcast then hired a whole bunch of people to sit next to Frank because once the word got out that this was the shortcut to customer service, lots of people started tweeting the word “Comcast.”

The lesson from Frank is “do something that hasn’t been done before.” Do it out of sheer generosity. That’s the lesson.

Mike: One of our Twitter followers asks, “What is the catalyst or tipping point that pushes a follower to be a leader?”

Seth: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is a great book that I recommend.  It’s about social movement. I don’t think there’s a tipping point for an individual to go from follower to leader, but I do think there are plenty of catalysts.

The real catalyst, in my experience, is no-one goes from being a follower to being president of the United States. There are lots of kinds of leaders. You can be the president of the safety patrol in fourth grade and you’re doing a little bit of leadership.

What really shifts is if you decide that you’re going to take tiny steps toward leading. Those can be leading in your family or leading in your community.

I really believe that this is a path and not an event. The path starts with leading a few people, volunteering at your local animal shelter and then leading a corps of volunteers to make a change happen.

Mike: Talk to me about your time working with Lester Wunderman. He’s the marketing guru behind the American Express Card and Columbia Record Club. What did he teach you about marketing?

Seth: Lester invented the term “direct marketing.” What Lester understood is that it’s not particularly difficult to hire people to follow the manual. His firm, Wunderman Cato Johnson, grew to be a multibillion-dollar firm, with lots of people doing direct mail and direct marketing for lots of companies.

You don’t need Lester to do that. What you need Lester to do is sit down and invent the gold box on the Columbia Record Club so they can go on TV, or invent the American Express Card as a charge card, not a credit card. These sorts of insights and innovations are what he does for a living.

It only takes a minute to come up with one. The other eight hours a day are spent going to lunch and walking around and smiling at people. But in one minute a day, he’s creating billions of dollars worth of value.

We get so hung up, particularly in a tweetified, Facebooked, blogged world where there’s always one more email to answer. We get focused on how busy we are or even how measured productive we are, as opposed to saying, “What did I do today that was important? What did I do today that no-one else can do?” If you spend a little bit more time on that work, you’ll discover that you have enough money to hire people to do the other stuff.

Mike: So what Lester taught you is to focus a little more of your time on coming up with innovations?

Seth: He helped me see that that’s my only job.

Mike: To the aspiring future linchpin, what would be the best piece of advice that you would give him or her?

Seth: Ship. Fight the lizard brain. Fight the resistance. Whatever it is you’re working on, ship it out the door. Ship often. Put things out there and fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The person who learns the most wins.

Mike: Seth, thank you very much for your time. You’re an incredible fountain of knowledge.

Seth: It was my pleasure. Thanks for doing the great work on the site.

Listen to the rest of this interview (below) and learn a lot more about Seth and marketing…

What do you think about Seth Godin and his marketing ability? Have you read his books?  Did they leave a mark on you?  Leave your comments below.

This article reveals three important tips you need to know to help build and manage communities.

What Is Community Management?

Previously I wrote examined the different roles for those who work with social media in business.   Among the many roles, the community manager is by far the most important because he or she is on the front lines of communication. Here’s how I define community manager:

A community manager usually manages an editorial calendar for a blog/community, a Twitter account and various third-party social media channels like a Facebook fan page or a YouTube account.

A community manager may also be responsible for managing a social listening platform like Radian6 and filtering/assigning conversations to others in the business unit for a proper response.  He or she may even organize in-person events (or town halls) to get feedback from the community. The community manager is the face of the brand.  Conversations are at the core of the job responsibility.

Over the years, I have worked for several big brands and have learned some valuable lessons about community.  When I refer to community, it’s not just a “social networking” site where users are required to login and create profiles. Communities can be built on Twitter, YouTube and even on a blog where the conversations are happening within the comments.

Here are three lessons to consider when managing a community:

#1: Embed within your community.

During the War in Iraq, there were several journalists from various news organizations who would embed themselves within infantry units in order to get access to “front line” reporting.  The result was that viewers were able to keep up to speed with what was going on several thousand miles away.

Community managers must also embed themselves within the community they serve and become integrated with the community.

The result is the collecting valuable data and insights from the community members and reporting back to management. The reporting is usually feedback on how to improve the company’s products, services or business processes.

Community managers will be successful if they are authentic and leave egos at the door.  Community members are smart and can see right through egos and many times they will call you on it. The best tip I can give to a community manager is just to be yourself.

During my time at Yahoo!, one of my core responsibilities was community management. In order to do this effectively, I had to earn the trust of the community. I accomplished this by taking off the mask of corporate America and doing what comes naturally: being myself.  I invested hours a day just getting to know others in the community and engaging in really simple and personal conversations. It didn’t take long for others to consider me a friend and begin to trust me.

#2: Don’t just focus on monetizing.

The biggest mistake a community manager can make is to start screaming “one-way” marketing messages at the rest of the community. The members will do one of two things: they will either leave the community or call you out on it publicly. Both are bad for business and should be avoided at all costs.

Unfortunately, situations like this still happen today. Brands and small businesses create groups, fan pages or Ning communities for the sole reason of monetization.  There may be some sales as a result, but there is little to no long-term benefit, much less repeat sales. Remember the old saying, “It takes more to acquire a new customer than to sell to an existing one.”

The most effective strategy to drive revenue for a business is to build the community, earn members’ trust and delicately ask for their permission to market your services, a wise proverb from Seth Godin.

#3: Don’t just listen, get the community involved.

Yes, the hot topic today is “listening” and the tools are just about commoditized with new applications launching every month. Building strong customer loyalty is not just listening but also acting—embedding yourself within the community and becoming a trusted voice there.  However, the challenge for every business in social media is to eventually “become believable.” And that means winning consumer trust.

Here is an example during my tenure at Intel how we succeeded through social media after a big consumer marketing campaign:

In May 2009, Intel launched a “Sponsors of Tomorrow” commercial featuring Ajay Bhatt—the co-inventor of the USB. Check out the video here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLPHrCQr2I

The catch phrase, “Our rock stars aren’t like your rock stars,” aimed to put a human face to the Intel brand.  For a split second, one of the Ajay Bhatt fans in the video rips open his shirt to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with Bhatt’s image.  We were bombarded with requests for the T-shirt on Twitter, YouTube comments and on our blogs.  We then ran a T-shirt contest through Twitter and gave away 100 Ajay Bhatt T-shirts.

Intel now runs an Ajay Bhatt fan page on Facebook where I see the number of fans still growing today.

Do you manage a community?  What other tips would you suggest? I would love to hear your point of view, please comment below.

So what better way to understand social media than by looking at the fundamental principles of influence as taught by Dr. Robert Cialdini, professor of psychology and marketing at Arizona State University? In his seminal book, Influence, Cialdini covers six “weapons of influence”  that are hardwired into our social and cognitive minds.  In other words, we can’t help but behave in accordance with these laws of social interaction.

Does this sound like something useful to keep in mind during your social media engagements?  Well, let’s take a look six powerful persuasion techniques:

1. Reciprocation

In Cialdini’s words, the rule for reciprocation “says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us. If a woman does us a favor, we should do her one in return; if a man sends us a birthday present, we should remember his birthday with a gift of our own; if a couple invites us to a party, we should be sure to invite them to one of ours.”

And so it is in social media: we’re more likely to retweet someone who has already retweeted us.  We link to people who have linked to us.  And we tend to give a business far more trust after it has provided us with a lot of free value.

Used manipulatively, this turns into autofollow bots that help you amass thousands of followers in a breathtakingly short time—none of whom may actually care what you have to say.  Doh!

Used more positively and constructively, if you focus on initiating reciprocity by providing no-strings-attached value to those in your network, you’ll ultimately wield far more influence.  Not because the gift economy is a new fad in marketing, but because following the law of reciprocity is how we’re wired as humans.

2. Commitment and Consistency

“Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.  Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision,” said Cialdini.

Chances are, you follow too many people on Twitter.  And you’re signed up for more RSS feeds and newsletters than you can really read.  Objectively, purging your list of followers and unsubscribing would eliminate distractions and increase your social media signal-to-noise ratio.

But most people never make that purge and hardly ever unsubscribe.  Part of it goes back to reciprocation, but a larger part stems from consistency: you’re loath to admit that following and subscribing to those people and newsletters was a mistake.

On the positive side, how much more likely are you to comment on a blog that you’ve already commented on before?  Especially if you’re now “signed in” to comment on the blog during future visits—and if your Gravatar or Disqus headshot shows up next to the comments?

According to the principle of consistency, you’ll want to remind people of their previous positive commitments through perks, public displays, an elimination of friction for increasing their commitment, etc.  It works for Amazon prime, Amazon’s 1-click ordering, and Amazon’s reviewer system, and it will work for fostering blog comments and a blog community, too.

3. Social Proof

One method we use to determine correct behavior is to find out what other people think is correct. We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA8z7f7a2Pk

Just watch this video to see this in action!

Whether we admit it or not, most of us are impressed when someone has a ton of blog subscribers, Twitter followers, YouTube views, multiple blog reviews for their upcoming book, and so on.

Yes, people can game the system (autofollows and such), which can jade our intellectual response, but our core and initial emotional reactions stay the same.

On the positive side, creating a lot of value for others can help companies and individuals gain social proof via reciprocation: writing engaging content for guest posts, offering to interview authors and subject matter experts, and so forth.  Not only do these activities provide social proof in themselves, but they can help you gain a support network capable of “salting” your blog comments, your retweets, etc.

And when it comes to social proof, tribes matter.  It’s not just about what the mass of people are doing on social media that constitutes proof, it’s what other like-minded people and peers are doing.  So according to the principle of “social proof,” you should concentrate your social media efforts on finding and building social proof within your tribe.

4. Liking

“We most prefer to say yes to people we know and like,” says Cialdini. Extensions of this principle are:

1. Physical attractiveness creates a halo effect and typically invokes the principle of liking;
2. We like people who are similar to us;
3. We like people who compliment us;
4. We like things that are familiar to us;
5. Cooperation toward joint efforts inspires increased liking;
6. An innocent association with either bad or good things will influence how people feel about us.

How does this work for social media?  Well, to start with the virtual equivalent of physical attractiveness, we give extra credence to attractively designed blogs, messages contained in videos with higher production quality, and corporations’ landing pages displaying a better sense of social media savvy in their overall design and layout.

Similarly, individuals involved in coordinating joint ventures for the common good are associated with—and therefore “haloed” by—those efforts, while at the same time invoking cooperation toward a joint effort, which further increases “liking.”  Think of Seth Godin’s efforts at compiling free and thoughtful ebooks and then using the compilation to raise funds for a non-profit.  Bryan Eisenberg’s Trick or Tweet efforts from a year ago also come to mind.

As for complimenting others, what else is a retweet, a trackback, or a positive blog comment than a social compliment?  And yes, those are all activities you should participate in authentically, sincerely, and liberally if you wish to leverage the principle of liking to your advantage.

5. Authority

Cialdini talks about “The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of authority…”  In his book, he examines how authority can be conferred by (and also manufactured by) titles, clothes, and trappings.

In social media, authority is less about titles and clothes than about virtual trappings.  In his (fantastic) report, “Authority Rules,” Brian Clark talks about how perceived expertise can frequently differ from real expertise.  Meaning that the guy known for blogging about and offering intelligent commentary on a subject will likely have far more perceived expertise (and therefore influence as an authority) than a genuine but unknown non-blogging expert.

But perhaps the most direct measure of authority is the number of people who will buy or download a recommended resource based on little more than an authority’s endorsement.  How many people would buy a copywriting book simply because Brian Clark said it’s a must-read?  How many people will download a free PDF on nothing more than Seth Godin’s evaluation that it contains important insights?

But one thing social media has seemed to spark is a dawning understanding that authority is (or should be, at least) limited to a legitimate field of knowledge.  So when a relatively famous figure like Robert Scoble states on his website Scobleizer that search engine optimization isn’t important for small businesses, he’s “taken to task” on it rather severely.

6. Scarcity

Apart from reciprocity, this is perhaps the most used tool in social media.  When bloggers open up a class or inner circle membership or subscription service, it is never for an unlimited number of customers or for an always open/unlimited time.  Smart bloggers either create or fully leverage already existing scarcity by limiting seats available, length of time to buy, etc.

Laura Roeder has rather famously made scarcity a centerpiece of a signature technique,  wherein bloggers hold competitions with free services as a prize.  When contestants don’t win, they then value the prize more highly precisely because of the newly perceived scarcity.  This makes them more likely to accept a consolation prize of getting the services at a slight discount.

Parting Recommendations

While the six principles of persuasion started out as “weapons of influence” that were used against us by “compliance professionals,” I—along with Cialdini—would encourage you to practice the positive side of wielding influence. To sum up many of the recommendations from the post, here are some very positive ways to leverage the principles of influence to increase your social media success:

• Focus on creating value and initiating the reciprocity principle by gifting your social media contacts with high-value content, insights, reports, etc.
• Sincerely flatter your subscribers, friends, and commenters by responding to them and nurturing your growing community.  Actively reach out to people you admire using social media and pay them the compliment of commenting on their blogs, following their tweets, linking to their content, etc.
• Commit to consistent engagement on the social media platforms you chose to use, to the point of staying away from new social media platforms that you don’t have the resources to actively participate in.
• Use social proof as credibility cues where appropriate.  Show off your number of subscribers next to the Subscribe button.  Possibly use colleagues to “salt” your comments on important posts, build up your network by guest posting, commenting, and retweeting.
• Coordinate within your community on larger efforts for the greater good.  You’ll probably be psyched at what you create or accomplish, you’ll do good and feel good about it, and you’ll likely become associated with the effort.
• Put the extra effort in on achieving professional and inspiring design.  Dress for success on your blog, website, and social media landing pages.
• When creating a contest or trying to spark immediate action, use the scarcity principle to positive effect.  But be honest about it—no changing “last day for” dates, no miraculously replenishing supplies, etc

But, hey, I’d be THRILLED to add to the list if you recognize any of your tried-and-true techniques as falling within—or totally falling outside of—these weapons of influence.

What are your secret weapons of influence? Let’s engage.  Please comment below now.

A well-designed business blog:

1. Uses visual interest to make posts easy to read
2. Brands your business in a consistent way
3. Places useful information in places where it is easy to find
4. Isn’t cluttered with things that aren’t helping you promote your business
5. Makes it easy for readers to do what you want them to do

Good blog design is practical

While there are many elements that go into designing a blog that grabs attention and engages readers, here are seven elements that must be integrated at the outset. You can develop the visual look and feel over time, but start here to begin building relationships, trust and credibility:

1. Graphic header with name of blog, tag line and author name
2. Email subscribe form
3. About page with photo
4. Use a variety of media: text, video, audio
5. Plenty of white space to make it easy to read
6. Links to share your content
7. Links for readers to connect on your social networking sites

To illustrate each of these points, I’ve made a short video showing blogs that incorporate these elements.

If you would like to study these blogs in more depth, here are the links:

• ChrisG.com
• Mari Smith’s blog
• Nuts About Southwest
• Build a Better Blog
• Altitude Branding
• Comcast Voices
• The Social Media Marketing Blog
• Wine Library TV
• Social Media Marketing Strategies
• The Social Media Handyman
• Copyblogger
• JimKukral.com
• Street Smarts Marketing

What are the essential design elements you think belong in a business blog? Please share your ideas in the comments and link to blogs that illustrate best practices.