social media Archives - Page 33 of 44 by Mark Murnahan

Push Your Marketing “Go” Button

People dream up a lot of excuses to postpone positive action in their business. In decades of serving clients with marketing services, I must have heard them all. I want to distill a bit of that for you here, and hopefully boost your courage a bit.

I often feel like a police officer listening to peoples’ excuses for speeding. I mean, I should write another book just filled with the awful excuses I have heard from businesses over the years for how and why they messed everything up. By the time it gets to the “judge”, all of those excuses only embarrass the “speeder”. Now put all excuses aside and tell me if you can relate to this. I’ll bet it will sound kind of familiar. You may get a laugh, or you may get a fright.

Let’s first get one thing straight: If your business was simple, everybody would be doing it, and you would be out of a job. Business has its challenges, but there are huge rewards for doing the things others are unwilling or afraid to do.

Money Can Stop Business in Its Tracks!

One thing that seems to stop most businesses in their tracks is money. Actually, the lack of money, or fears surrounding money is what kills them. I have found that money is one of the greatest concerns to most business people. Imagine that! This one basic requisite of business is the same thing stopping them from having more of this one basic thing. It is like a loop … without more money, they don’t have more money. With more money, they get more money. It is crazy how that works, don’t you think?

I have found that with enough money, even a pretty bad business person can at least begin to solve most business issues. Money cannot fix it all, but more money can certainly help to solve the most common business problems. Money can buy better attorneys, it can buy better accountants, and it can buy better talent in most every area of a business. Let’s not lie … at least not to yourself. Sure, lie to me if you must, but really, just think about how much more you can do with a business if you have more money. I know this and you know this, so let’s not beat around that bush.

REMEMBER THIS: In business, the bottom line starts with a dollar sign.

When it comes down to it, money is the biggest reason people make bad decisions in their business, or worse yet, make no decisions at all. It paralyzes people and it clouds their judgment. So the big concern is how to bring a business beyond that hurdle of money.

How do you get your hands on more money? Do you beg a bank for more money? Do you rob a bank, a train, or a liquor store? How about this for an idea? Do more of the things that your business does to generate revenue. In many businesses, this means finding more people to buy a product or service, but in nearly every case it means finding more people … or them finding you!

A Look at Your Marketing Funnel

Let us look at your marketing funnel. I will use the basic idea of a marketing funnel to explain my point. At the top, where the funnel is the widest, you have the people who are aware of your offering. As the funnel narrows, you have people who are thinking about you and may become a customer someday. Closer to the bottom where the money gushes out, you have those hot prospects urgently grabbing their credit cards or check books to do business with you. This is just a basic introduction to the marketing funnel, but you get the point, right? Now let’s look at a couple ways people hurt their business waiting on the marketing funnel.

Waiting for Slower Times

Something I see very troubling in many businesses is that they hold off on their marketing until that biggest bulk of their current sales funnel comes through before they think it is time to get busy marketing. Instead of keeping the funnel full and adding more to it, they wait and see how things come through the funnel before they take action and push the “go” button.

This happens for a couple reasons. One excuse I sometimes hear is that the business is so busy they don’t have time to look forward to the next big rush of customers coming through the funnel. When they are not too busy, they cannot afford to market the business properly. So they go through these violent changes in business … up one day, down the next. The business is like a roller coaster ride.

Being “too busy” is as bad as the lie a teenage boy tells his girlfriend in the back seat of the car … at night … at a scenic overlook. Yeah, lie to a girlfriend, but don’t lie to me. I already heard this one.

Everybody has the same 24 hours in a day, and successful business people make time to be sure their business will still survive after the funnel slows down again. When I hear people say they are too busy to care for their future, I often find that they are simply not marketing in a way that is sustainable. They are the same kind who run a big special when they need more business, and they will have to do it again in a few months or weeks. They often waste a ton of money by marketing in this way, and die early from all of the stress it causes.

A better answer is to create a steady flow of business and make the peaks and valleys smoother. Scheduling is easier, accounting is easier, and production is easier. Everything becomes much more profitable and enjoyable with a sustained marketing plan instead of acting from urgency.

NOTE: This kind of business person commonly lies about their business health. They say they are busy, but it is often because they are busy trying to pay back all of the debt they created the last time the funnel went dry. This is sadly a very common approach taken by small business owners.

Waiting for Better Times

I am often reminded of something my mother told me many years ago. She said “Mark, if you wait until you are ready to have kids, you will never be a father.” I am glad I heard her advice, because today I have three children that bring huge amounts of joy to my life, and the lives of many others.

I think of this as the person who is just waiting for a big windfall to come. They have it all mixed up by believing they will be ready to market their business after they gain enough business to afford a marketing plan. They have placed the money cart in front of the marketing horse. It is a very hopeful person who really believes in their business, but just not quite enough to take the necessary risks to make it successful.

I usually find these people to be very energetic and hopeful. They are refreshing, because they come with the positivity of a child. They also often come with the budget of a child, but if you talk to them in six months or a year, all of that will be miraculously sorted out and they will be ready to push the go button then.

The harshest reality for this person is how much time and money they wasted by doing what they thought would minimize their risk. The worst risk for them of all was inaction. Not doing what they should have done has cost them dearly, both in actual loss and in opportunity loss.

I will hear from this person again, in their next venture. They will be ready to get their marketing plan started in another six months or a year.

Assumptions and Fears About Marketing

I watch a lot of people make assumptions about marketing, and they bolster those assumptions with fear. Call it fear, apprehension, diligence, or whatever you like. Waiting around and thinking about it until it paralyzes your business is not the answer. Taking action and being brave in your decisions is in order.

I have heard a lot of stories, and one I have heard a lot is “Oh, but you must be so expensive.” Here is something to think about: The expensive thing about marketing is trying to make more money without it. Thomas Jefferson said it well with this statement: “The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.” The reality is that marketing is what keeps your funnel full and makes businesses more money … not less.

I guess I could consider it kind of flattering when somebody looks at my experience and my marketing talent and makes the assumption that I must be extremely expensive. Wow, if I can make myself seem that valuable, don’t you wonder what happens to the value of your products or services when you push the go button?

I Gave You a Go Button!

I could go on a long time about the mistakes businesses make in their marketing considerations. The worst and most costly of all is to do nothing and wait on that marketing funnel to start pouring out the results without action on your part.

You have my permission to be successful in your business. In fact, you have my encouragement. There really is no better time, and things will not just better on their own. Go ahead and push the go button … Do it NOW!

Polarize Your Audience and Stop Making Everybody Happy

Polarizing an audience does not mean that you are telling them to go away or that you do not appreciate them. When you polarize your audience, you set yourself apart from the crowd and you often gain respect. If somebody does not respect you for who you are, you probably did not need that respect anyway.

I am first going to explain what I mean by polarizing an audience, and then give you my recent example that happened with an article I wrote titled “Era of The Social Media Dubeshag”.

Stop Trying to Make Everybody Happy!

Sure, you are in business, and you want to be certain that anybody and everybody will want to buy your products or service. You want everybody to love you, I get it. Have you ever considered the downsides? Yes, the downsides can be that your biggest fans are indifferent. They are not the kind who will drag their friends, family, and complete strangers kicking and screaming to buy your brand.

Looking around the business world, you can see many very successful instances of polarizing an audience. A good example may be in Apple Computer’s decision to not support Adobe Flash Player in their iPhone and iPad products. Other examples are available in the soft drink market with Coke and Pepsi, and extreme examples occur in politics. Who wants a wishy-washy politician, anyway?

Do Facebook and Google Polarize Their Audience?

Once you know your brand, stand strong to it. I don’t mean going around and intentionally making people mad at you, but don’t be a chicken either. Just look to Facebook for an example. Facebook is not at all afraid to polarize their audience. They are in the news for it every time they make a big change, but you don’t hear them apologize for how they run their business, or the culture of their brand. Does it work for Facebook? Consider this: If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world with over 500,000,000 (yes, five hundred million) users.

Google battles against whole countries, like China and recently Italy. I don’t think I need to go into a lengthy argument of how Google polarizes their audience. They are famously polarizing, just as most massively successful brands are.

Sure, you can say that Facebook and Google do not have any real competition, but they do, and in huge order. Many people just don’t look at them as having competition because they are so extremely large and tower over their competitors. In any case, consider who you hear more polarizing stories from … Google or Dogpile?

Today’s Murnahanism: Being famous often requires the guts to be infamous. If you just want to please everybody, give up now, before you get hurt!

Pleasing Everybody Satisfies Nobody

I have said it many times that “I do not try to please everybody, and that pleases some people very much.” I strongly believe in this statement and it is with me at all times. What it means to me is that I will not waiver from who I am just to make people like me. It seems that if they do not like me, they dislike me with emphasis. Conversely, if they like me, they like me very much and they are brand-loyal. I try to leave very little room for indifference.

So What About This Dubeshag Article?

I created a new word for our chubby or less-than-Clark-Gable friends in the social media world. I called them “dubeshags”. The genesis of the word was in good humor, and there is what some would call a very funny back-story. You can read the article and judge for yourself.

It polarized an audience in a pretty big way. I was accused of all kinds of crimes of social media for writing it, such as using popular names to build popularity. I explained my reason for writing it in an addendum to the article and it included the statement as follows:

If you think I wrote it for attention, I would have left it as a draft if I didn’t want people to read it. Sure, I want it to be read. Maybe you just blog for the entertainment of your cats, but I do it for public consumption.

The moral of the story is this: Whether people loved it or hated it, the word “dubeshag” is no longer a secret. In roughly 36 hours, dubeshag went from zero listings in Google and no recognition at all to over 500 listings in Google (and later over 25,000); over 120 Digg.com diggs; a handful of votes on Mixx.com, Reddit.com, and StumbleUpon.com; was re-blogged on many blogs; has been tweeted to hundreds of thousands of Twitter users; created an interview on Social Blade; and has flattered a few of the dubeshags who were mentioned.

Who cares if it made a few people pout? Certainly not this author.

Author’s Addendum: This was a strange example, but it does show a few key things pretty clearly. It shows that original content can spread fast. It shows that with a little know-how, you can build a lot of incoming links. It shows that even if you step on a couple toes, you can still be very well branded and have an audience like the kind I mentioned … the ones who will tell a lot of people.

It is funny that since I wrote this and was away for an event at my son’s school for a couple hours, the number of listings for dubeshag on Google keeps going up. In a short time it increased to tens of thousands of pages talking about dubeshag, and linking to the article. So it should kind of make a person wonder what happens when you do that several times per day? What happens if you do it for six months, a year, or longer?

It amazes me how some people still wonder if this whole SEO and social media thing is really worth looking into or not. To those in doubt, I hope I have given you some food for thought, and I hope you will investigate further. Stick around and read some more. You may find that there is a lot more to it than you think.

Eureka Springs Tourism = Fail Arkansas Style

Eureka Springs, Arkansas is a lovely little tourist destination … blah blah FAIL!

Do they wonder why people make fun of Arkansas, or do they even hear it? Maybe they just figure people make fun of every state that way. You know, like the way people make fun of all those barefoot inbred hillbillies playing the banjo and smoking corn cob pipes over in Colorado’s tourist destinations.

Sure, for all the jokes, there is charm in Eureka Springs. Sometimes it is the kind of charm of looking at an ugly baby. You get a good laugh after the parents are out of earshot and wonder how you held it together without spewing your drink out of your nose. There is still charm to that ugly baby.

Enough Eureka Springs Jokes, This is Business

Seriously though, there really is some charm to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and I am not just saying that to avoid being buried out by the woodshed or cut up for catfish bait. I said I would stop joking, so here you have it … the real deal.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas has been a nice little tourist destination, and perhaps still even has much of its original charm … for now. Sadly, it seems that they slipped behind the eight ball as other communities have embraced their would-be tourists and are poised to take Eureka Springs right off the map given time. It appears as if this little town has elected to roll over and die instead of taking steps to regain their reputation as a tourist destination that wants visitors. It is a case of survival of the fittest, and this tired old animal seems to have given up.

To show how serious their problem is, just have a look at this Eureka Springs social media analytics report. If this was funny it would be a great submission to Fail Blog. Instead, it is a sad fact of utter social media failure and business failure. It is something I see often, and worth a good strong warning to anybody who thinks an empty Facebook Page or following a bunch of people on Twitter without any interaction is how to see benefit from social media. It is also a warning to anybody who still doubts social media’s importance to a business or to a community.

It really does matter, and it really does drive real business. Otherwise, why in the heck did Pepsi spend $20,000,000 (yes, twenty million dollars) in social media outreach instead of Super Bowl commercials? Sure, you can say that is crazy, but it was a huge success for Pepsi. Read “Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right“.

How Eureka Springs, Arkansas Tourism Failed

Is it really a failure? Yes! When you lose market share you fail, and when social media barely even knows you exist, it is a pretty good picture of your business health. This is especially true of a geographically-bound institution such as a city. They cannot just move to a better location, so instead, they count on people to come to them. This does not mean waiting for people to search Google for things to do in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It means telling people about its charm and cultivating a market of potential visitors. It means creating an awareness of the community instead of just rolling over to die. It means having the highest waving arm and saying “pick me” when somebody is looking for a nice day trip or a romantic getaway. It means generating a fan base of people who will tell all their friends how incredible the place is and that everything from the food, the people, the scenery, the shopping, and even the bed sheets at the bed and breakfast were amazing. Yes, it is just like old fashioned word of mouth, except that it spreads further, farther, faster, and with much greater longevity than the blurb from somebody at the water cooler of days past.

Here is a video I was presented with that illustrates a very troubling fact that some people seem to believe just putting something on the Internet will make people come begging to do business. It is worth a laugh.

Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism

I will tell you how Eureka Springs was recently brought to my attention. What prompted me to write this was not a recent trip or a good experience. It was a message on Facebook about a blog post. The blog addressed Eureka Springs’ failure to make people aware of an upcoming event that is important to the community. Ironically, it is the “Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism“. Yes, seriously … Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism is coming, and if left to the Internet to discover it, you might think it would be hosted by their new Governor Bill Clinton.

Do you see how nicely that spreads? A friend told some friends, who told some friends … and the story goes on. This is how social media works. This is the power of people communicating with people. This is what Eureka Springs and a sad too many hard luck stories out there wondering why all the customers disappeared should know.

I think it is both funny and sad that a word I made up only yesterday on another blog where I write has more presence in social media than an entire town that relies on tourism to pay the bills. It is sad indeed! I think Eureka Springs may need a “social media dubeshag“.

Where Does Marketing Talent Come From?

Is there such a thing as natural ability in marketing? Some talents seem to come from birth, but like developing any talent, it takes time and hard work. Talent comes with a cost.

Marketing Talent Comes With a Cost

There is a hidden cost to marketing talent that is often difficult to realize. Whether you are hiring it out or trying to develop marketing talent for yourself, it has a cost … often a huge cost. So, where does marketing talent really come from, what is the cost to get it, and why are marketing talents not all equal? Allow me to explain.

Talent is Better with Practice

I have been fascinated recently with the 2010 Winter Olympics. The athletes are amazing, and their talent often seems humanly impossible. What makes it possible is a whole lot of passion, determination, and practice. Passion leads to determination and determination leads to practice. Passion and determination do nothing without the follow through of relentless practice. Apolo Ohno even crashed a few times before he went on to become the most decorated USA medalist in Winter Olympic history, but he kept practicing.

Maybe you have a talent that you are passionate about. Think about that talent you developed through passion. Maybe you went to school a long time for it, and maybe you practiced it long enough to get really good at it … best of all is practice. Can somebody else do it as well as you? If they can, they probably practiced more.

Marketing Talent Takes Risk

It was when I heard Bob Costas and the other announcers talking about Olympic athletes having similar DNA to race car drivers and other risk-takers that my ears perked up. I started thinking about the risks people take, how they calculate risks, and really how little most people are willing to risk. With minimal risk, there is minimal reward. Come on, we all know this, and it is true of everything from leaning in for the first kiss to becoming a huge success at something.

Here is a way I can relate to risk. I race cars. In fact, I race cars very well. Driving is something I am passionate about. It is a talent that I have worked on for years, spent thousands of hours practicing, and hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to master. I also teach drivers what they need to know about driving. Imagine that. I get in a car with another driver and teach him or her how to go faster … fast enough to kill us both in an instant! Yes, I’ve got balls courage. I have courage the size of an aircraft carrier, but I have something else. I’ve got talent. The kind of talent that only comes from a whole lot of practice. That practice makes me just a little more immune to risk with each lap.

A common saying at a race track is that there is no such thing as natural ability. Oh, there may be some natural propensity (like good eyes and good reflexes), but the talent comes with practice. Really amazing talent comes with thousands of hours of practice. This goes for Olympic athletes, race car drivers, and yes, even marketers.

Good Marketing Talent Minimizes Your Risk

While knowing that each practice increases immunity to risk, I think about how much risk most people are willing to take in their business. Most businesses try to reduce their exposure to risk at every opportunity. They mop up the Vaseline spill in the doorway, they remove the balloon filled with broken glass hanging high above the atrium, and they buy insurance in case it all goes wrong. Doesn’t it beg the question of how they could logically reduce the risk of failure in their marketing efforts? Yes, I think that makes sense, too.

When you look for marketing talent and you wonder what you are paying for, remember this: Good Marketers Already Took the Risks. That means they already know what does not work, and they have the experience to know how to help you avoid doing the same. Not only that, really good marketing talent comes from the people who not only had a strong propensity to good marketing and passion for the work, but they have put in the countless hours of hard work, research, and practice … like the Olympic athlete or the race car driver.

Expensive Marketing Choices

When you consider developing marketing talent, consider your passion, time, and willingness to take risks. If you are passionate about your marketing but lack the time it takes to learn to skate like Apolo Ohno, drive like Emerson Fittipaldi, or market creatively like Pablo Picasso. Stop and consider the risks you could mitigate by sitting in the stands while the real marketing talent rounds the track for you. Be aware that you are paying them for the talent they developed with passion, determination and practice. You pay them for the risks they took that were a bit too ballsy courageous for your liking or your budget.

Do you want to go fast? You must decide carefully which risks to take, and it can be a lot less risky to hire somebody with marketing talent than to develop your own. After all, are you more likely to hop in a race car to create the show for everybody else or stay home and watch it from the safety of your sofa? Either will have a cost, but one takes a whole lot of time.

P.S. Here is what it looks like when I drive. I will leave out the failures it took to get there.

Backlink search on Yahoo! for awebguy.com

Backlinks are massively important to SEO because they reflect a consensus that your Website is either great, or it is not. Most people know that it is important to have a lot of links pointing back to their site, and some even know why … but few really understand how. I will draw this out for you and explain just why most SEO really stink at backlinks. Unless you settle in for a good read, right now, you will miss a huge lesson in SEO that you should know before you spend another cent. Get comfortable, because this is information that will benefit your business.

Most SEO Are Clueless About Backlinks

Most SEO fail at link building, and there are a few good reasons. Yes, I said most, and I mean it. Most SEO are failing at this one singular most measurable task that will make the difference in everything from customers finding your Website, to your Website conversion. The troubling thing to note is that they will often not tell you about it, and worse yet, they don’t even have a clue why they are so awful at it.

First, I will explain the couple of terms I use here and how they work for you, since I know everybody is not totally into SEO the way I am. SEO stands for search engine optimization (interchangeable with search engine optimizer, like me).

SEO is a whole lot more than just making sure you are at the top of the list when people search for what you offer. It goes much deeper, and it has a whole lot to do with another important and misunderstood term. Conversion! Oh, you’ve heard the term, right? In my most simple way of explaining conversion, it means converting searchers into clickers, clickers into buyers, and buyers into raving fans who will take your business to a totally different playing field. Conversion does not mean you conned another sucker into buying your stuff! Conversion could be said to mean that you are converting your business from an “also-ran” to the lead in the race.

Link building, as I am discussing it here, does not mean asking your cousin Sally to add a link to your site about insurance from her site about landscaping. When I say link building, I mean valuable, sustainable proof that you are serious about your business and that other people recognize this fact.

SEO Often Lie About Backlinks!

Now for backlinks; a backlink is what you have when somebody links to your site. It seems simple, right? Every joker who sends you an email offering to sell you backlinks for $49 knows that term. It means a squillion people will come flocking to your Website and enter their credit card number to snatch up your massively important stuff before you change your mind and raise the price. Yeah? Well … NO! This is the way a lot of SEO will explain it, but then, people lie … even on the Internet. By the way, why are they emailing, and why do their Websites never have more than a couple backlinks? I actually think it is not always just a mean-spirited lie, but more because they see this huge market and they are desperate to grab their piece but not willing to learn before they sell it to you. They are trying to earn as they learn, and the customer is often a victim.

Build Backlinks With Talent and Trust

When you have quality backlinks it tells Google and other search engines that others place a trust in you and they like your site. It is a democratic process. It is often faked, just like any other democratic process, but what sets you apart is that you are up for re-election today, tomorrow, and every day. Your business cannot afford to mess this up, and a bad fake in this democratic process can get you banned from search engines and waste a whole lot of your money. The biggest portion of the cost is the money you didn’t earn because you were wasting time with what did not work and your competition got the business.

If you take a creative and well-considered approach to your business and your Website, backlinks are simple. I never asked anybody to link to this site … not even once. I did not have to. I provide information that people want and can use to their benefit. People link here because they trust the content and they believe that others can benefit from it, too. This is the mentality it takes to build backlinks that matter. This is the kind of backlink that is relevant to those people looking for you, and a whole lot more likely to give you that conversion you are seeking. It is the kind of backlink that the SEO who sees you as a meal ticket will never create, because their mind simply does not work that way.

Trust and familiarity can build a whole lot of backlinks. Branding takes time and it takes purpose. When you do it right, you build great relationships. Here is an article that explains the difference that trusting relationships make in SEO and social media marketing: “How the Big Dogs Get Paid”. Have a little faith. I would not link to it if I didn’t think it would benefit you.

How SEO Sucker People: A Simple Explanation!

How does this happen that SEO sucker people out of their money? It is another blog post all together, but it is too commonly because the nature of need, greed, and fear tells people that they should seek the lowest cost in their business. They are out to make money without spending money. They want what sounds great, but for the lowest upfront expenditure. The first SEO to claim that they can do all that those other guys do for a fraction of the cost gets the money. What you should consider is that old saying that you get what you pay for. I would add that sometimes you don’t even get that.

If you are needy, greedy, and scared, do not cry to me or the other SEO who take the job of marketing your business seriously. Until you can get over the anxiety for grabbing fast money from the Internet, you are probably not ready for SEO performed correctly. If you take your business seriously and consider the importance of doing it right, the backlinks will come effortlessly.

Summary of SEO Backlinks

This little observation of backlinks explains a lot of reasons that when somebody asks me (as they often do) “What is your hourly rate for SEO?” I explain that they are asking the wrong question. The cost of SEO does not boil down to hourly rates for SEO or even how much money you wave goodbye to upfront. It comes down to how you look at your business and whether you only plan for tomorrow or plan to take your business to the head of the race. If you want to know my hourly rates, just Google it. If you want some free SEO lessons, go ahead and Google SEO lessons and find out if those backlinks I write about really matter.

If you want it done well, stop and think about these things and bring your lunch money. Doing SEO well does not mean doing it cheap. Real SEO means that you are in business and that you can swim with the sharks, and not that you are just willing to test the water.