I believe there is an unrealistic fear that challenges many people in my line of work, and I am bold enough to address it even if others are not. I also seek your input, so please don’t be shy.
There are certain elements within the fields of SEO and social media marketing which cause many misunderstandings and hardships for reputable people with good means, and good intent. People have chosen many names for the people representing those bad elements, but one stands out more prominently than others. For now, I’ll call it “the D word”, and it is something that wise people must be cautious of being tagged with.
It seems that the bad elements in social media and SEO have caused some quality people to become unreasonably afraid to properly promote their goods or services. It affects many other industries, and it seems to have created an overall hypersensitivity which causes many people to only hint about how they actually keep their business running, rather than be upfront about it. This is often an unreasonable fear, but definitely worth some consideration. I’ll explain this with a story.
Not so long ago, I tried my best to be less self-conscious about what others might say, and become more promotional of my own services. Yes, more promotional, rather than less. It felt kind of awkward, because that is the opposite of what I often suggest to others. This is because over-promoting your own value is often looked down upon, regardless how worthwhile it is. Being less promotional and more promotable by focusing on others often leads them to do the promoting for you. The trick is in having a good balance. After all, even if you are astonishingly good at something, if you rely solely on others to do your promoting, you will often be let down.
Finding a Promotional Balance in Social Media
What I am describing can really go either way, and finding just the right balance between self-promotion and being promoted by others is a tricky matter. You see, there is this awkward little piece of our psychology that makes us far less likely to promote something that benefits somebody else more than it benefits us. This often holds true, even if we actually think something is worth promoting. It is a bit cynical, but it is a common reaction of people, and it is hard to change that.
An ideal marketing balance lies somewhere between remaining highly “promotable” by others while still effectively promoting things which actually sustain our business needs. To meet this challenge, it is often considered best to keep our efforts more useful to others than to ourselves, and I believe that’s an excellent goal. It makes us more creative and helps us to be more fun and entertaining. It can also have a really big downside.
In my case of seeking that balance, it is not about a lack of confidence. I know that what I do for others benefits them more than it benefits me. I work hard to be useful to others, and I have a solid record of helping companies to become very successful by implementing effective marketing strategies. I am extremely good at getting websites ranked in the top of search engine results, and I know how to make something very marketable … except my own services.
So why is it that I find it so challenging to create a balance? In simple terms, I don’t want to be one of “those people” who are unfairly chastised for trading money for the things in my brain. You know, because people often think things like experience and knowledge should be free. For more on that mentality, I seriously suggest reading “Strategic Marketing Failure: Are You Giving it Up Too Easy?”
Why the Social Media Promotional Balance Occurred to Me
My moment of introspection came differently to me. It was not because anybody called me “the D word”. It came after several friends told me that my own self-marketing didn’t have enough “bite”. Really, they told me I needed to be more upfront by saying “Hey, look at me! I accept money from companies to make them more successful in their marketing … and I have a hell of a track record of success!” They said I needed to be more clear that the things I write about are the things I get paid to do, and that i don’t cost companies money … I make them money.
That should be simple, and I can support that with facts.
My argument was that I didn’t want to be one of those “douchebags” (the “d word”) so many people were talking about. I didn’t want to be berated for that horribly ugly term, “self-promotion”.
I am very critical of the way some people promote themselves in my line of work, because I can see through the hype. I despise the dishonesty and sleaziness of many people’s marketing approach in my industry, and I refuse to do it. I have always been extremely opposed to taking the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach, even to the point of under-hyping myself to less than half the level of my own credibility and experience. If I boasted with truth half as much as others in my field boast with lies, I could knock a bunch of them right off the totem pole … but risk being a “douchebag” by doing it.
I even felt really awkward the first time I placed ads on my blog, because “douchebags” do that. I was even more concerned when I added that awesome popup reminder to subscribe to my blog … but now I’m really glad I did it. I described the considerably tiny amount of friction I got from it in my earlier article titled “Social Media Goals and Complications of Winning“, but it has been an overall success.
The Cynics Are Not Buying your Lunch!
I have said it before, but it is worth reiterating … The cynics are not buying your lunch!
It is easy to forget that many people are cynical and insulting without good reasons. I realize some people will not immediately recognize that I actually teach people good and sensible no-hype ideas about their marketing. Most people who look a little closer change their mind once they get to know me, and my work. Unfortunately, that initial concern of a “douchebag” moniker held me back, and still does to some degree. The good news is that I’m getting over the concern and finding it easier to say “Hey, look at me! I accept money from companies to make them more successful in their marketing … and I have a hell of a track record of success!” I am also finding it a lot easier to say “I would like to talk with you about improving your marketing.”
I’ll tell you why it got easier … because it is all true, and it is how I earn a living. Just because some few outspoken people do not like it does not change the fact that I am still providing more value for free than many people do for pay.
I was reminded of all this today as I went through a list of new people following me on Twitter. I found myself making fast judgments about them. It all got me to wondering how I might look, on the surface, and before people get to know me. It made me wonder how many people suffer on one side or the other of this balancing act. It appeared to me that more of them were afflicted on the opposite side of the self-promotion equation.
I think it is an important thing to be aware of in either instance, and I hope I have encouraged you to step back and try to imagine how others see you. Maybe you are a little too “douchebag”, and maybe you are not quite enough “douchebag”. If you are like me and not making it clear enough about the action you want people to take, you may need some more “bite”, too. It is worth some consideration.
This sort of insecurity has begun to fade for me, and it is because I took another look at just how successful I have helped others to become in their businesses. Yes, in the end, I came to understand that I really am damn good at what I do. If you hate me for it, maybe you just hate me for being a “douchebag”. As long as it is totally unfounded, I’m OK with that.
I’d like to know what you think. Have you encountered this, too?
Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of people trying hard to have a big social media audience? I’m sure you’ve seen things like television shows promoting their Twitter and Facebook. You’ve probably seen companies running contests and offering free goods if you will just follow them. You’ve undoubtedly seen the links all over the Internet screaming “Follow Me”. On the more absurd side, you’ve likely had complete strangers with nothing in common, and no real interest in you, follow you or send you a friend request, just to add to their perceived worth.
Seeking an audience is not all bad, but it is one of the more misunderstood components to social media marketing. It has been widely promoted that if you can gather a big audience, it will provide some unrealistic value to your business.
Once the audience is assembled, many people talk about “engagement”, but then don’t even know what that really means. They will say how important it is to “engage” your audience, so a lot of companies take that as just trying to make friends and be chatty with everybody they can.
Friends are fine, but that is not marketing. That is networking, and social networking can do amazing things for your marketing, and building social media equity is important. However, by using tactics without a strategy, social networking alone will lead most companies to huge disappointments.
Who Are Those People in Your Network?
It baffles me how many people and companies are so desperate to have “Followers” and “Friends” that they will completely give up on understanding who they are, why they came, and what they want. A lot of them are so desperate that they engage in the absurdity of implied reciprocity. You may know it as the “I’ll follow you if you’ll follow me” tactic, and I hope you don’t waste your time with that.
Without knowing who they are, why they came, and what they want, and by just having a bunch of random communications with random people, the value is greatly diminished. After all, just try to “engage” me about knitting needles … it will not help you sell more knitting needles … not even one. Even if I like you, I’m also pretty unlikely to tell all of my friends about how awesome your knitting needles are. It’s just not my thing.
Let’s be clear on this! If you are just trying to reach people, it will not provide the same benefit as reaching the right people. This is the biggest single missing link I find with most social media campaigns, and it is because of an utter lack of strategy. Struggling along this way will cost a lot more time, effort, money, and the worst of all … the huge cost of missed opportunities. So, why don’t people get this?
Without knowing about the audience, it is futile to create the right message they care about and will respond to favorably. It causes many brands to become very boring, and even annoying. A brand without a meaningful brand voice that resonates among their audience is really missing the point.
I realize that things like “knowing the audience” seems mythical to a lot of people. It must seem almost impossible to know who they are as a group, and then to figure out what they want, or what moves them. This is something that you will hear people talk about in theory, but putting it into practice is a much more refined skill.
On a side note to emphasize knowing who they are, and what they want, just look at the recent insults Chris Brogan received when he mass-unfollowed tens of thousands of people on Twitter. You can bet the ones who were upset didn’t care what he had to say as much as they just wanted him to follow them … as if that was really going to grant them three wishes.
Aside from the job of defining the right market for your offering, successful social media marketing requires being creative enough to determine what they want, and also deliver it. Marketing creativity is not a native asset for most people. Optimal creativity comes when a person is utterly immersed in the creative world as their career. Like any career, people who do something day in and day out get better at it. You can have a degree in dentistry, but if you work full-time as an accountant, you are probably not the best dentist.
Warning! The following includes a high concentration of truth, which some people may find unsettling or offensive. Please be warned that this is not suitable for all audiences!
Successful Social Media Marketing Requires More
I am not out to discourage or offend anybody who is trying earnestly to learn effective social media marketing. Quite the opposite, I make many sincere efforts to help them. At the same time, I am convinced that there is a huge lack of critical thinking when it comes to online marketing. When I say critical thinking, I mean being willing to question what you’re told, enough to discern the truth from the lies.
There are enough people promoting that “you can be an expert, too” and “easy money” mentality that even things which have no basis in reality or common sense are accepted as truth. When people desperately want to believe something, they make it more believable in their own minds. The one thing I find many people struggle to believe is the truth. That is because the truth is far more complex than what you find in an ebook, a blog article, or a conference.
I am going to share a bit of harsh truth. Some people will respect the honesty, and some will hate it. That never stopped me before, because I write to my audience … the people who care about my industry, people who care about the things I do to help my industry, and people with a propensity to become my clients. That is the voice of my brand, and that is my audience. All of the others certainly matter, but they are not a part of my strategy, and do not affect my business results.
So here we go … this is a small snippet (edited to include relevant links) from a recent 11 page, $200,000, four month marketing proposal that I submitted. No, it was definitely not presented as a $599 pathway to success. We told the truth, and it is up to them to accept it or not. Tear it apart if you like, but the truth is what the truth is, and you cannot change that.
Most people get social media completely wrong. After all, they are often listening to others who are only slightly less confused than they are. They come to think that it means just socializing with a bunch of friends, and that with enough friends, their business will become a smash hit. It doesn’t work like that!
Social media is not identified as easily as Facebook for sharing college party photos, Twitter for telling people what you are having for lunch, LinkedIn for finding a job, and YouTube for showing off funny videos. It is also not so basic as having a large audience, which is a common fallacy.
A lot of people will try to point to facts and figures about social media, but something very few of them will tell you about are the downsides. They overlook how very quickly The Pareto Principle comes into play when you send in a novice to do your bidding. The Pareto Principle is the rule that tells us 80 percent of success comes from 20 percent of the people, and 80 percent of the people will fail miserably, while the other 20 will take 80 percent of the rewards.
When applied to online marketing, there is a very long tail. The percentage of success is much smaller than 20, while the percentage of failure is much larger than 80. In fact, only a very minuscule percentage of social media marketing efforts will become truly successful, but we can explain why.
Most companies fail to realize the critical importance of audience modeling and knowing who they actually need to reach. Most will not make proper use of the invaluable discovery tools to help them reach their ideal audience. Most will not understand the psychographic research enough to know what their audience will respond to favorably. Most will lack the creativity to inspire action. Most do not have the time or patience to invest in knowledge, nor the confidence to invest the money needed to gain that knowledge.
The responsibilities of social media marketing professionals are a lot more than making friends and socializing. It is far more detailed than a person can learn in a month or two, and it is usually not intuitive. Many of the people who do this job the best have been doing it for many years, and put thousands of hours into learning. They are also the ones who are happy to help others learn what really works, and stop believing the myths. That is because when the industry is less confused, eventually each of our clients become less confused.
I know it is a very challenging and sensitive topic for a lot of people. I try to help others to improve their knowledge. I’ve got to say that it also really brings back my earlier question that has been asked around the world many times. That question is “Why Do You Want to Become an SEO and Social Media Expert?”
For those who are just certain they want to be in the business of social media marketing, be sure to subscribe and keep reading. There are very few secrets of effective online marketing. Volumes of good information are available right here on the Internet, and there is a good amount right here in my blog archive. If you take the time to study reliable information, work smart, and exercise due diligence, your marketing will improve regularly.
On the other hand, for those who are certain they need help, call me anytime.
Of course, I can only help a limited few at a time, so whomever you choose to help with your marketing efforts, be sure they understand the importance of what I have expressed here.
Many people have a very confused view of social media, and I can understand why. If you just look at all the ways social media is used, there should be little wonder how people confuse the issues. Some of the most bewildering concerns I notice surrounding social media are the return on investment (ROI) and the cost of social media marketing.
Millions of the world’s businesses understand by now that an investment in social media is vital to their success. Tragically, many of the same businesses are generally clueless about how and why they spend money with social media, and how to optimize their spending for the best results.
These same confused companies are further complicated by misguided notions that social media is limited to, or primarily intended only for personal socializing. They are the companies who question why a business would use Twitter, because that is where people announce what they had for lunch, LinkedIn is just for job-hunters, and Facebook is where old high school friends swap stories. That is social networking, and networking is important, but it is only one facet of social media. If you confuse this, and think that social networking is the basis for social media marketing, you will waste a huge amount of energy trying to sell to your friends, and others who already know you.
Believing that social media is just for personal socializing is a costly absurdity. It is the kind of absurdity that some companies will only discover after competitors have stolen away enough market share to demand attention.
Because of a lot of confusion, some people will say that the return on investment (ROI) of social media marketing is difficult or impossible to accurately calculate. I don’t think that is the case at all. If you have the right variables, calculating the ROI of social media becomes just another mathematical equation. The trouble is that so many people neglect or overlook the measurable data that really counts.
Social Media ROI Causes for Confusion
A first step to calculating the ROI of a social media campaign is to have a clearly defined campaign. That means having a strategy in place, and not just a list of tactics. It means producing a plan with a set of measurable outcomes. It requires creating and collecting customer modeling data, and using that data to reach your target audience.
Read the Social Media Signals
I have read and participated in a lot of conflicting discussions and possible answers about social media ROI, and most of it is very inaccurate or misleading. Many people will intentionally leave it open for a lot of confusion. After all, if people are confused, it is a lot easier to charge them money for things that are of little or no benefit. Calculating the ROI of social media is actually very basic, but that’s not what the failed real estate agent turned instant marketer wants you to believe. If they can convince you to just wait a little longer to see measurable results, they get paid more. Because of ignorance and greed, the debate of return on investment may never end.
In order to try and bring a little more clarity, let’s address two huge variables.
Social Media Branding vs. Increased Sales
Two very popular considerations for growing a business using social media are branding and increased sales. The two should work well together, but let’s face it, a brand can be really popular and still have a bigger drain hole than spigot. Even the most brilliant branding does not always make the sales hose filling your bucket as fast and powerful as the money drain leaving your bucket. There has to be a balance in order for the efforts to be sustainable and valuable to the company.
I find it very common for companies to lean too far in one direction or the other in their goals and attempts for successfully reaching their market. Confusing the value and cost of branding with the value and cost of increased sales is often when measuring social media ROI becomes completely muddled. Producing a balanced strategy is simply not as intuitive as most companies expect.
Building your brand name is extremely important. It builds recognition, trust, and sets your tone among the many other competing brands. It does not always have a proportionate result in sales. If you doubt it, look at it like this: You have probably encountered many great brands via social media, while it still didn’t bring you closer to buying from them.
In many instances, building your brand recognition will seem like it takes on a life of its own. When it gets to a certain point, it will grow and change, even without your input. People will talk about you more, and they will pass along your virtues by way of social media. They share your brand on Facebook, tweet about your brand, and they will become an influence to your brand (if you are paying attention).
Now, what about building those social-media-induced sales? All of the touchy-feely great branding and kind words about you can still lack a good reason to buy from you. There are a lot of companies I really like, but I am simply not their target audience. When I know somebody who can benefit from those brands, I pass them along. The brand reaches their target through me, and others like me, who become their connectors to their ideal target audience.
This is a fantastic outcome, but let’s face it, it is not always as efficient or as easy to come by as you may wish. It takes a lot of effort, and a lot of brilliance to produce a sustainable and self-propagating level of branding. It is a highly effective strategy for long-term growth, but it is also a very ambitious and frightening marketing endeavor in the beginning. Thus, a need for a balance between short-term and long-term marketing strategy.
Social Media Marketing is Branding, Advertising, and Much More!
I believe that some of the worst points of confusion in social media marketing come back to what marketing is, or is not. Both branding (long-term) and advertising (short-term and long-term) are extremely valuable when they are done well, but they require very different measurements to accurately calculate their respective ROI.
Which Way is the Right Way?
Companies often skip steps in their marketing, and then wonder why it is not measurable. This is especially common in smaller companies, because it is nobody’s full-time job to understand, monitor, and measure the company’s successes in this area. Instead, a lot of companies will try and “wing it” by assigning marketing tasks as an add-on to other job descriptions.
This is most profound as it applies to social media, but often because the people actually writing the checks have never had somebody explain the value and potential of social media from a marketing perspective. So they often just pin a badge of “Marketing Expert” on an unsuspecting employee who seems to have some aptitude (has a Facebook account).
When you decide how to set your prices for something, it is marketing. When you perform a market feasibility study, it is marketing. When you accumulate customer modeling data and use that information to better understand what people want and need from your company, it is marketing. When you set up a new Facebook or Twitter account and cross your fingers and hope for amazing business results, that is not marketing. That is dreaming. Dreaming is not measurable, and only seldom is it profitable.
Aside From Being Social, Why Should People Buy From You?
Without an expressed reason for people to become your customer, efforts will generally fall into the category of branding. This includes when they are right there on your blog, where you want them to be. As an example, I use my blogs and social networks for reaching out to be helpful, and that emphasizes my branding. When I say “I take coffee and cigarettes and turn them into better SEO and social media marketing.” … that is my brand. All of that helpfulness and broad recognition in my industry is great. It leads to many opportunities, but it is not what actually makes the sale.
On the other hand, when I say “Call me to find out how I can help you to grow your business with a measurable return on investment” … that is advertising, and that is also marketing, but it is not branding. It is how I earn a living, and it is what improves my social media ROI. The branding is just what makes more people comfortable to call, and confident when they write me the check.
As you can imagine, when it comes to spreading a word far and wide, branding statements and being useful to others will often reach further and faster. This is because they are generally non-threatening to anybody. While, although this information is good food for thought and useful to many, I have already diminished much of its social media reach by making an advertorial statement (above).
Regardless how useful what I wrote here is, many people will be far less likely to share it with others. Part of that is due to cynicism, and part of it is due to competition. It takes a lot of branding to make up for and repair cynicism and people’s disinterest and distrust toward advertorials, even within a useful context. This is why I say that a balance is very important.
If you do not understand and differentiate the value measurements of branding and the value measurements of other areas of your marketing, calculating your return on investment will always be a bit cloudy and confusing.
Am I wrong? Go ahead and tell me why and we will hash it out until one of us agrees. 😉
There are some blogs I feel bad to neglect, yet delighted when I make time for them. They are the blogs where I intend to be more active, and I want to share some of those with you. These are blogs by people who truly understand the many good reasons to blog, and they work hard to be useful to their communities.
First, I want to explain a bit about why I am recommending these blogs, and how I think you can learn a lot from them. If you don’t have time read, just hit the play button (top of page) to flip on my podcast and skip right to the list.
Did you ever go to a blog and find that the other people there were actually communicating with you? I don’t mean just a short and pithy answer, but rather an actual conversation that takes place. I mean the kind of blog where you see the same people every time, answering questions, solving problems, sharing ideas, and actually conversing just like they would in a coffee shop, or over lunch.
I know some blogs like that, and I enjoy them very much. It is not only because of their topics, either … I enjoy the people. Of course, I don’t spend a lot of time with blogs about things which don’t interest me, but if these blogs were about termite ranching or how to grow poison ivy, I would still be there … time permitting. I learn from them, and on good days, they learn from me.
If you have ever wondered why your blog is not as active as you would like, as a community filled with familiar faces who subscribe and come back regularly to read your work, there is probably a good reason. If it is filled with stuffy language about your industry, it will make many people yawn. If it is packed with a bunch of “buy this now” language, it will make people feel like the vacuum salesman just arrived at the door.
News Flash: It is easy to throw you out and slam the virtual door on you. All it takes is a click! If you want to avoid that “click” of people throwing you out the door, I suggest doing some reading and participating. Yes, of course I want you to read every one of the 300+ articles in my blog archive, and I want you to share your thoughts on every last one of them. I also want to help you to meet others to inspire you, teach you, and keep you moving forward.
If you want to learn how to build a blog community where people come to read what you have to say, and to see what all their friends are up to, take a lesson from the blogs listed below. I am not listing them in a specific order, or even by their topic. I am lumping them together as blogs where you can meet and get to know great people … people you will probably like. In fact, if you like my blog, and if you like me, you will find a lot of similar thinking people in these blogs.
These are blogs where people interact, learn, and share ideas. Some of them represent overlapping service offerings, but they don’t compete … they collaborate. They are blogs where people come together, and not just to spam a link to their website, or wear people down by being a blog troll. They are blogs where the community is consistent, and where that kind of thing would be pinched off like a wet turd.
A couple of these may not have the highest level of community involvement, but in those cases, I listed them based on the people writing them, and their involvement elsewhere in blogs. I read these blogs and pay attention as much as time permits, and they are on my RADAR … right near the center.
How Do These Bloggers Do It?
I am an observant guy. In fact, it is an important part of my job to be observant. A commonality I see in these blogs is that they each have a lot of the same people. This makes it pretty obvious that it is not all just about the topic of a specific blog, but largely about the people. They meet and interact across many blogs, and it becomes very social. After all, this is social media we are talking about. So let’s be social, people!
You will see many of the same people commenting and interacting with each other at several of the links I will provide. It is not some kind of secret club with a membership application. The application is just to come and get to know people and not act like the new kid in town who has to prove that his bicycle is faster than the local kids. These are very real and human communities that represent the greatest value of online communications. They are about the people, and not about the technology that so many people treat the Internet as.
Why Building Your Blog Community Matters
Let’s look at this from a business standpoint. A lot of business blogs focus on how to get people to buy their stuff. They want brand recognition, and they want a return on their investment of blogging. That is the focus of a business … more business. A common, yet tragic result is that they overlook the even greater value in finding people who love, love, love them enough to recommend them to every friend, acquaintance, and complete stranger. Those other people are the ones you want buying your stuff!
Do you want to know why the friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers matter more? They add up … huge! There are multiple reasons, and I will give you some examples.
I will use myself for the first example. If you think you want to sell me something, just imagine how much more potential you have of selling your goods or services if you make me a fan and I spread it to the squillion people I encounter and who read my blog, my Facebook, my Twitter, and my honorable mentions of others. You don’t really just want to sell me something do you? Sure, maybe that is good enough if you are short sighted in your marketing, but the real value is in my community. If you grab my attention with your community, my community becomes your community. Now doesn’t that sound nice?
Neglecting and Irritating vs. Cultivating and Nurturing
Now, to snap you into a seriously messed up potential reality, consider what happens if you are doing this all wrong. How tragic it is if, instead of making me a fan, you creep me out. Maybe you come and lurk around my blog, and maybe even get comfortable enough to spam my readers.
What if you never took the time to know more than just that my blog ranks really highly for a squillion different industry terms, and you want to throw your name and website link in my comments. Consider the example of a company that does not comprehend the value of community, or how to work with others. I made a case study of a company called “Suture Express“. Search Google for Suture Express (Google search) if you don’t already know that story. I hold roughly half of the top 10 listings on Google for their company name and the names of each of their corporate officers. Trust me, it is not the stuff that helps companies sell more, but it is what happens when companies get SEO and social media all wrong, and ignore the value of building their network, and working within a community.
It is my community that slaps the piss out of companies who cheat, lie, and spam. Companies such as Suture Express and Ray Skillman Auto Dealerships simply cannot match the power of a community.
Why do I tell you this? Because it shows the value of community, and the value of having more people who know you, like you, and defend you than you have people who are indifferent, or even despise your brand.
What if They Say You Are an Awesome ‘Possum?
Next, I want you to consider how much more valuable it is for somebody else to say you are awesome than when you say you are awesome. As an example, I will say it right now … I am awesome! I am awesome like sex, bacon, and a cold grape soda. Awesome is my job. In fact, my new mantra is this: “My job is to create marketing as awesome as sex and bacon. Even when I fail, it is at least as good as ham and a hand job.”
Fine, some people will believe it if you say you are awesome. Some people will do the research to see that it is true, but there is still a much better way!
Now consider how valuable is it if somebody else says “Mark is awesome!” It kind of sounds more valuable then, right? There is an implied credibility when it comes from a third party. I hope you get the point.
Stop Playing Opossum, and Be More Awesome
Is Your Blog Community a Waste of Time?
When you hear words like “blog community”, it may seem like a completely crazy concept. It may almost sound impossible, or a complete waste of time. Where does it begin? Where do those bloggers meet all these great people?
Building your community will not happen very efficiently if you are just sitting there staring at your own blog waiting for people to come and add their comments or to send their friends. It will happen when you get out of your shell and make time to meet people elsewhere. Spamming your blog to anybody and everybody will not help, either. I could write a squillion page dissertation on that formula for failure. Here is some thought candy on the topic for you to consider: “How to Comment on Blogs and Why You Should (or Should Not)“.
The SEO lies you may have heard will not help you, either. Good SEO (search engine optimization) happens when people such as some of the ones listed below whip out their keyboard and say the equivalent to “Mark is Awesome” about you.
Awesome Bloggers Who Attract Other Awesome People
If you want somebody to say that you are awesome, you had better get started building a community. I said I have some blogs to list, and I don’t plan to let you down. Here are some good people to learn from. Watch them, get to know them, and meet the great people who contribute to their blogs. Find out why I took the time to commend them. If you do that, you will better understand the value of reaching out of your shell, and why building a community by participating instead of siting like a bump on a stump is worth every bit of the effort.
Ingrid Abboud (a.k.a. Griddy) shows many signs of being nothing short of awesome. She is a great connector of like-minded people, and deserves the description I once gave her of “sweet, silly, and super smart”.
In a recent version of Ingrid’s “Superpost Sunday Weekly Roundup“, the blog is compared to Central Perk from the hit television show, Friends. It really is that kind of a place where all we need is Gunther the barista to bring coffee and we are all set. Do you make a great cup of coffee? Read this blog and find out why it is loved by many, and nobody is a stranger.
Erika Napoletano is a witty, intelligent, outspoken blogger who is a bit aggressive by some measures. I like her. In fact, I like her a lot.
Erika recently landed a gig writing a business column for Entrepreneur Magazine, and her rants draw people to communicate, for better or worse … usually better. You can give her a hard time about how loose she is with dropping the F*bomb, but she knows how to bring a crowd to their feet.
Considering that she is the author of “The Bitch Slap”, there should be little wonder about Erika’s free spirited style.
Mark Harai is a great guy. He lives in Costa Rica and, I’m not sure if he knows it yet, but I die just a little more every time he is on a beach while it snows here in Kansas.
Mark is the father to a squillion kids (actually just seven), and he is one of those guys you just know this kind of stuff about … because you like him. His likability sets him apart from others, and his blog consistently offers up thought provoking articles about business growth and better human relations.
When I find more time to break away, I will meet up with Mark for a tour of his local beaches. For now, we have the Internet.
John is very active with several of the blogs in this list, and a heck of a cool guy. Here is his take on being active within the communities he supports: “Why commenting isn’t for you“.
If you can’t like a guy like John Falchetto, your problems are much worse than blogging.
One day, when I make it back to France, or he makes it here to USA, we will go and enjoy a day at the gun club. Until then, we will enjoy our two-way communications across multiple blogs we each frequent, as well as Twitter, Facebook, and anywhere else I can track him down.
I have made a number of interesting trips to Mark’s blog, and I am a bit guilty of lurking without jumping in with my comments. I am not sure why this is the case. I am doing the same thing I wish people wouldn’t do with my blog (keep their thoughts to themselves).
This is another of those people, and blogs that I am a bit ashamed to neglect. It is all my fault, but it is on my “To Do” list, and blinking away on my RADAR.
Have a look at this recent article titled “Executives and the Ostrich Syndrome“ It is so sickeningly familiar to me that I didn’t even know how to reply … but I plan to … when I stop procrastinating.
Spin Sucks … and Gini knows it! Check her out and find out why I respect her work.
Ruhani does not blog as much as he used to, but I like him, and I like his style. I have to give him a serious shout out here, because of his active participation across multiple social media channels. He has built a community that sticks with him wherever he goes, and whether he blogs often or not.
What do I really think of Ruhani? Well, I can say this: Ruhani is one of only a few people I put on the back cover of my 2009 book “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends“, and not just because he said something nice about me.
It seems very appropriate that Ruhani is VP of the company that created “Friendster” (friendster.com), because he sure knows how to make friends. Ruhani Rabin is one of the most friendly guys with a blog you could ever know.
Some call him Mufasa. Actually, maybe only Griddy (Ingrid Abboud) calls him that, but most call him Marcus. I don’t directly communicate with Marcus very much. I am not sure just why that is the case. I hope it is not because I gave HubSpot a harsh review once upon a time. I know he is pretty tight with HubSpot.
We bounce into each other on a lot of the same blogs, and we have a lot of mutual friends and acquaintances. I read his blog, time permitting. I kind of feel like I know him. That is a mark of a blogger who “gets it”.
Jim Rudnick is one of those guys who soaks up information like a sponge. He is an “old-timer” like myself, who has been in the SEO business since most search engine optimizers were in diapers, eh?
Of course, with Jim being a Canuck, he feels more comfortable if you end each sentence with an “eh?” You know, because that’s what they do up there in Canada, eh?
Jim is active across many channels of social media, outside of his own blog, and because of that, I think it would be awesome to see Jim’s own community at Canuck SEO grow like a weed. Jim gives more than he takes, and you can find a lot of great blogs just by keeping a close eye on him.
I don’t read every article from every blog I subscribe to. I also sometimes forget to subscribe to some of the blogs I encounter. I have found many great blogs over the years, and I simply cannot read and respond to everything on the Internet. I try my best to keep up with the good ones, and I try to participate in the community, as my limited time allows. I will be working on this, and trying to give closer attention to these blogs. I hope that you will, too.
Now that you have the list, and I gave you some thinking points about working as a community, are you going to sit there like a bump on a stump, or are you going to kindly introduce yourself to my community of readers? You may just end up being the tenth blogger on the list. Go ahead … impress me!
There is a mentality which some people and companies have about mixing personal and business relationships that paints an unfavorable picture of this combination. Mixing business and personal life has frequently been viewed as a mistake for businesspeople. The problem is that “businesspeople”, and even the term itself, implies something other than “people”.
Who do you do business with? If you encounter somebody in a given business setting who is less than personal toward you, do you look for somebody else who will appreciate your business more? I do, because I like to do business with people I like, and trust … and who like and/or respect me, too. An impersonal approach is personally appalling to me, and I think it fails at all levels.
Prices don’t get in the way, because if I don’t like somebody, I will walk away even if they are offering a huge discount. Even product quality takes a back seat to trust and comfort in my purchase decisions. The numbers show me that I am not alone with this, and that millions of people feel the same way.
A Fading Business Mentality of the 1900’s
A former mentality of the business world was that of huge separation between business and relationships. The prevailing thinking was that business is done in boardrooms or storefronts, and personal relationships happen someplace else, away from company turf. It failed, and it did so with such a force that it spread throughout the world.
This mentality is more apparent in business-to-consumer industries, but it has also strangled a lot of business-to-business industries. In either case, it simply doesn’t work well.
Why has it changed? It was not because of some miracle invention we call “social media“. It has changed because companies finally started realizing that they were doing it all wrong! Customers didn’t change. They have understood mixing business and friendship for thousands of years … since trading grains for meat, or gold for salt. It was the business world that strayed from good business practices.
Who Separated Business from Friendship?
A sizable part of the blame for separation of business and personal relationships can be attributed to changes in the advertising industry. As television and radio ads were new, companies found it extremely easy to buy people’s attention. It created a lot of brand recognition for some companies, and people soaked it all in while they waited for the show to return … “after these messages from our sponsors.”
Note: This is opinion mixed with observation and research, and you are welcome to rebut this.
It became commonplace to sit through commercials for everything from soup to nuts. Then, after some glory years, consumers fought back with tools like the Internet to find new things, DVRs to speed through commercials, email spam filters to squelch the noise, popup blockers to say “Shut Up”, and etcetera. We created and discovered choices, and then we realized huge empowerment.
Consumers gained more choices than ever, but with choices came hazards. Cons, crooks, deadbeats, and snake oil sales made a resurgence. The trusted brands were not our only options, and armed villains were not the only ones stealing our money.
Transitioning Away from a Bad Business Ideology
As business continues to transition back to people-focused and consumer-oriented thinking, the reliable and trustworthy choices have slowly narrowed. Now many consumers rely on those good old brands we remember (and trust just because we remember them), and the people who earn their reputation with us as friends, friends of friends, and etcetera. Yes, “word of mouth” marketing (including Facebook, Twitter, and etcetera) has grown in value at rates even faster than television, radio, print, and other one-way interruption marketing lost value.
This is not all fixed to perfection yet, but many companies have noticed the obvious shortcomings from separation of business and relationships. Those companies have adapted well to social media, and they already understand people’s motivations, and what makes them comfortable. Others still struggle with the fundamental basics of how and why people prefer to do business with people, rather than businesses.
So, I must ask, what do you see in your everyday life, as a consumer? What do you see within your own business dealings? Do you see it the same as a consumer as you do in your business? If you see a disparity, perhaps you are still using 1900’s style business ideology, and trying too hard to make a separation between business and relationships.
My Summary of Business and Personal Mixing
Some say “Don’t mix business and personal”, but I say “Don’t mix 1900’s ideology with 2000’s customer expectations!” Here is some of my personal/business experience. You can skip it if you like. Maybe I am wrong, but I also invite your input.
I met a woman (via social media) and we merged companies in 2000. She later became my wife and the mother of our three children. Now we own more companies. Prior to that, my business partnerships included many dear friends with whom I communicate frequently, and will attend my funeral (and even cry). In my earlier days, my business partners were my parents.
Sure, some things can go wrong with mixing business and personal relationships. That is usually because of two things … misdirected passion (but it is still passion) and lack of good communication. This does not mean it is acceptable to make a business into a faceless monster without personality, or to even diminish the mix of business and personal relationships in the least.
The good news is that when you have stronger relationships, you are far more likely to hear feedback from others … both positive and negative. Think of the potential benefits of that!
Many of my best clients are close friends, and I have always relied on the “old fashioned” approach of doing business as a person and not as a business. They may come to me as clients, but if we can’t have a good relationship, I would rather find different clients.
We work together, and we have fun together. I have been there to counsel them through death of spouses, treacherous divorces, emotional weddings, joyous graduations, and more. I have held countless parties to honor and celebrate my clients/friends. I have rented whole floors of large hotels, sent limousines, and done everything I can for and with these friends.
They are not my friends because I earned them millions of dollars, nor because they have paid me millions of dollars. Here is what I have discovered: Even when business is what introduces us, the business results from a relationship, and seldom if ever the other way around.
