Small Business Marketing & Business Acceleration | FrontlineMarketingSystems.com

The 7 Bad Habits of Insanely Productive People

Posted on 19. Apr, 2012 by Sonia Simone in Blog, Featured, Popular, productivity, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

You’ve heard all the advice about how to be more productive. Stay focused, be motivated, get your exercise, floss twice a day and eat your veggies.

We’ve chimed in with our own thoughts on the habits of highly effective bloggers.

Twice, in fact.

And the truth is, I’ve gotten a lot out of productivity advice. If it weren’t for David Allen and Tony Schwartz, my life would consist of eating cupcakes and checking Netflix to see if there’s a new Phineas & Ferb out.

But as a business owner, when you start to see a certain level of success — and to meet other people who have attained some success — you sometimes find the reality of building a business doesn’t always match the pretty pictures painted in productivity manuals.

Today I’m going to talk about 7 “bad” habits that crop up a lot in successful people.

You may not want to actually adopt all of these habits and traits. But if you have one or two (or more) of them, you can probably stop using that as an excuse for not trying to create something epic.

And who knows, we just might convince you to be a little more distractible, greedy, or arrogant.

Let’s get to it.

Bad Habit #1: Being thin-skinned

When you first start a business, everyone and his know-it-all uncle tells you that “you have to develop a thick skin.”

What I’ve observed is that quite often, this advice comes from people who are praising themselves for being utterly oblivious.

Most of the successful people I know are sensitive and perceptive. And yes, when they get criticized, they feel like shit.

Do they let trolls and whiners stop them from doing something great? No.

But it’s not because they don’t feel the insults … it’s because their passion for what they do is stronger than the discomfort.

The more progress you make, the thicker your emotional skin will naturally get, because you’ll start to realize that you’re actually doing something that matters, and the peanut gallery isn’t.

But you don’t have to try to rush that process … and anyway, I’ve never known anyone who could. Sensitivity is an asset, don’t try to beat it out of yourself.

Bad Habit #2: Flakiness

We all know we shouldn’t let things slip through the cracks.

We should answer every email. Reply to every comment. Get back to all of those @ messages on Twitter. Wish our customers a happy birthday on Facebook. Get our taxes done before 11 PM on tax day.

If you can actually do all of this, that is awesome. Don’t stop.

But if you sometimes flake out — flake out on things that are important and worth your while — welcome to the club.

The truth is, if you’re building something epic, you’re going to be juggling a lot of pieces. They don’t always go together neatly. Sometimes they don’t go together at all.

When I was a 22-year-old administrative assistant, I never blew anything off. I was impeccable in how I handled all of my responsibilities. Because my responsibilities were essentially uncomplicated.

That’s exactly why I didn’t remain an administrative assistant.

In my life now, sometimes I miss stuff. And since everything I do revolves around connecting with people, it’s all important — because every human is important.

I don’t like dropping the ball and failing to email a friend back … or that scramble I had the night before last to get my tax checks mailed, for that matter.

Believe it or not, flakes can accomplish amazing things. And if you’ve never been a flake before, you may find this less-than-lovely trait comes out when things start to get really interesting.

If you’re stretching yourself, you’ll drop the ball sometimes. Try to figure out the circumstances in which you should never let yourself drop the ball, Make sure the “A” tasks get done.

Do your best, and say sorry when you screw up. But don’t stop just because things get messy.

Bad Habit #3: Selfishness

Rather closely aligned with Bad Habit #2, if you aren’t able to be at least somewhat selfish, you’re never going to survive this.

You’ve got to selfishly draw some lines — around how you’re going to take care of yourself, around how much time you’ll give to your project, around getting enough sleep and taking some time off.

The sad fact is, unless you’re under ten years old, if you don’t take care of yourself, no one else is going to show up and do it for you.

It’s ridiculous to burn down your life to create a successful company. Ridiculous and unnecessary and antithetical to success. So don’t.

And if the “rules” of your industry say you have to destroy yourself to become successful, change industries or rewrite the rules.

Bad Habit #4: Greed

I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it.
~Dorothy Parker

This is going to freak some people out. I can see the anti-marketing haters rubbing their hands together even as I type this.

But that’s not helping you, so screw them.

Here’s the straight dope: If you think money is the root of all evil, you’re unlikely to ever get your hands on any.

I don’t know why this is, but money can tell when you’re allergic to it, and it stays away. (Proof positive that money is not a domestic house cat.)

Please note that by telling you to “be greedy” I do not mean “be an unfeeling, unethical ratbag.”

The best (and most fun) way to make money is by helping other people … a lot.

I’m also not saying that money will be mystically attracted to you if you change your mindset. “The secret” to financial success tends to involve plenty of work, not magical pseudo-laws.

But there are no accidental millionaires. The closest we have — lottery winners — rarely manage to keep hold of their wealth.

If you want to make money, value money. Not above integrity or your family or your soul’s great passion … but honor money for what it can do, for you and for others.

You can always give it away to someone who needs it more badly than you do. But you’ve got to earn it first.

Bad Habit #5: Distractibility

Creativity is the residue of time wasted.
~Albert Einstein

For reasons that will become obvious, I loved reading about some research results in the new book Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer.

A large sample of undergraduates was given a variety of difficult creative tests. It turned out that students who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were much better at solving creative problems than other students were.

And when the students were asked about creative accomplishments in the real world (say, winning a prize at a juried art show, or winning an honor at a science fair), the ADHD students had achieved significantly more.

Lehrer goes on to point out similar heightened creativity in people who may not have a particular diagnosis, but for one reason or another, they’re not as traditionally focused as their peers.

From Lehrer’s book:

Although we live in an age that worships attention — when we need to work, we force ourselves to concentrate — this approach can inhibit the imagination. Sometimes it helps to consider irrelevant information, to eavesdrop on all the stray associations unfolding in the far reaches of the brain. Occasionally, focus can backfire and make us fixated on the wrong answers.

Insane focus is highly admirable. And we all know we’ve got to ship.

But some of the people you might envy for their laser focus have a hard time seeing the broader picture. They may be executing the hell out of their strategy today … but watch what they do in the long term.

The more widely you read, look, watch, listen, and think, the more genuinely remarkable ideas you’re going to come up with.

When it’s time to do, do. And when it’s time to daydream, go ahead and daydream.

Bad Habit #6: Self doubt

I know a local business owner who’s always got a story about his idiot business partners, his idiot employees, his idiot customers.

One of his businesses just fell apart. Spectacularly.

Again.

It’s a painful situation for him, and for all of his employees who just lost their jobs. I feel bad for him. But one thing I can be sure of — at no point will he ask himself this important question:

Is it me?

Yes, you need to be able to make decisions, but Jim Collins showed nicely in his book Great by Choice that one marker of a business leader who succeeds over time is what Collins calls “productive paranoia.”

Believing in yourself no matter what is often touted as critical to leadership. And it is effective in getting a leadership position. Blind faith in yourself (also known as narcissism) is a great trait if you want to climb the traditional corporate ladder.

Unfortunately, it’s often associated with leading your organization right off a cliff.

Which means that for an entrepreneur — without a golden parachute or pals on the right boards of directors — a big dose of healthy self-doubt is much more useful.

Question yourself. Question your assumptions. Take action, yes — but inform your action with a dose of productive paranoia.

Bad Habit #7: Arrogance

Sometimes we think good work speaks for itself.

Usually, we’re wrong.

I want you to be incredibly good at what you do. And I want you to get a little bit arrogant about that.

Toot your own horn. Admit that you’re kind of a big deal.

As Amber Naslund said in her post about misguided career beliefs,

The line between savvy and jackwad is indeed a fine one.

Obviously we try to keep off the jackwad side of the fence.

But for your project to become truly epic — to help an epic number of people — you’re going to have to get out there and talk it up. Which will make some people uncomfortable. And since you don’t have a thick skin (see #1), that’s going to kind of suck.

Fortunately, doing something epic takes the sting out.

So get out there and do it.

How about you?

Have any “bad” habits that come in handy when you’re doing the Amazing Thing You Do?

Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Learn all about Sonia’s bad habits when you follow her on twitter @soniasimone

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22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue [Infographic]

Posted on 21. Feb, 2012 by Brian Clark in Blog, content marketing, Copywriting, Featured, Popular, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

Yep, we’re introducing the first-ever Copyblogger infographic. It’s about our favorite topic — creating great content.

And, as has been our style since the beginning, we’re practicing what we preach. This infographic demonstrates how to repurpose existing content in a different media format, get more bang from your archives, and reach new and different audiences in the process.

The graphic is based on 21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue by Copyblogger guest writer Danny Iny. We’ve re-imagined the way to present these content-creation tips, while adding a meta-fabulous #22 (you’ll see why).

Special thanks to our friends on the BlueGlass infographic team for making this thing look so good!

Embed this infographic on your own site

Copy and paste this code into your blog post or web page:

<a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/29304266/0/copyblogger~Ways-to-Create-Compelling-Content-When-You-Dont-Have-a-Clue-Infographic" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://feeds.feedblitz.com']);"><img src="http://netdna.copyblogger.com/images/copyblogger_infographic_1.png" alt="22 Ways to Create Compelling Content - Infographic" title="22 Ways to Create Compelling Content - Infographic" width="600" height="4661" /></a><br /><small>Like this infographic? Get more <a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/content-marketing/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.copyblogger.com']);">content marketing</a> tips from <a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.copyblogger.com']);">Copyblogger</a>.</small>

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger, CEO of Copyblogger Media, and Editor-in-Chief of Entreproducer. Get more from Brian on Google+.

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Why Google+ is an Inevitable Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy

Posted on 16. Jan, 2012 by Brian Clark in Blog, content marketing, Featured, Popular, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

Hear that, content marketers?

That is the sound of inevitability.

It’s the sound of you creating a Google+ page for your business and working diligently to build up a network there with content, conversation, and the occasional cat photo.

Goodbye … free time.

Shameless (yet eerily fitting) references to Agent Smith of The Matrix aside, here’s why every online content marketer needs to be building a Google+ network.

I’ll also tell you why Google+ may just become more important than Facebook or Twitter when it comes to deciding where to focus your limited time and effort.

What’s new with Google+

Since I first wrote about Google+ shortly after it launched, the search giant’s “social network” has grown to 90 million users this month, closing fast on Twitter’s stated 100 million active users. This kind of growth should put to rest claims that Google+ is dead or dying, and yet isn’t as meteoric as it could be given Google’s huge existing user base.

But the real growth of Google+ could be just ahead.

The main points I stressed in my original article were that Google+ is an excellent content sharing platform, and that the data gleaned from sharing and other activity would have a direct influence on Google’s search results. I said:

Building an audience on Google+ may be the smartest thing you do as a content marketer when it comes to improved search rankings. You still need to understand the language of your audience and reflect it back in your content, but Google will now have direct indications that you’re putting out quality stuff.

As of last week, Google did more with Google+ and search results than I (and most everyone else) expected. Much more.

Google+ is Google … period

Toward the end of last year, it became clear that Google+ was much more than a “social networking product,” like the failed Buzz. So far, Google+ has been significantly integrated with Google Docs, Chrome, Google Reader, Gmail, and YouTube.

Google also redesigned the header across Search, News, Maps, Translate, Gmail and many other Google products to incorporate Google+. In short, Google+ has become the glue that unifies Google’s various offerings into a seamless whole.

As Mike Elgan smartly put it, Google took its various products and turned them into features of Google+, rather than treating Google+ as a standalone social network. But that was just a warm up for what was to come with Google’s bedrock function, search.

Google gets all up in Your World

Last week, Google announced Search, plus Your World, which is the merger of personalized search with social search, including the addition of relevant Google+ results.

In other words, Google search results now more than ever send you to … Google.

You’ll only see the Your World aspects when logged into Google, and not everyone can see them yet (you can also easily turn it off if you want). The Google+ results are drawn from the people you have “circled” in Google+ (and vice versa for others who have circled you).

Search sensei Danny Sullivan calls this the most radical transformation of Google search results ever, and with good reason. According to Google’s algorithmic guru Amit Singhal, Your World takes personalized and social search and combines it into one seamless experience:

The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.

“Pleasant” and “useful” are open to debate, and there’s plenty of debate happening right now. But the one thing that’s for certain, like it or not, is that content marketers can’t choose to simply ignore Google+ and sleep well at night.

Does Google have you in a stranglehold?

My opening Agent Smith reference makes a little more sense now, huh? Do you feel that metaphorical arm around your neck, with the inevitable sound of the train bearing down on you?

Let’s not get overly dramatic, young Neo.

But it does feel somewhat like a take-it-or-leave it deal. We already knew that participating in Google+ would have some positive impact on our search results, but now it seems as if you have no Google+ presence and your competition does, you might lose existing search traffic going forward.

That’s only the beginning of the drama:

• Twitter issued a statement decrying the preferential treatment for Google+ results over Twitter. Google responded by revealing that it was Twitter, not Google, that chose not to renew the agreement with Google to use Twitter content for real-time search results.
• Jon Mitchell of ReadWriteWeb thinks Google+ is going to mess up the internet, because Google+ posts about his content were outranking the actual content itself when he searched, and this was even before the official announcement of Your World.
• Danny Sullivan points out that Google is violating what made Google so useful in the first place. Search engines provide value by sending you away to the best results, not keeping you trapped within a “sticky” web of their own making, no matter how expansive that web within the Web might be.
• Lee Odden is skeptical about the usefulness of the new socially-integrated results that he’s seen so far, but he nonetheless encourages online marketers to get involved with Google+, build out a quality content presence, and actively participate.
• John Battelle thinks it sucks for the web that Google and Facebook can’t play nice together. But as Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt points out, Facebook purposefully blocks Google, both with technology and terms of service, from indexing Facebook content and putting it on equal ground with Google+ results.
• And the rumblings regarding privacy, antitrust, and FTC action are well underway.

On the plus side, others see this development as inevitable in a good (or at least not evil) way:

• Stephan Shankland of CNET argues that Google had no choice but to make this move. The web is more social than ever, and the primary search engine on the planet must evolve along with the web, with or without the cooperation of Twitter and Facebook.
• John Henshaw of Raven Tools says Google knows exactly what they’re doing with Your World, and it’s not an act of desperation or necessarily devious. He recommends avoiding cheap SEO tricks that Google is already anticipating, and rather immerse yourself in the Google+ social ecosystem while continuing to create great content.
• On the anti-antitrust side, Eric Goldman of the Santa Clara University School of Law points out that when Google+ launched, it was welcomed by many as competition against the massive dominance of Facebook in social networking. Now that Google+ is actually getting competitive, everyone’s getting upset.

The only inevitability is change

Look, I’m as concerned about Google’s dominance and the potential for abuse as anyone. I have been for years, which is why I designed Copyblogger Media so that it would survive (and even thrive) if Google sent us zero traffic.

That said, I like getting targeted search traffic from Google. It doesn’t suck, not one bit.

And let’s face it … I also like Google+. It’s been a great experience to hang out over there the last 6 months or so, and I think it’s clearly superior to Facebook, while providing a truly different environment than our primary social networking / content distribution platform, Twitter.

Regardless of all the other potential issues laid out above, the fact is that we online marketers hate changes like this. But Google is constantly changing, and must change, as the Web itself changes.

Universal search (the last “most radical change ever“) arrived in 2007, and personalized search arrived across the board in 2009. Each time, people wrung hands, gnashed teeth, and wailed hysterically about how everything was different and wrong and awful, and they’re still doing it today.

As content marketers, we really have limited choice when it comes to what Google chooses to do.

One choice is to simply decide that we don’t really need search engine traffic.

Another choice is to observe, adapt, and conquer in ways that make the most sense for our businesses.

My guess is Google’s going to be tweaking things rapidly over the course of the year, rolling out more cool new features, and generally looking to strike a balance that rapidly grows Google+ without becoming cannon fodder for the Justice Department.

Circle me up on Google+ and we’ll observe, adapt, and conquer together.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Google+.

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Top 5 Content Marketing Articles of 2011

Posted on 27. Dec, 2011 by Joe Pulizzi in angry birds, Blog, content marketing, content strategy, Fun Stuff, Groupon, Klout, Popular, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

It’s been a tradition on this blog to review the best content marketing articles/posts from the past year.  To be fair, we do this completely based on traffic to each post.

I’ve been covering the content marketing industry via this blog since April 26, 2007 (my first post). The title of that post was “Why Content Marketing?“. At that time, most people didn’t even know what content marketing was.  Almost 600 original posts later, and the majority of the marketing population is keenly focused on the content marketing revolution.  Thanks to each of you for keeping this revolution going, and how we can turn our customers into brand subscribers through compelling and relevant content.  Here’s to a fantastic 2012.

And now, your most popular content marketing articles over the past year.

Chief Content Officer Job Description

This original post and the corresponding job description template for the Chief Content Officer position stole the show in 2011, adding more than 10,000 visitors to the ranks. I used the comments from the original post to put together the final crowdsourced description – a valuable tool for any marketer or content strategist. Thanks to everyone for making these posts possible.

LEGO Club Magazine & The Power of Print

Over 4,000 crazy visitors loved this case study on LEGO Club magazine, perhaps one of the greatest all time examples of print content marketing. We still enjoy getting LEGO Club magazine in our homes (even though LEGO decided to shut off their LEGO universe product, which I believe was a horrible marketing decision).

The Angry Birds Formula to Content Marketing

Still one of my favorite “fun” posts, and a game that I still enjoy playing on occasion.  We can learn a lot of content marketing magic from paying a bit of attention to Angry Birds.  Get your free tips here in this post (well, at least over 3,000 others did).

The Skinny on Groupon’s Content Strategy

How does Groupon create the sheer amount of content they do, in a way that is engaging AND sells more product?  Well, search no more.  This post, from an analysis of managing editor Brandon Copple’s presentation at the 2011 Confab, tells you exactly how Groupon does it, from staffing to style.  Thanks to the over 2,500 who engaged in this little piece of content marketing magic.

Your Klout Score – Why You Need to Care Now

There was probably no other post that was as divisive as this one on Klout.  39 comments and 300 tweets from individuals all over the world…some loving Klout, some hating Klout, and some just not sure.  Well the controversy remains, Klout has become a force that all marketers must continue to monitor.  Let’s see what 2012 brings.

Thanks to everyone for a magical 2011.  I’m looking forward to an even more amazing 2012.  And, if you have a chance, be sure to check out these 2012 content marketing predictions from the CMI community.  Well worth 10 minutes of your time.

The original post is titled Top 5 Content Marketing Articles of 2011 , and it came from The Content Marketing Revolution .

The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Online Marketing Efforts

Posted on 18. Aug, 2011 by Sonia Simone in Blog, content marketing, Email Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Popular, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

We have a great bookstore in my town — the kind of place you picture in your mind when you think of a great independent bookshop.

It’s perfect for browsing, with lots of comfy chairs to relax in. The books are displayed enticingly. There’s a little coffee shop so you can relax with an espresso. They get your favorite writers to come in for readings, so there’s always a sense of event and excitement.

They do everything right, and they’ve always had plenty of customers.

But they still closed their doors last year.

No, not for the reasons you might think. It wasn’t Amazon that killed them, or the proliferation of free content on the web, or the crappy economy.

They closed the store because they were leasing their big, comfortable building … and when that lease ran out, their landlord tripled the rent.

Literally overnight, their business model quit working. Revenues simply wouldn’t exceed costs. A decision made by another party, one they had no control over, took a wonderful business and destroyed it.

And that’s precisely what you risk every day you make your business completely dependent on another company.

It might be Facebook. It might be eBay. It might be Google.

It’s called digital sharecropping, and it means you’re building your business on someone else’s land.

And it’s a recipe for heartbreak and failure.

What’s digital sharecropping, anyway?

Digital sharecropping is a term coined by Nicholas Carr to describe a peculiar phenomenon of Web 2.0.

One of the fundamental economic characteristics of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few.

In other words, anyone can create content on sites like Facebook, but that content effectively belongs to Facebook. The more content we create for free, the more valuable Facebook becomes. We do the work, they reap the profit.

The term sharecropping refers to the farming practices common after the U.S. Civil War, but it’s essentially the same thing as feudalism. A big landholder allows individual farmers to work their land, and takes most of the profits generated from the crops.

The landlord has all the control. If he decides to get rid of you, you lose your livelihood. If he decides to raise his fees, you go a little hungrier. You do all the work and the landlord gets most of the profit, leaving you a pittance to eke out a living on.

Well, we’re not subsistence farmers any more, and our work doesn’t involve 12-hour days in grueling conditions. So is sharecropping still dangerous?

It is, for a couple of reasons …

Landlords are fickle

More and more small businesses are moving all of their marketing to sites like Facebook. It’s local, it’s free (or at least cheap), and it makes businesses feel like they’re doing something cutting-edge.

But what happens when Facebook thinks you’ve done something that violates their terms of service and deletes your account? Or changes the way you’re allowed to talk with your customers?

Facebook is a particularly fast-changing platform, but it’s not the only one. An entire industry has sprung up based on trying to figure out what Google’s going to do tomorrow, both as a search engine and as an advertising platform.

If you’re relying on Facebook or Google to bring in all of your new customers, you’re sharecropping. You’re hoping the landlord will continue to like you and support your business, but the fact is, the landlord has no idea who you are and doesn’t actually care.

Landlords go away

The other problem with sharecropping is that the landlord may or may not be here next year.

Sharecroppers have put millions of hours into sites like Digg or MySpace. And those sites still exist — but they’re no longer bringing the traffic they once did.

Sharecropped land, in other words, has a tendency to become less and less fertile over time.

Maybe Facebook or LinkedIn or Google+ will buck the trend. Maybe they’ll continue to stay healthy and vibrant for decades, rather than a year or two.

The best we can do is guess. And if we guess wrong, our business goes into a slow and steady decline.

So are Facebook and Google bad for business?

Of course not. Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, and many more sites are all superb tools to add to our marketing mix.

The secret is to spend most of your time and creative energy building assets that you control.

There are three assets you should be building today, and should continue to focus on for the lifetime of your business:

1. A well-designed website or blog populated with lots of valuable content
2. An opt-in email list, ideally with a high-quality autoresponder
3. A reputation for providing impeccable value

These things are the equivalent of buying your building instead of renting it.

Now any of these can fall prey to outside influences. The bookstore’s building can burn down. And your site can be hacked, your email account closed down, your reputation smeared.

But repairing your assets is in your control. You can fix the hacked code, export your email list to another provider, and respond effectively to manage your reputation.

More important, you can proactively protect those assets by taking website security seriously, avoiding any spammy or dodgy practices with your email, and cultivating a loyal audience who will vouch for you as being one of the good guys.

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into your business — don’t put it all at risk by building on rented land.

How about you — do you feel confident that you’re developing your own online assets? How’s the balance between assets you control and third-party sites like Facebook or Twitter?

Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Sonia on twitter.

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• [...] Sonia Simone posts the most dangerous threat to your … by SEO content marketing roundup, week ending August 31st | SEO Copywriting
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Further Reading

• 6 Design Tips That Will Have Your Audience Licking Their Screens
• How to Build a First-Class Email List in 30 Days — from Scratch
• Confessions of a 21st Century Writer

Is Google+ the Ultimate Content Marketing Platform?

Posted on 20. Jul, 2011 by Brian Clark in Blog, content marketing, Popular, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing, Traffic

As we’ve said around here a few hundred times, smart social media marketing is actually content marketing.

Why?

Because people love to share content on social networks.

If that content is yours, you’re being introduced to new people with every share … to people who now have an opportunity to know, like, and trust you enough to buy from you.

People on Facebook and Twitter have been providing free exposure to smart marketers who build their businesses with online content. But there’s a new player in the game that may just become the content marketing platform of choice.

Let’s talk about Google+ (since everyone else is).

In case you’ve been incarcerated in a Turkish prison for the last few weeks, Google+ is the new social networking platform from the search engine giant.

It’s been more accurately called a “sharing” platform, and I think that distinction alone means everyone producing online content needs to take a serious look at Google+.

Here are 3 things to think about when considering whether to hop on Google+ to drive traffic back to your site:

1. People

Based on initial reports, Google+ is the fastest-growing social network ever, despite a limited-access, invitation-only launch.

Google confirmed 10 million users after only two weeks, and that number may have reached 20 million as you read this.

That’s in part to its better design and functionality, but also because of the integration of Google+ across the Google network. Google already has hundreds of millions of users in general, which gives Google+ an “unfair” advantage that Facebook and Twitter didn’t have at this stage.

Takeaway: Social networks are powered by people, and it looks like Google+ is off to a great start. If the growth rate continues, there’s a good chance the people you’re trying to reach will be on Google+, which means you should be on Google+.

2. Sharing

As noted above, Google+ has been built from the ground-up as a content sharing platform.

It takes the good things about Facebook and Twitter and makes them better. More importantly, Google had the luxury of watching what Facebook and Twitter did wrong, and made it right.

There are plenty of other articles that explain why Google+ is shaping up to be an excellent content sharing platform. Down to brass tacks, Google has solved the inherent privacy and “over-sharing” issues that make Facebook problematic, while providing a rich multimedia and discussion environment that Twitter simply can’t match.

Takeaway: Google+ has been put together in a way that encourages, rewards, and protects content sharing. Content marketers have every incentive to participate since Google knows that content sharing drives social networks.

3. SEO

Google’s search engine was built on the premise that content with links pointing to it deserves to be ranked higher than content with fewer links.

With the emergence of social media, the Google algorithm has evolved to include sharing as an additional indicator of content quality for ranking purposes.

Google has been effectively locked out of the walled garden of Facebook.

Twitter tweets and retweets have been shown to influence Google rankings, and my bet is they still will going forward.

But now, Google has its own content sharing platform that provides direct access to “the voice of the people” when it comes to quality content.

Takeaway: This is the big one. Building an audience on Google+ may be the smartest thing you do as a content marketer when it comes to improved search rankings. You still need to understand the language of your audience and reflect it back in your content, but Google will now have direct indications that you’re putting out quality stuff.

It’s Still Early …

Despite the early fascination and impressive growth rate, this thing is barely out of the gate.

If you want to get your feet wet, sign up for Google+ and add me to one of your circles. I’ll be sharing content and observations from my own use of Google+ to help you out.

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t clearly state that Google+ is not a replacement for your website or blog. You share content that resides on your property, where you make the rules.

Being a digital sharecropper is never cool, no matter who owns the plantation.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Google+.

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Are Social Media “Experts” Worthless?

Posted on 15. Jun, 2011 by Sonia Simone in Blog, content marketing, Popular, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

Gary Vaynerchuk, in his usual low-key, mellow way, said last month that 99.5% of social media experts are clowns.

This immediately prompted a schoolyard-style kicking of the whole idea of a social media expert, with one prominent writer saying that anyone who does it for a living should “go die in a fire.” And that was one of the nicer responses.

The name-calling and vitriol are a little hard to watch. Here’s the thing, though.

Vaynerchuk’s making a point that needs to be made. But that’s not what interests me.

What interests me is what it takes to make that last 0.5%. What do the social media experts look like who aren’t clowns?

First, let’s talk about that hated title.

Is “social media expert” a stupid thing to call yourself?

On one level, of course it is. “Social media expert” is like being an “internet expert.” It’s too broad, therefore it’s meaningless.

There’s just one problem with that. Businesses that need help with blogging strategies, content marketing, social networking presence, and real-time PR usually don’t know enough to look for those terms.

They look for “social media experts.”

You can make social media pundits happy and change your tag line to something more precise. Or you can find customers by calling yourself a social media expert, then educate your clients about what that actually means.

I’m personally in favor of making the people happy who pay me money. Just a thought.

Sturgeon’s Law of Predominant Crap

Most graphic designers are pretty bad. So are most copywriters. And most SEOs. Add in most novels, TV shows, restaurants, general contractors, PR professionals, financial advisors, real estate agents … you get the idea.

Sturgeon’s Law, coined by the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, is that 90% of everything is crap.

Sure, it’s easy to find lots of social media experts who know nothing about either business or social media. Why should social media consulting be immune?

There’s more demand for good social media advice than there are practitioners who can give it. Any time demand outpaces supply, Sturgeon’s Law comes into play.

Do businesses really need help with social media?

Some believe that businesses don’t need help with social media at all — that if their products and customer service are good enough, the social media side just takes care of itself.

This is precisely as naive as thinking that if your social media relationships are good enough, the sales side will take care of itself.

(Here’s Sonia’s Law: Nothing Takes Care of Itself.)

There are thousands of businesses that do a pretty good job at what they do, and a spectacularly terrible job of using new internet-based communication tools.

90% of websites are wretched. 90% of Facebook pages are wretched. 90% of content marketing programs are wretched. 90% of social media-based customer support is wretched.

Saying that no one needs a social media expert is like saying no one needs a direct mail expert, or a radio advertising expert. It shows a lack of experience with just how badly otherwise good, smart companies can screw up when trying to use new communication tools.

Gary Vaynerchuck didn’t, in fact, say that 99.5 percent of social media experts are clowns. He said that “99.5 percent of the people that walk around and say they are a social media expert or guru are clowns” … because they don’t think like businesspeople.

Businesses need help from actual experts — people who really get the rules of engagement in social media, and who understand how to translate that to business success.

If you’re allergic to marketing and making money, don’t consult to businesses

One of the main reasons for all the Haterade is that too many high-profile social media pundits (who were then followed by vast herds of well-intentioned lemmings) loathe business. They imagine that sales are something that magically show up when you make lots of friends.

Any good salesperson will tell you you need to be able to make friends. Cultivating relationships has always been an essential part of sales, and it always will be.

But that’s not where it stops. You still need to demonstrate value for money, your product still needs to do great things for your customers, and you still have to ask for the sale.

Social media relationships don’t replace solid marketing strategy — they amplify it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is pontificating without benefit of experience or evidence.

Sometimes the best marketing doesn’t look like marketing. That doesn’t mean there’s no solid strategy in place — it usually indicates a strategy that’s absolutely brilliant.

How to get into in the 0.5%

Businesses need smart people who can help them figure social media out. That means they probably need someone who looks a lot like you.

If you’re smart about social media, then no matter what you do, your services got a whole lot more valuable in the last year.

So if helping businesses use social media is part of what you do, how do you make sure you’re in the effective, business-savvy, non-clownlike 0.5%?

• Understand content marketing. Social media friendliness is great, but content scales, and it doesn’t depend on any one particular platform.
• Understand direct response copywriting … in other words, writing that triggers a specific, well-defined action. Know how to write a great headline, how to make a call to action, what a landing page is, how to translate features into benefits. Learn what it takes to turn fans into customers.
• Be specific about your tool kit. Yes, you may initially approach your clients with the title of social media expert, but you’ll quickly educate them about your own specific areas of expertise.
• Partner with complementary experts. If you’re a Facebook and Twitter ninja, connect with a brilliant landing page and SEO copywriter, and maybe a smart PR pro who knows what a crisis plan looks like. You don’t have to know how to do it all, but you should be able to make it easy for your client to get everything they need.
• And to that point, Know what your clients need. Fortune 500s, mom-and-pops, VC-fueled startups, and small service businesses all have different needs, and they speak different languages. Read the business blogs or magazines your clients read. Become an expert in how your clients do business. Learn what they desperately want, and give it to them.

The fastest way to get (and stay) up to speed

If you’re some variety of “social media expert,” don’t let the backlash get you down. Sulking is not a business strategy. Educating yourself is.

If any of the points above is a weak spot for you, get up to speed fast by picking up our 20-part tutorial, Internet Marketing for Smart People. It will show you how to balance what’s new and shiny with the underlying business principles that make social media marketing work.

It’s free, it’s packed with techniques and strategies you can use again and again, and it’s the most efficient way to make yourself one of the kickass 0.5%.

Sign up for the complete free course here.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Follow her on twitter and let her know what makes you one of kickass 0.5%.

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The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Marketing

Posted on 06. Jun, 2011 by Andrea Vahl in Blog, content marketing, Popular, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

I’ve just finished writing Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies with two fabulous co-authors (Amy Porterfield and Phyllis Khare) and we’ve been neck-deep in Facebook for the last 9 months.

Even Copyblogger is on Facebook now. Do you have your Facebook Page yet?

For a platform that’s used by hundreds of millions of people, Facebook can be kind of … complicated. Particularly if you use it for business. So let’s get you some specific how-to advice so you can get rolling without getting frustrated.

So how do you get your Page started? And how do you get more people to Like your Page? What are the best ways to use Facebook and how can you measure your progress?

The questions go on and on, and I’m about to answer A LOT of them, with a little help from some friends.

It’s all here, eat up …

Gimme the big picture …

Facebook 101: A Simple Guide to Understanding When & How to Use Basic Features

On Search Engine Land, Greg Finn breaks down the different aspects of Facebook such as Profiles, Groups, Pages, Places, and Events.

Setting up your Facebook Account

Facebook Tutorial: How to Create a Facebook Profile

All Facebook walks you through the basic steps to create your Facebook Account. Some of the screen shots are out of date, but that’s to be expected … you will have to get used to Facebook changing its screens every couple of weeks.

Facebook 101 for Business: Your Complete Guide

Mari Smith gets you started with reviewing your profile, making a friends list, and adjusting your privacy settings. Then she dives into looking at Facebook Pages. This is a great overview post on Social Media Examiner.

Facebook Privacy and Security

How to Protect Your Privacy with Facebook’s New Privacy Settings in 17 Easy Steps

Sara Ines Calderon provides a great overview of some of the latest Privacy settings on Inside Facebook. Make sure you control who can see your personal information.

Set up “Login Approvals” 2-step account security on Facebook?

Concerned about someone swiping your password while you are surfing Facebook at Starbucks? Ask Dave Taylor outlines how to use Facebook’s login approvals, which require an additional numeric code only when you try to log in to your account from a computer that Facebook’s never seen you use before.

Why Use Facebook for Business?

11 Mind-Blowing Reasons Your Company Needs Facebook

Jay Baer of Convince and Convert will blow your mind … in general and in this post. Some of the numbers are a little out-of-date, but that just means the reasons have become more mind-blowing.

Top 10 Reasons You Should Have a Fan Page

Kim Garst provides some compelling numbers and reasons why your business should have a Fan Page.

R.I.P. 3 Ways Facebook is Killing Your Website

Another great post by Jay Baer where he drives home the need for Facebook. But be careful, as he says, and don’t become what Copyblogger calls a “digital sharecropper” — don’t build your future on rented land.

Setting up your Facebook Page

20 Examples of Great Facebook Pages

If you are looking for inspiration, Hubspot provides plenty with these Facebook Pages. These are big brands with big budgets, but it doesn’t hurt to take a look.

How to Set Up a Facebook Page
Laura Drell takes you by the hand and leads you through the Page set up process on the American Express Open Forum. You will find lots of good screenshots so that you know you are on the right track.

How to Build the Perfect Facebook Fan Page, 2011 Edition

Tim Ware does an excellent job of showing all the new features you can use with Facebook Pages in his guest post on techipedia.

How To Set Up The Vanity Url For Your Facebook Fan Page

Once you get 25 “Likes” on your Facebook Page, you need to go out and grab a custom URL for your Facebook Page. Your URL will be easier to remember, branded to your company, and much shorter! Nicole Simone of Cruel to Be Kind shows you how.

Getting People to Like Your Page

21 Creative Ways To Increase Your Facebook Fanbase

Mari Smith gives some smart ways to increase your Likes on Social Media Examiner.

Business 101: How to Get People to LIKE You – Tips on Building Your Facebook Fan Base

In this post on MOMeo Magazine, I give you seven tips on how to increase your Likers (or Fans … just what is a Liker anyway?).

How to Get More Likes For Your Facebook Page (The Easy Way!)

Dave Charest shares a quick thing you can do to make it easier for your Facebook Friends to like your page.

10 simple ways to grow your Facebook Page

Rob Dickens covers some organic ways to grow your page so you aren’t your only Liker.

Disturbing trend: big brands pimping Facebook “Likes”

B.L. Ochman gives us an alternate view of forcing the “Like” by offering an incentive. Great food for thought.

Why I Don’t Like Your Brand on Facebook

My favorite quote from this guest post by Andrew Blakeley on Brian Solis’ blog is: “This morning my yoghurt told me to find it on Facebook. It didn’t tell me why, it just told me to find it. Why on Earth would I want to find a yoghurt on Facebook? It’s a yoghurt!” Give people a reason to Like you.

Setting up a Welcome Page

How To Build A Facebook Landing Page With iFrames

Francisco Rosales from Social Mouths takes you by the hand to help you create your very own Facebook iFrame application. This is not for the faint of heart, since you will have to become a verified Facebook Developer and design your own web page. Don’t worry, though … Francisco makes it easy.

Tutorial: Add an iFrame Application to your Facebook Fan Page – 2011 Edition

Tim Ware at HyperArts is a great resource if you are going to build your own iFrame Application. Not only that, he has a very nice easy iFrame application called TabPress if you don’t want to build your own.

How to Make a Custom Facebook Page Tab With Iframes 

If you need more reference material on how to create your own Facebook iFrame Application, Kim Woodbridge of (Anti) Social Development also takes you through the steps.

How to Add the Wildfire iFrame Application to Your Facebook Page

If you don’t want to create a custom application yourself for your Welcome Page, there are lots of third-party applications that make adding a Welcome Page easy. All you need is some graphics and you can have a custom page installed in minutes. I show you how in this post.

3 Tools to Create New Facebook iFrame Pages 

Paul Chaney of Practical eCommerce covers three of my favorite third-party iFrame applications: Wildfire, Involver and Static HTML: iframe tabs. All very easy to use and allow either a graphic or HTML code to create your Welcome Page.

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups vs. Facebook Pages – Which Is Best?

Great post by Mari Smith on the differences between using a Facebook Group for your business or a Facebook Page. She suggests using both, but I believe the Facebook Page is the better choice if you are going to pick one. Facebook Groups are nice for some things but the Page has more advantages.

New Facebook Groups Could Be Big for Business

How can you use Groups for business? John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing gives you some ideas.

Facebook Events

HOW TO: Organize an Event on Facebook
Creating a Facebook Event can be a great way to get the word out about your open house, sale, book signing or other business event. Josh Catone takes you through the steps. Note that the Message guests feature is not available now when you create your event on your Facebook Page.

Creating the Perfect Facebook Event — Part One

When, What and Where are some of the basics that Alex Smith covers in this post.

Creating the perfect Facebook event — Part Two

More info and how to use the invitations are covered in part two of Alex Smith’s post.

Six Ways To Effectively Promote Events on Facebook — Case Study

Don’t stop at just creating a Facebook Event. Mari Smith gives other ways to use Facebook to promote it, such as share buttons, comment plugins, and more.

Facebook Lets Users Check In to Events via the Touch Site, Soon the iPhone

Combine the Facebook Place “check-in” concept with your event to draw more attention to your event. Josh Constine gives you the low-down on Inside Facebook.

10 Facebook Events Gone Wrong

Just be careful when you create your event that you are prepared for the viral nature of Facebook. Julius Solaris outlines 10 Facebook disasters. Most of them involved free booze.

Facebook Mobile with Places and Deals

New Data: 33% of Facebook Posting is Mobile

Dan Zarrella is a social media scientist. I don’t know if he’s mad, but he sure has good data. Facebook Mobile usage is increasing, which is a good reason to use Places and Deals to your advantage.

A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places

If you have an actual physical storefront, you may want to consider setting up a Facebook Place where people can check in. Mashable gives you the big picture.

Facebook Deals Review
Facebook Deals were touted as the “Groupon-killer” by many blogs and news outlets when Facebook officially launched the Deals service in April. So far, so good … for Groupon. But don’t count Deals out; Ignite Social Media shows what Deals look like and where they live on Facebook.

Introducing Deals

Facebook’s own blog gives a very good overview of how to use the new Deals features.

Adding Facebook Applications

Top 75 Apps for Enhancing Your Facebook Page

In this post on Social Media Examiner, Mari Smith gives you the top 75 Facebook Apps. Which is plenty. You don’t have to use them all.

Add YouTube to Your Facebook Page

Laura Roeder shows you how easy it is to add your YouTube channel to your Facebook Page. There are several YouTube applications out there, but she demonstrates the best one in her video: the Involver application.

NetworkedBlogs is the App of Choice for Bloggers

Denise Wakeman of Build a Better Blog did an informal poll and found that most bloggers use NetworkedBlogs to automatically import their blogs posts. I do like it for automation, but Facebook hides some of the automated posts that come in from NetworkedBlogs in the News Feed. So manually posting your blog post is better in the long run.

Appbistro

It can be challenging to find the right app to use since Facebook’s own search function is not that hot. Appbistro is a good place to find apps that can help.

Big Companies on Facebook

The 15 Most Popular Brands On Facebook

Number of fans is not the only thing that matters — it’s also how engaged they are. Business Insider takes a look at the numbers for the top 15 brands.

8 Brands That Have Found Success on Facebook & What We Can Learn

Dave Kerpen of Likeable gives us a concrete lesson from 8 big brands that we can implement right away in this Mashable post.

26 Facebook Fan Page Examples in Detail

Over on the Ignite Social Media Blog, Lisa Braziel is dissecting 26 big brands on Facebook to show you exactly what they are doing. Follow this series of posts for some great ideas.

25 brilliant examples of Facebook brand pages

Jake Hird covers 25 brands that are doing a good job on Facebook on Econsultancy. 


Small Companies on Facebook

Two thirds of small business owners use Facebook for marketing

Baaaa. Should we be sheep? ZDNet dissects some recent stats from a survey of 1,132 small businesses on Facebook.

Top 5 Facebook Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses Make

I think everyone needs to read this post by Leyl Master Black. I see these mistakes in small, medium, and large businesses.

B-to-B Companies on Facebook

10 Examples of B2B Facebook Fan Pages

Business-to-business can be a little trickier on Facebook. You are searching for a more specific niche audience. In Social Media B2B, Jeffery Cohen gives examples of companies that are doing well (kudos to the updated numbers).

7 Awesome B2B Facebook Pages

Yet another great post by HubSpot. This time they cover what makes these B2B Pages special.

Non-profits on Facebook

Facebook Business Tips for Nonprofits

Rebecca Leaman helps answer questions for non-profits such as whether to use a Group or a Page, and how to set a social media policy.

Facebook Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations

Diosa Communications gives 32 tips for nonprofits. (Psst, lots of them work for anyone!)

How to Comment on and Tag other Pages as your Page

Everything You Need To Know About Facebook’s Epic Upgrade To Pages

The ability to comment on other Facebook Pages as your Page came about in February 2011. John Haydon covers these changes and shows you how to comment as your Page on another Page which can increase your visibility.

Tagging Other Pages On Your Facebook Business Page Wall: How-To & Ettiquette

Mesh Marketing provides a very nice step-by-step post on how to tag Pages and how not to be a self-promotional jerk about it.

Best Practices

Top 5 Things for Facebook Page Success

Good tips from Adele Cooper, the director of global customer marketing & communications for Facebook, posted on the American Express Open Forum.

Altimeter Report: The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing

Download this 27 page report from Jeremiah Owyang and devour it. The report is filled with concrete examples on how brands can market, graphs and charts on how brands are performing, and great tips for any sized business on how to be successful on Facebook.

The Difference Between Engaged and Engaging

Even if you are posting often, you may still be doing it wrong. Danny Brown shows a concrete example of the best way to be engaging on Facebook.

Are You Asking The Wrong Questions On Facebook?

Amy Porterfield shares that the best way to create engagement on Facebook is to ask interesting, thought-provoking questions. She tells us how to make sure we are not asking the wrong questions.

Make Your Facebook Page Posts Count

How do you attract people to interact with your posts? John Porcaro not only gives a great list of best practices such as keeping it short, adding a link and delivering value but he also shows some concrete examples of posts that catch his eye.

5 Tips To Drive Engagement With Your Fans On Facebook

Jeff Bullas tells us not to beg for Likes, but get them naturally through engagement with these five tips.

Advertising on Facebook

Facebook Ads 101 – How to Set up and Track Facebook Ads

Facebook ads can be targeted to a very specific demographic which make them a very powerful tool. Subliminal Pixels has a great overview on getting started with Facebook Advertising.

The How-To Guide For Facebook Advertising

If you use Facebook ads, make sure you are identifying your goals, understanding the cost structure and measuring your results. Anthony Piwarun gives the low-down on these steps in a guest post on Social Media Explorer.

Facebook advertising tricks for b2b marketers

Paul Dunay is the co-author of Facebook Advertising for Dummies, so he knows what he’s talking about. He doesn’t disappoint with these great targeting tips in this article.

Guide to Facebook Ads

Facebook would like to encourage you to spend money with them in this comprehensive overview of how Facebook Ads works. Tongue-in-cheek aside, it’s a good guide to all the pieces of the ad campaign.

Running a Contest on Facebook

Is a Facebook Contest or Sweepstakes Right for your Business?

Debbie Hemly talks with small businesses about their experience running contests on Facebook in this Gigcoin post.

The unofficial guide to Facebook’s terms and conditions

There is a lot of confusion around running a contest on Facebook. Mostly because many people are doing it wrong. Lauren Fisher of Simply Zesty gives us the guide to Facebook’s Contest rules in this post.

Facebook Promotions: What You Need to Know

Another gem by Mari Smith, although she doesn’t mention Woobox in her list of contest applications, which I have used and liked.

Selling on Facebook

16 Facebook Marketing Strategies

A good rundown of different apps you can use to market your business on Facebook by Top One SEO blog.

Facebook Posts Are 3 Times More Powerful Than Tweets

Wondering if you should use Twitter instead of Facebook? A recent study covered in All Facebook calculated the conversion rate of Facebook to be three times higher than Twitter for social shopping.

Why it’s important to set up a Facebook store

Have stuff to sell? Set up a storefront on Facebook. The Next Web tells you why.

4 Ways to Set Up a Storefront on Facebook

Four great apps to use to sell your wares on Facebook are covered on Mashable. I use Payvment myself.

Facebook ROI

Facebook Marketing ROI: 3 Case Studies

Brian Carter shows us in his Search Engine Journal post three small business examples of how Facebook Ads generated at least 300% ROI and higher for these cases.

How to use Google Analytics to measure Facebook ROI

In this video, John Haydon takes you through Google Analytics to determine your ROI. I like the tip at the end where he tells you to have a unique page on your website that only serves Facebook. That will make your tracking much easier!

Your Brand Has Thousands of Facebook Fans–What Is the ROI?

Steve Kerho on Fast Company answers the question everyone is asking: What is the ROI?

10 Measures of Social Media ROI for Your Brand

Neil Glassman on the Social Times site urges us not to declare our success based on readily available metrics (such as Likes), but to focus on the metrics that are truly relevant to our business. Good advice.

Don’t Stop There

5 things you can do to spice up your Facebook Page

Make it spicy! Ayelet Noff tells us how on Socialmedia.biz.

EdgeRank and Facebook News Feed Optimization

WebProNews talks about how to get into the Top News and what EdgeRank has to do with it.

EdgeRank Checker

An unofficial tool to check your EdgeRank and see how likely it is that you are appearing in the Top News. My favorite part of the tool is how it tells you what days are best for you — make sure you save your best announcements for those days.

How to Use Hootsuite with Facebook Pages (tutorial)

Cheryl at Beautiful Blog Designs has a great tutorial on how to use Hootsuite to manage your Facebook Page and schedule updates for later.

How to use Facebook insights to identify core supporters

John Haydon goes through the steps to using Facebook insights in a meaningful way in this YouTube video. He mentions in the video that the insights he is covering aren’t available for Pages with less than 10,000 fans, but that has changed and the stats he covers are now available.

Are You Full yet?

Yes, there are endless things to know about Facebook. So if you really want to know almost everything, you may have to buy my book — it’s 720 pages long. And even that doesn’t cover it all.

Got your own favorite Facebook resources? Link them up for us all in the comments!

About the Author: Andrea Vahl is the co-author of the upcoming Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies available now for pre-order on Amazon at a really sweet price. If nothing else it will make a great doorstop. You can also find her at www.AndreaVahl.com along with her alter ego, Grandma Mary.

SEO comes down to three basic things: 1. the language searchers use, 2. the way search engines view your content, and 3. the trust search engines have in your site.

Our Scribe SEO software makes these three basic steps easier and more efficient than ever:

1. First, the Scribe keyword research tool tunes you into the right language before you write. Once your content is created, the Scribe keyword suggestion service shows you keyword phrases you might have missed.
2. Second, Scribe analyzes your natural, reader-focused content, and tells you how to gently tweak it to spoon feed search engines based on 15 SEO best practices.
3. Third, Scribe’s link and social tools help you build backlinks from other sites, crosslink the content within your own site, and identify influential social media users who will want to share your content.

Find out more about Scribe here.

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The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Marketing

Posted on 09. May, 2011 by Gabrielle Conde in Blog, Copywriting, Popular, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

I’ve probably approached Twitter marketing in fifty different ways.

And in an attempt to find the best way to go forward with my own marketing efforts on Twitter, I recently realized that I’d collected a fairly valuable list of killer resources along the way.

Would you like to know how to start marketing your business on Twitter?

How about more advanced approaches to getting more retweets, more followers, and more prospects for your business?

If there are secrets and special formulas that can magically unlock the power of social media out there, I don’t know them.

What I do know, is exactly what the experts are doing — day in and day out.

And now, you will too …

What is Twitter?

Twitter in Plain English
Entertaining and easy to follow, this video from Lee and Sachi LeFever of Common Craft show ways of understanding how Twitter works and fits into your daily workflow and lifestyle.

48 Ways to Explain Twitter to Skeptics
David Meerman Scott confronts the inevitable questions from the Twitter skeptics. His family asked him to explain Twitter, grilling him on Christmas. Instead of explaining himself, he tweeted the question and posted his replies.

Setting up your Twitter account

The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter
Michael Hyatt shares a tutorial on how to set up Twitter for your cell phone. He also goes over some basics on how to tweet with third-party tools. 

Newbie’s Guide to Twitter
Rafe Needleman shares a step-by-step process of getting started on Twitter. His steps include basics like the initial account set up, getting started on your mobile phone, following and joining friends and even mindset ideas for new Twitter users.

Twitter and Personal Branding: The BIG Mistake I See People Make Every Single Day
David Meerman Scott shares secrets you can use to setup your Twitter profile with your personal brand.

Why You Need a Kick Ass Twitter Background
Marian Schembari shares a few profiles on Twitter and why they represent their brands so well. 

It’s OK to Have Multiple Twitter Accounts
In fact, it’s necessary if you have multiple departments in your business. Christian Collard explains how he uses multiple accounts for his business to target followers and build relationships.

New twitter users start here

Social Media Workflows Part 1: Awareness and Capture
Setting goals before jumping on Twitter will get you farther than any other strategy. Chris Brogan discusses how you’re going to use Twitter for your company and how to put a plan in place.

How to Start On Twitter Without Looking Like a Newbie
Marian Schembari created a new Twitter account for sharing her experiences in her new town of Auckland, New Zealand. Instead of throwing any old thing up there and opening the doors for people to interact with her on that account, she walks through what she did before inviting followers.

7 Tips for New Twitter Users
Shel Israel’s evergreen post has some of the best tips for approaching Twitter when you’re a newbie.

Use Twitter for Your Business the Right Way
Aira Bongco’s tips give you a solid basic approach to Twitter. Also, find the one way you can use Twitter to set your business apart.

How to Twitter
Wall Street Journal’s Julia Angwin shares her first few Twitter experiences before she got the hang of it and gained followers. She writes about how to use Twitter’s greatest strength to your advantage.

Moving from Social Media Tactics To Your Social Business Plan
Instead of floundering on social media networks, being tossed from wave to wave, David Armano shares foundation-building steps. When your company is ready to tap social media, David’s post will help you find secure footing.

Twitter Experiment Results — Swapping Person To Brand
Adam Singer makes a case for creating content that is community focused. Find out why creating great content drives traffic from social media networks to your “hub.”

What’s up with the whole #hashtag thing?

The Twitter Hash Tag: What Is It and How Do You Use It?
Tech for Luddites gives a great clarification on what a hashtag is, and how to create one.

Twitter vocabulary

The Ultimate Glossary: 101 Social Media Marketing Terms Explained
Every definition and term you needed to know around social media in one place. How convenient is that?

Can Social Media Buzz-Words Kill Your Profits?
J.P. Micek shares his impressions about buzzwords in new media marketing. In this article, he gives you a different way of looking at the mindset for using social media to gain the most from words like authenticity and transparency.

Ten Things You Must Know Before Using Twitter
Ten must-know terms and tools.

25 Social Media Buzzwords … Explained
Jim Tobin put together the top social media buzzwords with thorough definitions so you won’t be in the dark when someone says “social graph” or “mash-ups.”

Why you need to be on Twitter

12 Reasons to Start Twittering
Start with the 12 reasons to start Twittering. Michael Hyatt’s insights are spot on.

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live
Robyn Twomey of Time Magazine discusses Twitter and conversation. The fact that a conversation in your head can lead to real-life conversations and connections is changing the world. This post brings up questions surrounding the standards of interacting with others — instead of staying in your head or continuing a one-way conversation plan.

Social Media Marketing: 2011 Trends Report
Is Twitter just “too six months ago” for you? Michael Brenner goes over the 2011 Trends Report with his own thoughts about what’s coming next in social media.

5 Reasons I use Twitter – (and you should too)
Jeff Delp, a K-12 administrator, says using Twitter can help you as a personal learning tool in five areas of communication. Using Twitter can improve your current work style and future learning.

Do You Tweet? 3 Reasons Why You Should
This one’s a favorite of mine because Sprike tells you straight up that you shouldn’t expect to land deals or millions of dollars in the first three minutes of being on Twitter. Instead, Sprike shares with you: 1) who you should try to get to follow you, and 2) exactly why.

7 Surprising Statistics About Twitter in America
Jay Baer, co-author of The NOW Revolution, shares the side of Twitter you don’t know, according to an Edison Research Survey. Although this is a 2010 blog post, it still has relevance as to why Twitter is a significant player in social media and still growing like crazy.

35 Ways Social Media Can Make Your Life Easier
Alli from BlogWorld shares how Twitter makes it convenient for you to find valuable, real-time information. Besides using it for business, you’ll get insights into thirty-five other uses for Twitter, making it perfect for the pursuit of #winning.

The Future of Community
Chris Brogan gives an excellent point about the ever-changing nature of web-based community. He shares the evolution of community online, and why Twitter is necessary.

How a Few Tweets Led to a 370% Increase In My Traffic
Tom Meitner shares his Twitter experience with Chris Brogan on Problogger. He says anything is possible if you take action.

Twitter User Statistics Show Stunning Growth
Catharine Smith from The Huffington Post illustrates how much Twitter has grown over the past five years since its launch.

The Ten Ways Twitter Will Permanently Change American Business
Douglas McIntyre from 24/7 Wall Street wrote this evergreen post about how Twitter is evolving into a major marketing tool in ten different areas of media and marketing.

Big companies are doing it …

Coca-Cola VP Talks About the Keys to Social Media Success
Cynthia Boris interviewed Wendy Clark about Coca-Cola’s strategy with Twitter. The tips from this post at Marketing Pilgrim are incredible.

40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
Jennifer Van Grove interviewed forty major brands on Twitter for Mashable. She came up with the best reasons to be on Twitter and how to create your company’s strategy based on these interviews.

The government is doing it too …

Cornyn: Lawmakers Having to Conquer Fear of Social Media
Michael O’Brien of The Hill’s Twitter Room reports about how Sen. John Cornyn uses social media. In this post, find out the number one reason using Twitter will help your business efforts.

Barack Obama on Twitter
He follows back, or so I’ve heard. I haven’t seen him accept my follow yet

What you need to know

An Insider’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette
Chris Brogan has plenty of etiquette tips for keeping the conversation going, disclosure, promotion, content production, and sharing.

Twitter Etiquette For Agencies/Freelancers
Tony Bloomberg from Diva Marketing Blog shares more than just a few tips for etiquette and Twitter behavior.

The Most Important Twitter Rule of 2011
Diana Adams says down with the “dictatorship mentality” on Twitter. Discover the reigning Twitter rule for 2011 that trumps everything else.

Twitter, Facebook, Groupon, and Social Media – What Online Advertisers Need to Know
Hollis Thomases delivers the real deal on social media. She goes over the cold, hard facts based on research and reports so you don’t have to.

The Easy Button
Tom Webster of Brand Savant shares the “easy button” of the Internet.

What the heck is a retweet and how do I do it?

How to Get More Retweet Action on Twitter
The magic on Twitter happens in the retweets. David Cantone will get you started with several simple but important strategies.

How to Increase Your Retweets, Twitter Followers & Klout
Kristi Hines gives you a few easy steps to getting more retweets now. You want more retweets, right?

How to Get Retweeted
Getting retweeted is one of the ultimate goals for marketers using Twitter. Guy Kawasaki’s plan for ultimate retweet domination is on the other side of this link.

5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter
Dan Zarrella analyzes the specific language and techniques that create more retweets for your Twitter content.

7 Ways to Thank Someone for a Retweet
Angie Schottmuller shares a simple way to thank those followers who retweet your stuff. This goes beyond the basic, “Thanks for the RT!” and to thanking your followers the right way.

The Twitter mindset

1,000 True Fans
The mindset behind any sustainable business. You can gain popularity, coolness and style, but without 1,000 true fans on your side, all the rest fades. BONUS: We all want an audience, here’s how you can learn to earn yours.

The Four Stages of “Getting” Twitter — Infographic
See, everyone goes through these stages. Cool infographic from The Chris Voss Show.

The Six Twitter Types
Guy Kawasaki posted on the American Express Open Forum about the different types of people that use Twitter and which ones are the most effective. Check out which one resembles you and what each of them do. I’m a Mensch, by the way. If you were wondering.

New Media as Community Theater — All the World’s a Stage
I loved this post by Ann Handley because she explains how new media gives everyone a platform for getting their message out.

An Open Letter to the Social Business Industry
I love Amber Naslund’s message on Brass Tack Thinking. She shares how even though social media is a collective entity, there’s several approaches people take towards it. Not all are the same, but all are part of the same purpose.

My Recommendation About Your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
Tim Berry shares the one recommendation every business needs to know about using social media. You don’t have to take it, but it could be a deciding factor for whether you close a sale or not.

How to get Twitter followers

Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter
Guy Kawasaki’s post offers insights on getting more Twitter followers. He uses these strategies himself.

Who You Gonna Follow Now?
Guy Kawasaki shares three sources that will help you decide who to follow.

Writing Killer Content in 140 Characters or Less
Killer content on your blog can get people to stick around. Twitter only has 140 characters. How do you create killer content in 140 characters? Marly shares a complete list on crafting a message in 140 characters or less.

Why 150 Followers is All You Really Need
Do the number of followers really matter? Find out the number one reason why it doesn’t matter according to Srinivas Rao and get tips on building your base to 150 in just a few steps.

10 Reasons Why I Follow You on Twitter
Brittany Rubinstein shares why she and a million other people on Twitter might follow you.

How To: Expand Your Twitter Tribe
Seth Godin wrote the book on tribes for businesses.  In this post, your business gains a list of ways to expand your reach on Twitter from Aaron Lee.

Brand management on Twitter

The Evolution of Brands on Twitter
Jeremiah Owyang shows you exactly how to get up and running on social media.

Twitter, Customer Service, and Good Brand Management
So many marketing gurus are predicting social media as the future. Valerie Maltoni shares a list of tools and ways to monitor your brand and respond to conversation in a matter of minutes. By doing this, you increase web presence and provide excellent customer service.

Lean, mean Twitter marketing strategies

62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business
If you think you know everything about Twitter, I challenge you to read this post by Meryl Evans. Even the most die hard Twitter users will find at least one action step in this list to use immediately.

How to Use Twitter as a Twool
Cut through monkey talk running around in your head about Twitter. Go read Guy Kawasaki’s post and get clear on a Twitter strategy you can put in place now. It’s a few years old, but still applies.

TweetWhen: The Science of Timing
Dan Zarella shares three years of research and a free tool that’ll show you exactly when to tweet. Watch his webinar to see customized graphs for getting the most retweets. 

10 Ways Brands Can Target Moms by Fusing Online Advertising and Social Media
Hollis Thomases put together a list for businesses to get over the wondering of what to do on Twitter and other social media platforms. Print her list and go do it.

The Only Twitter List a Business User Needs
Mario Sundar shares how to use Twitter and LinkedIn together to maximize and keep track of contacts for your business.

4 Ways Companies Use Twitter for Business
Want to see a new media marketing strategy that big companies use? Here are four from Sarah Perez.

Are Twitter Chats Part of Your Social Media Strategy?
Angela Maiers talks about using Twitter chats to grow your business. Don’t know what a Twitter chat is or how to find one? Angela has your back.

Opportunity for Better B2B Marketing with Social Media & SEO
Lee Odden makes a strong case for B2B marketing using social search and SEO. He backs it up with statistics and the right way to implement a plan.

Stop Trying to Engage Your Audience
Gahlord Dewald shares an extremely useful tip after helping a fellow entrepreneur. Find out the one thing to look for when scanning Twitter feeds.

Social Media, Generosity and the Hockey Stick
Find out how karma can come back to your business through the eyes of Jeff Gibbard. One question will determine whether you’re spinning your wheels in social media, or investing in the future.

How To (Successfully) Break The First Rule of Social Media
Just like grammar, copywriters break the rules (and have fun doing it). So find out the number one rule that will skyrocket your social media experience and send raving fans flocking to you.

Prospecting on Twitter

How to Use Twitter for Sales Prospecting
Use this post as your prospecting tool and mindset helper in one. Short and sweet, it has real value for getting to prospecting on Twitter right away.

Actively Prospecting with Twitter
Geared toward real estate professionals, the Rainmaker Masters Circle blog shares the benefits you’ll receive from prospecting on Twitter and the value you’ll add to potential clients’s lives by providing a needed solution.

Two-Minute Social Media Tips: Local Prospecting with Twitter
(Video) Troy Janisch from Social Meteor shares some quick and easy tips for prospecting locally. Since it’s predicted that all businesses are going to get left behind if they aren’t active in social media, check out these tips to see what you can do right now.

Craft eye-catching Twitter headlines

The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
Brian Clark gives you a must-read recipe for writing headlines that get clicks and retweets.

Managing Twitter

Manage Multiple Accounts Without Medication
If you have quite a few social media accounts to keep up with, Erika Napoletano gives you the full disclosure on how to manage it all.

Top Ten Social Media Tools for Daily Use
Mari Smith shares her faves for making social media manageable across multiple platforms. Besides Twitter, Mari’s website features plenty of posts on Facebook as well.

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business
Chris Brogan’s ways to use Twitter for business. It’s a printable list of fifty of the sharpest ways to use Twitter today. If you’re stumped on getting started, read through this list and get to it.

Why There’s Nothing Wrong with Social Media Automation
Twitter purists beware! Danny Brown gives excellent reasons why it’s perfectly fine to use automation tools for Twitter. I mean, geez, you can’t grow eight arms so why not automate where you can? With Danny’s tips, you’re set..

4 Ways to Track Tweets
Patrick Garmoe shares the best tools to track your tweets. Since tracking your online presence is necessary, find out the exact tools you need to do it well.

3 Steps to a Productive Life on Twitter as a Blogger Using Buffer
You may have already seen Leo Widrich or spoke to him on Twitter about Buffer App. Here’s a behind the scenes glance at what it does and how it can help your business.

Top 5 Twitter app alternatives for iPhone
Of course where would we be without Twitter for iPhone. Actually I’m still stuck in the stone age and don’t have a smart phone yet, but for all of you who do, these apps can help you manage Twitter on the go.

How Much Time Does Twittering Really Take?
Do you have to spend 14 hours a day working Twitter like Gary Vaynerchuk? Could you tweet and be effective on Twitter for 20 minutes a day? Find out from Michael Hyatt.

A Review of Triberr and the Spin Sucks Analytics
Gini Dietrich shares why Spin Sucks uses Triberr and how it will help your business with social media. You’ve got to see her hard fact analytics over a two-month span, amazing.

Twitter security

How To Setup HTTPS Better Security on Your Twitter Account
Chris Voss shares how a hacker got into the Twitter accounts of several people in the same coffee shop. He also shares how you can ensure this doesn’t happen to you while tweeting when out and about.

Twitter social proof

What Your Twitter Numbers Say About You, part 1
Marian tells it like it is regarding your Twitter stats. You can get more followers or let people find you, but if you read her post, you’ll find out why she recommends going out and getting more.

What Your Twitter Numbers Say About You, part 2
Marian shares her strategy for managing Twitter through Hootsuite. She makes it look easy!

How do you increase social influence? Don’t think about the score
Not into self-promotion? Brian Solis gives you tangible advice on building a community the human way.

Measuring Social Business Success
Want to know the return on investment (ROI) for social media? Well, Erin Traudt has a few insights on social media gains and social business costs.

Avoid being an annoying twit

Ten Things You Need to Stop Tweeting About
The Oatmeal shares his hilariously true views about what you need to stop tweeting. Don’t say you haven’t done at least one of these if you’re on Twitter. Remember, we can all look up your tweets

The Twitter Test
Mitch Joel cracks me up in this post. Find out how your tweets stack up by taking his Twitter Test.

Don’t Be That Guy
Are you that guy? Shannon Paul can help.

12 Twitter Mistakes You Should Avoid
We all make mistakes. If you can admit them, you’re on your way to improvement. John Paul Aguiar will teach you to avoid some of the biggest Twitter mistakes around.

8 Reasons for Brand Failure on Social Media (Twitter)
Admit it, you’ve wondered … is your brand failing like a whale on Twitter? Charles Mburugu can help you find them and avoid them.

How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness
Did you see the movie Clueless? Don’t roll with other clueless homies. Get your head on right with these 11 tips from Guy Kawasaki so you can take some action.

Train Wreck! The 3 Types of Self-Destructive Corporate Tweets
Ooh ouch. A few big companies do have some twits at the controls. Check out the tweets Jay Baer listed in this post and what each company did to reconcile with their followers.

Don’t stop there

Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions
Mashable’s HUGE Twitter Guide Book covers the basics as well as more advanced topics. There are also some video tutorials in there.

I Love Marketing – Episode 013: The one with Tim Ferriss
I can’t help it. I love Tim Ferriss. Get into his mindset for Twitter and other social media campaigns through this podcast.

Social Media Cheat Sheet 2011
Drew McLellan put together this great social media cheat sheet. Someone had to create it, right?

Top 20 Twitip Twitter Tips of All Time!
Get all the best Twitips from Lara Kulpa in a single post. If you need action steps to get your business started on Twitter, read, print and follow.

3 Ways to Use Twitter Favorites
It seems many Twitter users don’t understand what favorites on Twitter are or represent. Get the scoop from Ryan Barton so you can use them to your follower’s benefit.

Thanks to my guest blogging coach, Jon Morrow, who kept me on the straight and narrow while working on this post.

Now that you have the knowledge, get out there and market your business on Twitter!

Oh, and please add your best Twitter marketing tips and links in the comments …

About the Author: Gabrielle Conde engineers Mission: Engage -– a company helping businesses grow through content development, article writing, and copywriting.

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