Category Archives: Social Media Marketing

Online vs. Offline Networking: A Human’s Guide – Susan Baroncini-Moe

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Susan-Baroncini-Moe-PinterestAre you better at in-person networking than online networking? Do you follow the same robotic script when meeting people at conferences or through social media? Do you have an assistant handle some or all of your online marketing?

If this sounds like you, then you’re not alone. A lot of us have completely forgotten how to humanize and connect with others on a personal basis and turn off our “marketing brains.” We focus on getting business and not making a meaningful relationship.

This week, we bring in Susan Baroncini-Moe, author of Business in Blue Jeans, to talk about how we can focus on marketing ROI and be humans while doing it.

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Big Ideas:

  • So, what world record do you hold?
    • I hold the Guinness World Record for the longest uninterrupted live webcast since 2012.
    • The trick is you have to keep your stream going and be live the whole time.
    • The record was 24 hours when we broke it and we broke it and ended up at 36 hours and 16 seconds.
    • If you’re going to break something, really break it!
    • There was a guy who tried it last year in England, and it didn’t go so well.
    • We may embark upon another adventure and we may try to break our record someday, but for now it’s holding strong.
  • You’ve written and spoken about “business in blue jeans.” Tell me a little about that and why you decided to write a book on the subject?
    • I’ve been doing business consulting and marketing coaching for a long time and the fact of the matter is that it started in a place where I really didn’t want to wear a suit.
    • I wanted to be comfortable and do business in the way that I do it which is rolling up my sleeves and do what I need to do. I do that best in jeans, yoga pants, and pajamas.
    • I realized it’s far more than just a brand the represents me, it’s also a philosophy of doing business that is really about creating a business that has the properties of denim – it’s stable, long lasting, and it’s flexible – and like that great pair of jeans it makes you look good and feel comfortable about yourself.
    • We want business to be friendlier. This is the big push right now for me.
    • We want business and marketing to be approachable so businesses need to be thinking about that. “How can I reach my consumers and employees and be human and friendly.”
  • What’s better for small businesses – online networking or conference networking?
    • They’re different animals and there’s no one right answer. There’s no one right answer for all small business.
    • It’s really dependent on your target and where you’re going to find them most and how you behave and how you handle the medium.
    • If you tend to be introverted, then social media may be easier and manageable for you.
    • If you’re extroverted, then certainly in-person networking makes sense, but there are pros and benefits to each side of that coin.
  • Let’s start with online networking. What do you say when you hear people say “social networking sites are stupid or a waste of time?”
    • If you think social media is stupid or a waste of time, then it’s one of two things – either you don’t get it yet and see how it can be applicable and useful or your target market isn’t there yet which is becoming less and less likely.
    • Everybody doesn’t have to be on every social media platform, and there are some platforms that make more sense for others.
    • You have to find the social media platform that makes the most sense for your business and your personality and you have to approach it with “I’m gonna play this game the way it needs to be played and the way it makes the most sense to play it and effectively play it” and see if I win.
    • I’m not going to just dismiss it out of hand. It’s extremely useful.
  • How can small businesses and entrepreneurs get the most bang for the buck when it comes to social media networking? What do you say to people say they want to get going and know social media is important, but aren’t sure where to start?
    • The first thing is to figure out where your target market is and to understand that each platform has its own culture.
    • You’re not going to go to LinkedIn and post the same way you do on Twitter. You’ll post too much and make everyone crazy. You use LinkedIn a different way.
    • The first thing is to say, “am I B2B?” If you are then you’re most likely you’re going to want to be on LinkedIn. If you’re more B2C then Twitter, Facebook, more platforms may be more appropriate.
    • The first step is  – where should you be?
    • And the second step is – how can you understand the culture of that platform so well that you can leverage it – and when you do that you’re going to be able to make connections with complete strangers, start to forge a relationship, build a connection, and then over time that can turn in to a lot of opportunities.
    • I have spent the last couple weeks focusing on LinkedIn because it’s some place I haven’t spent a lot of time, and not only have I secured some speaking engagements, a couple of clients, I also am in talks with a production company.
    • There are a lot of opportunities out there if you just know how to wield the right tools.
  • How do we understand what the culture is of any given channel?
    • Google! It’s not like the information’s not out there.
    • If you want to know “how do I use Facebook most effectively” look for blogs you can trust, read the blog – does this blog have information I can use?
    • Find out what they have to say about that social media platform and find out what the consistencies are and what people have to say.
    • You don’t have to throw a stone very far to find a blog that will tell you if you want to be on Twitter – here are the things you need to do…be friendly, be approachable, don’t just follow everybody – these are the things you need to be focusing on.
    • Same with LinkedIn, Facebook, any of those social media platforms.
  • I think people would be more interested in LinkedIn if you told them how you got your speaking engagements. How did you get business out of LinkedIn? What exactly did you do to achieve that?
    • One of the reasons people don’t like LinkedIn because it is structured in a way to minimize fluffy social media interaction that you see on Facebook and to maximize the more old style business networking.
    • You have to figure out a way to negotiate that. A lot of people look at LinkedIn and go “hey, I’m not going to accept a connection from someone that I don’t know, who are you?” LinkedIn is kind of set up in that way, but there are a lot of ways around it.
    • You have to play around in the tool and find out ways to get there. I can click connect for a lot of people and not have to say where I know them from.
    • The way I use LinkedIn is that I humanize it. You can’t make it a mass tool.
    • No social media is successful if you try to do everything with mass quantities of people. Just remember these are human beings and you don’t like spam in your inbox so remember they don’t either.
    • So, instead of sending a million connection requests, find people that make appropriate connections for you and send them an actual personal message like, “hey, I’m looking to expand my relationships and I’m looking to meet more people and you seem like someone who would be interesting and I’d like to get an opportunity to talk with you.”
    • You can actually set up a phone call or set up a time to chat.
    • One of the things I’m doing now is building relationships locally because I haven’t done that a lot and I’m reaching out saying “you seem like you’re in the know, let’s have a conversation.” That’s yielded some really incredible conversations.
  • So, when you are reaching out, personalize it so you humanize it. Have a conversation with people in the same way you would have a conversation at a networking event.
    • Exactly. That’s the other piece of it. I could send out a million connection requests and if you approve it, so what. We haven’t built anything there. That’s just an invisible connection that we’re never going to remember.
    • On the other hand, when I have a conversation with someone on the phone I take notes. So, not only do I remember what they do and who they do it for, I also remember their name, their business name. I’m really thinking about that person and I’m really thinking about ways in which I can bring value to them.
    • Do I know somebody that might be an interesting person for them to talk to?
    • I think that we have to be thinking in terms of “how can I bring value to them?” and not how can I get business for me.
  • How do we measure the ROI of our online marketing? Do you have any tools or techniques that you use to see if the time or money you’re putting in is paying off for you?
    • Man, I’m so unscientific about this.
    • For me, I just get a feel for it. If I’m using a tool and I’m getting business from it then “yay, it’s working.”
    • I am not great with numbers. I’m much better at marketing, so I leave the numbers to people who understand them, but I tend not to think too much about that unless I’m putting a lot of time into something and it’s not working.
    • We should all be doing those sort of general calculations whether they’re with actual scientific data or a feel what you’re putting your time into and say to yourself, “look, am I putting time into stuff that isn’t working? If not, I should stop doing it and find something that is working. Replace that.”
  • A lot of people outsource their online marketing and social media networking to a co-worker or a virtual assistant. Are there advantages or disadvantages?
    • My assistant is local, and not virtual, but my assistant does not manage my social media for me.
    • She does some outreach for me in terms of setting up, guest blogging or podcast interviews like this one. She’ll set up different opportunities for me and do outreach and schedule things for me, but she does not handle any of my social media.
    • I feel strongly that for me, because my brand is so closely to me and my lifestyle, that it doesn’t make sense for me to have someone else posting for me.
    • It takes more time for me to set up a list of things like tweets to schedule than to just do them myself.
    • Unless I’m traveling, my assistant might be scheduling a few things for me, but other than that it’s all me.
    • There are times when it makes sense to have an employee do it if they can adequately represent the brand. In larger businesses that makes sense, but for me, because my brand is so tied to me, I do it all myself.
  • Are there any things we should be avoiding when it comes to online networking or social media networking?
    • My god, how much time do we have? Ha!
    • Yeah, I have a whole blog post I wrote – “Social Networking, You’re Doing it Wrong!”
    • I think that’s super important because realistically social media is so tricky and so many people are doing wrong because they’re really just looking at it as a place to advertise. That’s not what social media is about.
    • It’s not about advertising and spamming and trying to get get get business. It’s about connection and conversation and building relationships.
    • If you keep that in mind and stick with that.
    • Focus more on the giving and not the getting.
  • LinkedIn will say 500+ connections if you’re over, but any less than that it’ll say your exact number of connections. Sometimes you need to have a critical mass to let people know you’re taking a channel seriously. Right?
    • Getting to that 500 mark in LinkedIn. I don’t know about that because I’ve been past that for a long time. Is that a thing?
    • I agree but we just have to be careful how we’re getting to that point.
  • There’s no point of being on LinkedIn unless you’re looking to network with other people who are in the same business.
    • Yeah.
    • I had an acquaintance who once said that LinkedIn is kind of like that grandfather that you never talk to.
    • I thought that was funny because you’re in business. Why are you not using LinkedIn? Because everyone who’s there is IN business.
  • My problem with LinkedIn is that it has just become a place where I can promote my latest blog post. I think more controls and settings would be more valuable. After a while everyone is promoting there but nobody actually goes there to read anything. It becomes like drive-by marketing.
    • Yeah, I don’t spend much time in LinkedIn groups. I spend my time with one-to-one connections.
  • So, if I’m nervous, what can I do to best prepare for a conference for a networking opportunity for something like Social Media Marketing World?
    • Okay, so the first thing I always tell my clients about stuff like this is no one knows that you’re nervous.
    • Now we KNOW you’re nervous, Rich! This episode is “Rich tells all.”
    • I think if you start with the premise that no one knows you’re nervous and you don’t have to tell anyone you’re nervous.
    • Not only that, but everyone else is, to some extent, a little nervous as well. That’s the first piece.
    • Knowing that you can talk to anyone. There’s no reason or barrier saying you can’t and everybody else is there to meet and connect with other people and have those conversations is almost a little bit freeing.
    • I like to go without someone. I typically travel with husband but if I’m going to go to an event it’s easier for me to go by myself because I don’t have the crutch of being with someone and then kind of doing that thing where we hang out together the whole time. You don’t get as many relationships built when you do that.
    • I suggest going alone. I also suggest starting to use the online world as a way to start forging connections in advance.
    • Some of the best experiences I’ve had are when I’ve gone to an event where I knew a lot of people who were going to be there, but only from online.
    • When I would get there, people would run up to me, “oh my god, it’s you!” and I wouldn’t know who it was and it’s kind of weird and you don’t really know them. But if you do it intentionally and you do it in a smart way that makes sense, you get there – it’s basically like you’re going to a party with a bunch of your friends and they’re already there and they’ve already started the conversations, so you get there and you continue to forge that relationship and strengthen that bond you’ve already started.
  • One of the things people fear the most is making small talk. People are just terrified by it. Do you have any tips on how we can get over something like that? What can we talk about when we go to these conferences so we can start a meaningful conversation?
    • I like to avoid talking about people’s work. I will start almost any conversation I have I almost always start with my favorite question (which I will eventually have to change because everybody’s going to be using it) – I like to open a conversation with, “So, Rich, I’m really glad that we’re talking. What’s your story?”
    • The most important thing is that you open up a question that allows them to have the freedom to talk about anything that they want so they tell you a whole lot about who they are and what they value.
    • It also creates a conversation and you’re going to find out an awful lot about that person just in the first couple of minutes.
    • I love that question. I tend to ask people about their lives because I want to know who they are. I’m not asking about their business because I know we’re going to get to that eventually, naturally. If I start out with “what’s your story” we often don’t even get to business and it forges a relationship a lot quicker and a lot stronger.
  • Is getting someone’s business card still important? And if it is, should I be trying to get their card, should I exchange cards, should I be trying to make sure they walk away with one of my cards? Or, do I just not care about this anymore?
    • Business cards are still relevant. I don’t care who says they’re not. They are because you have to be remembered and you want to have an easy way to give people your contact information.
    • I think they’re still relevant unless you’re at a super techy conference, then you could just bump your phones or whatever.
    • Wait, is bumping an old way to do that? Ha ha…you can tell I don’t do that a lot!
    • The real question is, “why are you giving them your card in the first place?”
    • I only like to give people my card if there’s a reason. If we have a conversation, I’m not going to be super anxious to hand them my card. It’s more along the lines of having a meaningful conversation and then if we agree we want to have a further conversation or communication after that and I feel like that you’re somebody I want to get to know, then I’ll say that.
  • What should our goal be for one of these in-person networking opportunities?
    • I think it’s really important to understand that we’re all human beings.
    • If there’s a business connection to be made, that’s going to merge organically. You don’t have to force it.
    • The goal should be, “is this someone I want to get to know? Is this an interesting person? Is this a nice person?”
    • I make it a practice to not do business with people that aren’t friendly and kind. I don’t like spending my time with anyone else.
    • I don’t want to work with somebody who’s unpleasant, so I need to ferret it out whether you’re going to be a person I’m going to want to be working with in the first place. That’s the initial part of the conversation anyways – it’s getting to know the person.
    • Not only that, there’s so much more to each person than their business.
    • As you talk to people it’ll really emerge what they do. If you’re an accountant, it’s not like that’s rocket science. I know what you do and I can just ask you, “so who are your ideal clients you do accounting for?” That’s not hard either and we’re going to know whether there’s a business relationship here for both of us or I might know somebody that I can refer you to so I’ll ask you for card so I can can give it to someone else.
    • We want to know why we’re asking for cards. We want to be looking at what the relationship is and what it could be, but we don’t want to make any snap judgements because you don’t know who somebody knows or who they’re going to be a year from now. They might be looking for you.
  • If I’m speaking at an event, how can I maximize my networking opportunities?
    • Good question. I really like to connect with my audience before I speak. It allows me to tailor my speech a little bit and know what their concerns are. “What’s your story” gets a lot of that out there initially.
    • Even as you’re speaking you can reference someone’s conversation with you earlier and reference that to have that connection.
    • After your presentation, stick around and talk to people. Don’t be a snob.
  • As a conference organizer, how can I make it easier for my attendees to chat and network?
    • I haven’t seen anything that blew my mind, to be honest.
    • Obviously, you want to set up hashtags.
    • Having a LinkedIn group for business related opportunities if it’s that kind of conference.
    • Having a LinkedIn group or Facebook group can be a great way for people to connect.
    • Having Twitter chats in advance.
    • Having some of those opportunities to have online engagement before the event can help.
    • Making it easy for people if they want to share rooms, that kind of simple stuff, is a really great way for people to connect.
    • Having some virtual networking events before the actual event really helps.
  • At the end of the day, what’s drives more ROI – online or offline networking?
    • I think that it is a combination of the two. I don’t think that there’s one or the other.
    • For me, online is great and has a huge ROI.
    • I have a lot of clients that really high ROI with offline events.
    • I don’t think there’s a right answer for that, it really depends on you and your business.

       

  • Juicy Links:

     

    Rich Brooks
    So, what’s your story?

Marketing to Teens & Tweens with Social Media

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McAuley-PinterestDid your high school have a social media club? Probably not if you were born before 1995! If you do work for or attend an educational institution then you’re definitely aware of the power of social media to spread and promote school-related news and events.

Is your social media marketing focusing on the right platforms to reach your students, staff, alumni, and prospective students?

This week, we bring in Catherine and Kathleen from Catherine McAuley High School to talk about their social media club and what they do to promote school events.

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Big Ideas:

  • Who am I talking to today?
    • Hi, I’m Kathleen O’Brien.
    • And I’m Catherine McBrady.
  • You guys are both part of the social media club over at McAuley, correct?
    • Correct.
  • Tell me about McAuley. What is McAuley High School?
    • McAuley High School is an all girls college prep school in Portland, Maine.
  • Tell me about your social media club.
    • Ericka Sanborn, who is the director of marketing for McAuley, came to us the summer before our junior year and suggested we start a social media club. She picked us out of school and wanted to start marketing on different platforms.
  • So, in fact, the students are doing a lot of the social media marketing for the school?
    • Yes. They’re in charge.
  • So recently you guys have been broken up to focus on one specific platform. So, Kathleen, what are you doing?
    • Mainly I do Twitter. I’m in charge of all the tweets that McAuley high school puts out.
  • How often are you tweeting?
    • We try to do it at least once a day. It can go from 1 to 2 times a day depending on if something big is happening in the school.
    • Sometimes we have more dull periods but usually once a day is our goal.
  • Is that through the official @McAuleyHS twitter handle?
    • Yes.
  • And how about for your own use. Do you tweet out under your own name?
    • I don’t tweet much under my own name.
    • I tend to go in under my name and retweet that Catherine McAuley High School has tweeted just to help spread the word.
  • How do you get more followers for Twitter? Or is that part of your game plan?
    • It is. We try to engage in our audience which tends to be current students who like to retweet us or talk about us so their followers hear about us more.
    • Those followers can include prospective students and parents who tweet us.
  • So Catherine, what do you do?
    • I’m the McAuley Instagram.
  • So what are you doing for Instagram?
    • The goal is once a day to take a picture of anything around the school or anything we’re trying to promote.
    • If any cool things are happening I’ll take a picture and use the McAuley hashtag which is #mcauleyhs.
  • Is this more for the alumni, the parents, the students, or prospective students?
    • I would say it’s a lot of students and prospective students. Alumni not as much.
  • Because they’re just not using Instragram the way that the kids are?
    • Right.
  • Do you get a lot of followers on the Instagram account?
    • We’re noticing more and more each month. Probably prospective students.
  • What other platforms are you guys using as part of the social media club?
    • We have used Pinterest and Facebook.
  • So for Pinterest, how is that working out for you?
    • Pinterest is not exactly one of our best social media outlets we’ve used this year.
    • It hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. We’ve found it’s not exactly the best site to use for the promotion of the school.
  • Could it be used better for getting in front of alumni and parents? Or are you not seeing that kind of interaction at all?
    • I wouldn’t say we’re seeing much interaction with anyone.
  • You guys are on Facebook. What kind of interaction are you getting on Facebook?
    • We get a lot of alumni on Facebook. That’s really their platform, their generation.
    • It’s a lot of “remember this from your high school days.”
  • Is it that a lot of prospective students aren’t using Facebook? Is Facebook “dead” for kids?
    • Personally I feel Facebook is on its way out for the younger generation.
    • I’m not saying it hasn’t lessened in popularity, by any means, but I feel like a lot of seventh graders are wary of having their kids just have a Facebook account and do whatever they want so it might play a factor.
  • Do you think there are any platforms that you might try next year that you didn’t try this year?
    • McAMaybe try Google+ or LinkedIn.
  • Do you think any students would use those two platforms?
    • There was some talk about creating a Tumblr account for McAuley because Tumblr is wildly popular with kids our age.
    • We haven’t done that yet but I think that might be in the works for coming years.
  • How about Snapchat. Is that something you guys use on a personal level? Because I know a lot of brands are now trying to figure out how to use Snapchat.
    • I use Snapchat personally, but I’m not sure how that would work as a marketing phase.
    • We were talking about Vine for McAuley as well..
  • So what would you guys do for videos 6 seconds long for Vine or 15 seconds long for Instagram?
    • Probably big moments in school.
    • Recently I did a video for the last 10 seconds of the state basketball game and that got a lot of attention.
  • What kind of posts, regardless of platform, are getting a lot of interaction and which ones are falling on deaf ears?
    • Anything that has to do with basketball. People associate us with our basketball and our reputation so if we post anything about basketball then it instantly gets a lot of attention.
    • Also, we found out that we’re a school of all girls and that we’re a big fan of what we call “sappy tweets,” which are those tweets like “we’re so proud of you,” and things like that.
    • The feel good tweets that girls like to see and say, “awesome, my school supports me in everything I do. They’re proud of what I contribute to the community.” Supportive messages that tug at the heart strings.
  • What kind of posts are not working for you so far?
    • Any asking for interaction between McAuley and prospective students, like “let us know, tweet at us” isn’t working so hot.
  • That is interesting because we always say in marketing that you have to ask for the sale or the tweet and there have been studies that show that has been very effective. Maybe it’s because the age group you’re targeting is more cynical or more aware of that kind of approach and that feels fake to them.
    • Right.
  • So, the social media club year one has been invite only. What’s gonna happen with next year. A couple of the kids are graduating out. How are you going to go about getting students for the social media club?
    • We have been asked by Ericka Sanborn, who moderates this club, to keep an eye out for students who we think would be trustworthy because we have to look at people’s personal accounts like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or whatever it may be. Seeing if they’d be a right fit, so to speak.
    • Because we’re honestly putting that name of McAuley in the hands of the students so we want to make sure that they’re responsible and that they know boundaries and that they know what’s appropriate to tweet, post, whatever it may be and what’s not.
  • Are there any other changes that you can think of that would improve the club for next year?
    • Definitely using our platforms more consistently so we don’t have stretches of silence.
    • Getting used to a schedule every day we found that planning a calendar for what we’re going to post is extremely helpful and helps us on track.
  • With social media club, a lot of has been about marketing the school, have there been any other skills that you think you’ve picked up here that are going to help you in the workplace?
    • Absolutely.
    • Social media is all about communication and communication between whoever it may be is just crucial to whatever you may do later in life.
    • It’s learning how to communicate ideas with other people and things like that.
  • Now you’ve found that anything you share that involves a famous member of your staff seems to go viral at least on a small level. Tell me a little about that.
    • Sister Edward Mary is an idol at McAuley. Everyone knows who she is. You say “sister” you’re talking about Sister Edward Mary.
  • So you’ve used this a couple of times; you’ve gotten her involved in your social media and the things that she’s involved with tend to get shared more?
    • Yes.
  • Any parting words for The Marketing Agents podcast listeners?
    • We’ve learned so much and we’re looking forward to what this club can become in the future.

       

  • Juicy Links:

    Rich Brooks
    Social Media Student

Social Media Marketing Tools for Your Small Business with Andrea Vahl

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 Andea-Vahl-PinterestA lot of small businesses don’t put enough time into managing their social media. Do you know how to maximize social media for lead generation and buzz-worthy content?

Do you know what tools to manage and analyze your social media marketing?

If you don’t, you’re not alone. Many small businesses don’t feel social media is worth their marketing dollars or understand why it’s important. That’s why we asked Andrea Vahl, social media marketing coach and strategist, in this week’s episode of The Marketing Agents Podcast.

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Big Ideas:

  • Who is Grandma Mary? And why haven’t you two been seen together?
    • Grandma Mary is the co-founder of my company.
    • She’s my alter ego.
    • I started blogging as Grandma Mary and planned to never reveal my name, but people were like, “what’s the deal?”
    • I wanted to be a little different in my market when I started.
    • I noticed that a lot of tutorials were boring and dumb.
    • I used that character that can be cranky and can bitch about things on my blog.
    • It’s a fun way to be authentic – and wear wigs.
  • How did you get into the whole social media consultancy game?
    • It was kind of a natural extension.
    • I had started blogging and teaching people how to achieve things like starting a Facebook page, grow a Twitter following, etc.
    • I found that people had really specific questions about their business and I got more into helping people directly.
  • A lot of small businesses say they don’t have time for social media because they’re too busy. What do you say when you hear that?
    • That’s the number one complaint I hear.
    • You have to pay attention to where marketing is going these days.
    • You have to spend the time on social media because that’s where people are hanging out.
    • Really, just streamlining your processes can save you time.
    • I put together an activity calendar for clients.
    • How are you going to spend your time each day? Put it into a calendar so it’s a to-do for creating content.
  • What are some of the tools that you use that you recommend for content creation that will attract your ideal customers?
    • HootSuite. I find that a lot of business owners are not using it! It’s a way to have a dashboard to pull in all your news feeds and quickly see what’s happening.
    • It’s great for scheduling content out.
    • A good tool for visual content is Canva. It creates really cool graphics that are shareable. It’s something useful for your audience that you can share out. You can make tip pages, quotes, little graphics, etc.
    • Then I can reuse these shared images to create on a blog post and share across all the platforms.
  • Can you then work the Canva images into HootSuite and other schedulers to share?
    • HootSuite is not as easy for images, but for Facebook Scheduler and Twitter it’s great.
  • Can I use the Facebook Scheduler like Hootsuite and do multiple scheduled shares?
    • You can do it like that and schedule up to 6 months of shares.
    • HootSuite pro lets you upload an Excel spreadsheet with up to 50 entries at a time.
    • It’s not the case anymore that you get penalized for using a third party app to do sharing and posts.
  • What kind of tools do you use to manage your social media?
    • Shareist for creating and managing for groups of people to share content.
    • People can schedule it and also create blog content and then post it to your blog (like a top 10 list of things).
    • It’s also good for managing your social sites – especially if more than one person is managing it.
    • Sprout Social is another I like. It can pull in content and be scheduled out to social sites. You can do really cool reports and you can see stats and create a PDF report (for clients).
    • Buffer is a great tool for sharing out content easily. I love the Chrome extension where you can quickly add items from surfing Chrome to your Buffer to share easily.
    • Buffer will make sure you don’t tweet a bunch of tweets in 5 minutes, it’ll spread them out and schedule them in a queue.
    • I love the Facebook scheduler and Post Planner. They not only help you get content ideas and then post it out and schedule it out later.
  • What are some tools you use for measuring social media results?
    • First sit down and understand what your goals are. What do you need to have happen to make it worth it for you? Is it a sale, engagement, connection, email list growth, etc.?
    • What’s success for you?
    • How are you measuring your success markers for social media? What can you do to grow?
    • Facebook Insights are great for measuring engagement and growth, but for sales you need something like Facebook ads with a conversion pixel where you know when someone’s actually bought something.
    • Sales online can be tracked by Google goal tracking.
    • Agora Pulse is another Facebook tool for measuring your Facebook stats.
    • Twitonomy is a Twitter analytics program.
    • Sprout Social has analytics as well.

      Identify what your goals and objectives are beforehand, then figure out how to measure it and what tools to use.

  • Everyone is concerned by the change in Facebook algorithm recently. What do you suggest now that our Facebooks aren’t getting the organic reach it used to?
    • I suggest a mind shift on Facebook and how we thing about it.
    • Facebook is no longer a free platform.
    • I did some analytics and tracking and I still see higher engagement in my Facebook than on other platforms.
    • It has changed and you have to now use some of your marketing budget to get more shares and likes. Take some of that money and split it up between top posts, more likes, and driving people to an opt-in and using conversion pixels to track the success of it all.
    • You can get a lot of bang for your buck on Facebook in terms of advertising.
    • It’s now more of a subscription model now to get the results you want.
  • What’s your new Facebook ads webinar all about?
    • It’s going to go through ways to use Facebook ads, as a small business owner, to intelligently get returns from these ads with precise targeting and more in-depth on conversion pixels.
    • Where you should allocate your budget on what types of ads in a smart way.
  • You teach on online course for social media managers. When is it starting up?
    • April 1st.
    • I love this course. It’s geared to folks who are doing this for clients and who are looking to run social media or get it started with a new business or run social media for other clients.
    • It’s for people doing this full-time, part-time, on the side.
    • It goes over all the tools and tactics, but also how to market your prices, packages, and services and how to get more clients and marketing your business.

  • Juicy Links:

    Rich Brooks
    Should I Wear a Wig When I Blog?

How to Create Blog Posts Influencers Will Share – Michael Stelzner

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Mike StelznerA lot of small businesses don’t even know what linkbait is let alone how to go about implementing it. Do you know how to curate and share relevant content from outside sources?

Do you know how to properly notify your audience and contributors once your post goes live?

If you don’t, you’re not alone. Many small businesses don’t know how to use linkbait techniques and tools to curate relevant content. That’s why we asked Mike Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner and author of Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition, in this week’s episode of The Marketing Agents Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Big Ideas:

  • In one of your recent videos you talk about Linkbait. What do you mean and how do you do it?
    • The idea is to create content that will draw people (with a bigger platform than you) to your site in hopes they’ll share it.
    • One example, at My Kids Adventures – my new blog – has an article “5 Daddy Date and Mommy Date Ideas for Quality Time With Each of Your Kids” that talks about parenting tips and we asked for tips and provided a link back to their blog with a mention of their name – it’s aggregated content in a post that is designed to be popular and shared.
    • When these bigger platforms give feedback, they might feel compelled to share with their larger audience.
  • How did you go about that? How do you get these bigger platforms to contribute?
    • We all like to see our name in lights.
    • You promote, tweet, and share this content so it’s reciprocal.
    • The secret sauce is most people don’t get enough recognition and people love getting that opportunity.
    • Even if you’re unknown in your niche, if you reach out to these targets and say “hey, I’m putting an article together on ‘x’, and I’d love to get a few sentences from you – and these other people are contributing to it as well.” Once they see that other respected peers are involved, that helps.
    • It helps that you have a nice blog and they find cool stuff they may want to contribute just on that fact.
    • You can also created Linkbait pieces without people at all. You can find bigger blog content and curate relevant content into a new post.
    • People love someone that does the hard work for them.
    • On Social Media Examiner our recent “top 10 social media blogs” post had a contest and it was a Linkbait campaign on steroids. People submitted their choices, there was judging, nominations, and we offered a graphic called the “badge of distinction.” It’s very prestigious and the winners put this badge on their site.
    • You can do it the easy way by finding and sharing, have contests, there are so many angles to it.
    • Businesses don’t do enough to find curated content. People like to read posts from someone they trust.
    • You can create something new out of the best curated content that is of value to your audience.
  • Can you walk us through what you do about notifying your audience once a post goes live?
    • One of my interviewees told me to do a video podcast, and that I should use my looks to help.
    • Remind people that the post is live and twitter is the easiest way to do this.
    • You can schedule slightly different tweets based on the user’s name and it’ll get their attention plus the likelihood they’ll retweet is good.
    • I’ll email the person and thank them for their contribution and let them know the article went live with the article name, and a link, but don’t ask for a share.
    • It gives them the opportunity to click through and share it

      Do not ask for the share. It converts that communication into a pitch and it’s a turn off.

    • When you go out of your way to not ask for it, the likelihood they will share it is higher, because it looks more like a favor when you remind them of their contributed post.
    • Distinguish yourself by not asking.
  • Are there other post archetypes that you find successful for a small business blog?
    • There’s bazillions!
    • I think the “how to’s” are the best.
    • As small biz owners we don’t have a lot of time. Any time you can put “how to” in your post, it has search benefits.
    • 80% of our posts are “how to” posts.
    • Why do we turn to the web? We want to know how to do things.
    • It’s a universal thing for any type of blog.
    • The art of writing the headline is so important to your blog post.
    • I do have another tip. Use “numbers” (i.e., 18 Ways To Improve Your Facebook News Feed Performance, 5 Dangerous Projects You Should Probably Let Your Children Do, etc).
    • We all like numbers. There’s something magical about a numbered list.
    • This formula for both my blogs is nearly all “how to” or “# tips/ways.”
  • In your blog, your page title and SEO title can be different. Do you mix that up or do you write one title for everything?
    • We use Yoast for WordPress because it does an analysis.
    • I rarely ever change the titles. Whether they find it via search, or Twitter, I just try to find the best headline for human consumption that is slightly search optimized.
    • I design one title for both, but we haven’t tested that. I’m not sure if that’s better or not in the long run.
    • If one title is stronger, then probably use it for both versions.
  • You get an insane number of comments. What are you doing to get people to engage with your content and leave comments?
    • An important caveat, Social Media Examiner has millions of readers, and we don’t get as many comments as you’d expect. We do get a lot of sharing on social channels. Sharing is a one-click way to say they appreciate your content.
    • Even big sites like Mashable don’t have a lot of comments.
    • We get comments by saying “what do you think?” at the end of every on of our articles.
    • On My Kids Adventures, we also say that and ask for a comment or input as well.
    • By adding that you greatly increase the chance your readers will comment.
    • The other thing that’s absolutely essential is that we ask our authors to engage with comments on their posts.
    • If someone makes a comment, they’re investing time in your post. If you don’t answer that comment it’s rude.
    • Try to reply within the first day to every relevant comment.
    • The end result of that is that people are becoming more affiliated with your brand and it starts real engagement and evangelism of your content down the road.
  • What social share tips do you have? What tools or techniques do you use?
    • Decide which social platform for your website is most appropriate and put those share buttons at the top of the article and you can see how many people shared it.
    • Just google Twitter widget or Facebook widget.
    • We also use a persistent share bar on both our sites. We’ve got Digg Digg and it remains in view on the article throughout.
    • If you have a mobile plugin, like WP Touch Pro, you may have to disable the Digg Digg plugin if it interferes. You can put share buttons at the bottom of your post for your mobile users. Facebook for WordPress is a good plugin too.
    • On My Kids Adventures we use jQuery Pinit Button for Images that puts a PinIt share option over any image on your post for people to easily pin things.
  • What can we expect from Social Media Marketing World if we’re new to it or a repeat visitor?
    • What makes this different from other conferences is the networking. We have a pre-conference networking event. This year’s will be on an aircraft carrier! It immediately helps you to meet people.
    • We also have dedicated network ambassadors and they try to help to make connections for you.
    • We have a big space called the “networking plaza” to get to meet people and know people.
    • We have the who’s who in social media coming to speak. We have over 80 sessions.
    • It’s bigger and better than last year. It’s an incredible opportunity to get to meet people and to learn.
    • We have 9 simultaneous sessions under four different tracks – social tactics, social strategy, community management, and content marketing.
    • It’s in March in San Diego so it’s nice and warm there!
  • Any last things you want us to know?
    • Check out #SMMW14 on Twitter and look at how many people are already crazed about this conference.
    • I’ve never seen this kind of excitement.

  • Juicy Links:

    Rich Brooks
    Another Link Baiter Fishing for Content

How Podcasting Grows Your Small Business – Jaime Tardy

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Jaime-Tardy-PinterestA lot of small businesses struggle with getting a grasp on podcasting. Do you know how to identify your target market so you can start a relevant podcast?

Do you know how to tie your blog or site into promoting and posting your podcast?

If you don’t, you’re not alone. Many small businesses don’t know how to use podcasting to increase their relevant content and promote it to their audience. That’s why we asked Jaime Tardy, podcasting pro and author of The Eventual Millionaire, in this week’s episode of The Marketing Agents Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Big Ideas:

  • What’s your martial arts of choice?
    • Pinan-Do. I’m a brown belt, second queue.
    • I can break three or four boards of wood with one hit!
  • How did you get started with your podcast?
    • I started a blog, but didn’t like writing, and my group suggested starting a podcast.
    • I do what I love instead of writing.
    • I’m much better at what I do now since I can express myself best with audio and video.
  • What made you choose video over audio?
    • One of my interviewees told me to do a video podcast, and that I should use my looks to help.
    • It helps me speak on camera and in person.
    • A lot of logistical things are better – Youtube, iTunes x2 (audio AND video), you get to see the guests a lot better.
    • It’s easier to make a connection with your guest.
    • Talking over people happens more in just audio – you don’t get the physical cues.
  • Podcasting seems to be an item small businesses struggle with. How should they get into that? Can you address their doubts?
    • Find out who your target market is – do they use podcasts or technology?
    • It’s an amazing way to create massive amounts content.
    • If your market does “get” digital media, then definitely do it.
    • iTunes and Stitcher are ways to get out to your audience.
    • Every interview I do is about 17,000 words of content.
    • You start to build your framework of what you want to talk about.
  • When you put your podcast together, how does that interact with your blog/site?
    • Your podcast does have to be a post, and iTunes and Stitcher will pick it up.
    • I use Libsyn for audio, but video can be maxed out quicker. The cost raises,.
    • I don’t use Amazon S3 since it’s based on data, and if you get a big audience you get a big bill.
  • What other ways can you let people know you have a podcast and to tune in?
    • You’re trying to get eyeballs, so try to get on the new and noteworthy list in iTunes. I got on that list and got 1,000 downloads a day!
    • It depends on your category and list.
    • If you already have a decent email list, it’s very similar to any other marketing plan. Have them subscribe as much as they can.
    • I have Millionaire Monday so they get a new post every week and they expect it.
    • Everyone listens on a different platform, iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, YouTube, blog, etc.
  • When I post my podcast on Libsyn, do I have to take an extra step to put it on Soundcloud?
    • Soundcloud can be a host or aggregator.
    • You can set up your feed through Libsyn, and you should be able to auto-post to Soundcloud.
    • It depends on how your auto-publish settings are set.
  • Are you doing any Facebook or Twitter paid ads?
    • Most of my stuff is organic.
    • I do a lot of YouTube stuff, but no paid right now.
  • Are you monetizing your shows?
    • What I do is I make a point of saying I don’t want sponsorships on my show.
    • I do have one sponsor that doesn’t require me to mention them.
    • I have a link on my site, but I don’t have to mention it.
    • In general, I don’t do any specific ads on my podcast.
    • What I do is ask people to subscribe, signup, etc.
    • I’d rather have my audience go the route of buying my own products.
  • Blogs get comments, Facebook gets interactions, but podcasts are one of the least social platforms. How do you get engagement on your podcasts?
    • Most of the time people are listening to podcasts in the car, on a run, or not near a computer. It’s an effort to comment.
    • It doesn’t mean you’re not connecting with your audience, but the biggest difference is that you’re in their head. I’m technically in your head. The engagement level on a personal level is huge. It’s much more personal.
    • It makes a big engagement difference, but it’s hard to measure.
    • I gave away one of Michael Hyatt’s courses on the podcast, and required a comment, but it was a great success.
    • Incentives can bring people back to your site to engage or comment on your podcast.

     

    Once you get them to your site, the next step is to get them to subscribe once they’re there.

    • I have a bunch of lead magnets through LeadPages. One of the things that LeadPages does is put a specific lead magnet on a podcast transcript so they have to signup to get a transcript.
  • Your podcast helped you win a book deal. How did that all come about?
    • You can’t really pitch a book unless you know someone.
    • I made a goal to publish a book.
    • I chatted with a bunch of people for advice, and I realized I wanted to traditionally publish a book to be able to charge more for speaking deals.
    • My publisher noticed I already had a platform and audience. It’s about how big your audience is.
    • I talked to a few literary agents and found one great for my niche.
    • They told me that they liked me so much because I had a lot of press on TV and talk shows.

     

    Juicy Links:

    Rich Brooks
    Caster of Pods