How and Why I Use LinkedIn Groups to Build My Business
Posted on 21. May, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
As I’ve written here in the past, I think there are solid business reasons for participating in most social networks these days, but if your business sells primarily to other businesses, you must get more active on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is not the biggest or most talked about network these day, but when it comes to connecting with people who mean business and generating leads, few can compare to the power of LinkedIn. A study conducted by Hubspot earlier this year suggested that LinkedIn is “277 Percent More Effective for Lead Generation than Facebook and Twitter.”
While those numbers were taken from their user base, my experience suggests that the professional decision maker audience that prefers LinkedIn is much more prepared to participate in the kind of traditional authentic networking that leads to lasting business relationships than any other network.
The power tool on LinkedIn is Groups. For me this is the closest thing to the proven offline networking groups that exists online today. Groups can give you access to people and discussions related to an industry, topic or even geographic region. Working LinkedIn Groups effectively is a solid way to build a network and generate leads.
Back up to that last sentence and dwell on the word effectively. Effective networking is about providing value, sharing, helping and informing – it’s not about spamming, promoting and selling. Participate in the latter before you’ve earned any credibility and your efforts won’t gain any steam.
Join groups
Currently LinkedIn allows basic members to join up to 50 Groups. Find industry, topic and location specific groups that contain concentrations of people that you would like to network with and join them. Spend time looking at the level of participation and conversations. If all you find is updates with members promoting their businesses move on as this group will be of little benefit.
LinkedIn has a “groups you may like” function that suggests groups based on your current profile and connections.
Ironically, the best groups for lead generation are those that don’t tolerate blatant self-promotion.
Connect with members
Once you’ve joined a group, you have a natural common connection with each group member and LinkedIn gives you the ability to connect based on the mutual group membership. It’s a little thing, but it’s a step beyond simply saying you want to connect.
Reach out and make some connections and very simple introductions as to why you joined the group.
Look for active members and add relevant replies to a number of posts. This starts the process of some one on one conversation and, since your replies are publicly available to all group members, you can use this technique to demonstrate that you have a lot to offer.
Create groups
Once you get the hang of Groups you should consider creating your own topic group. This is not a company group, it’s one that is set up to discuss a topic that your prospects, customers, partners, and even competitors might find worthwhile.
A word of warning – if you want your group to grow and give you the ability to benefit by virtue of your status as the group’s manager, you have to commit the time to curate, moderate, stimulate and facilitate group participation.
You must add starter content that gets people talking. You must participate in conversations. You must promote. And above all you must not tolerate spam and self-promotion. Tell people this is you intent up front, give them one warning and kick offenders out. If you don’t set this tone from the very beginning you’ll group members won’t want to stick around.
To get the most from your group manager role create a landing page on your own website that promotes the idea behind the group and encourages visitors to join. This will deepen your connection to the group and help people better understand what the group is all about.
Lastly, use, but don’t abuse, the announcements function. As a group manager you can send direct announcements to all group members via email. This is a great way to continue to keep your group and its activity front and center.
Five notes
Once you start to get more active on LinkedIn make it a habit to reach out to five connections each week with the sole purpose of saying hi, thank you, I see you got a promotion, wonder what you’ve been working on, etc.
I’ve done this in the offline world with handwritten notes for years and the impact is dramatic and long lasting.
I can’t tell you how often this simple, personal touch has led to business – even though that was not the intent in any way.
It’s amazing how relationships bloom when you genuinely care about people.
How and Why I Use LinkedIn Groups to Build My Business is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
Weekend Favs May Five
Posted on 05. May, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.
I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or one that I took out there on the road.
Brookside Art Fair Kansas City, Mo
Good stuff I found this week:
ChoiceResponse – simple Gmail add on that allows you to send multiple choice emails. Makes it much easier for people reply as they simply click one of the choices.
Lanyrd – social conference directory allows you to find conferences, keep up ones that are going on and dig into all the content published from ones you missed. Sort by interest and geography.
Fliptop – Search for social information on people and brands from email addresses, URLs or Social IDs. Great way to enhance the CRM data on customers and prospects.
Weekend Favs May Five is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
How to Startup Before You Startup
Posted on 26. Apr, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Vision
If you’re thinking about starting a business or even if you’ve already started one, don’t spend your time fussing over spreadsheets, logos, budgets or competition.
Packed house on opening day
Those are all parts of the puzzle, but if you want to build a business that cannot fail, spend what may feel like an exorbitant amount of time focused on building and nourishing a community.
I know you’ve got to pay the bills, but get this part right and you’ll never have to worry about having enough business.
In a perfect world, every business would spend a year or so doing nothing but community building before they ever opened the doors.
So, what would that look like?
Natalie George had a day job and dream of opening a healthy, all natural, vegan and raw food restaurant. The vision for this restaurant was created after a dining at well-known San Francisco restaurant Café Gratitude.
After several years of hoping, she launched the business. The only thing is there were no pots and pans or forks or glasses, in fact, there was no physical place at all. She launched the business by asking people to help her build it.
She began by inviting people to join a community that cared about the ideals of gratitude, abundance, community building and, of course, raw food.
She raised money to build the business by holding workshops and selling gift cards for future use. She asked everyone to join her mailing list to keep up on the progress. She shared stories about the ups and downs, exciting and frustrating moments and the joy of making tables from reclaimed wood.
The following four items were the focus of her website.
Cafe Gratitude is opening in Kansas City
Would you like to be a part of making it happen? There are several ways to contribute!
1. We are starting Cafe Gratitude KC Store Builders. Purchase a gift certificate to be used at Cafe Gratitude KC for $1000, and you will get a $1200 gift certificate! That’s a 20% return on investment and will totally support the opening of Cafe Gratitude!
2. Attend one of our upcoming events: Community Building Workshop, Abounding River Practice or intenSati.
3. Ask yourself, friends and family, “What are you grateful for?”
4. Sign up for our mailing list and we’ll keep you posted on our progress, events and future ways you can contribute.
I went to the opening preview event last week and the line to get in wrapped around a city block. Once inside the place was packed with people celebrating with organic beer and wine and the music of the Makepeace Brothers band, but more than anything, they were celebrating their place in a community – and by all accounts, that’s going to make for one health business venture.
So, how do to you start a community building business?
- Develop a clear vision
- Focus on giving
- Get out in your market and teach
- Start connecting everyone
- Tell stories and share your goals
- Ask people to help
- Let people contribute
How to Startup Before You Startup is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
Persol is Stuff that Works
Posted on 18. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Persol is Stuff that Works
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
This is a new Sunday series that I’m calling Stuff that Works. Each Sunday I’ll pick an item that is for me a foundation element in my line up of stuff that matters or as legendary Texas singer songwriter Guy Clark put it – “The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall.”
Steve McQueen's blue tinted lens Persols in Thomas Crown Affair
Persol is a brand of Italian made sunglasses that hit the big time due in part to Steve McQueens penchant for wearing them in movies like the 1960′s Thomas Crown Affair. You’ll also see them on Danial Craig’s portrayal of James Bond.
I’ve owned a pair of Tortoise Persol Ratti 69102 for years and I just love wearing them. On top of the fact that they are clearly stylish, I’ve never put on another pair with lenses like this.
You can spot a pair of Persols by the signature silver arrow detail in the hinge. The other distinction from a technical standpoint is the hinged temple technology that is one of the reason they fit like no other.
The Persol brand is not nearly as well known as the more popular Ray Ban, but the quality of a pair of handmade vintage Persols is unmatched. The company was purchased by Luxottica – the same company that owns and, in some views, wrecked Oakley and Ray Ban. Many of the glasses are now made in China – so your best bet to find a hand made Italian pair might be to troll eBay or find a good eyewear shop that carries some vintage stock like Silver Lining Opticians in New York.
Effective Networking Takes Commitment and Clarity
Posted on 09. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, sxsw
Effective Networking Takes Commitment and Clarity
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
These days the word networking has any number of meanings and context.
There’s social networking, the kind of networking you do wherever two or more of you are gathers and of course that pesky wiring together of far flung computer nodes that might come up in a random search on the term networking.
I’m at SXSWi this week in Austin and hidden in all those tweets and posts from giddy geeks gone gonzo is the fact that this event is one of the premiere networking events for people in the online and interactive world.
But, networking in your world, no matter where that takes place, is still one of the most important elements of small business relationship building. Like many elements of marketing, however, it’s even more effective when you learn how to blend good old “hi, tell me about your business” with “Let’s connect online.”
Commitment
- Networking takes commitment because:
- You’ve got to actually get out and go where people are
- You’ve got to take some time to learn about who might be at the event
- You’ve got to make an effort to get uncomfortable
- You’ve got to actually care about what the new person you just met is saying
- You’ve got to hold off launching into a sales pitch
- You’ve got to commit to meeting everyone in the same way
- You’ve got to accept that people need to meet you
- You’ve got to be willing to approach anyone
Clarity
- Networking takes clarity because:
- You’ve got to know exactly how you add value
- You’ve got to know exactly whom you can help
- You’ve got to keep your business card from becoming a reflex
- You’ve got to have an online connection plan
- You’ve got to have a follow-up plan
- You’ve got to know who else needs to meet who you meet
Today, pick an event and make a plan to make it amazing. Stuff this list in your pocket and then move fearlessly around the room making meaningful connection with every single person you don’t already know.
Teaching Your Business to Manage Itself
Posted on 06. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, culture, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Teaching Your Business to Manage Itself
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Have you ever encountered a business where everything just felt in place? The experience was perfect -the products, the people, the brand, everything worked in seemingly effortless fashion. You made an odd request; it was greeted with a smile. You went to try a new feature; it was right where it should be. You walked in, sat down and felt right at home.
Building a business can seem a bit like a giant set of Legos scattered all over the room. There are countless bits and parts and pieces that might fit together or they might not, but the game appears to be locked in composing these fragments in a manner that verges on what seems like some kind of normal.
But here’s the thing. Normal is a trap. Normal is the business you ran from to start this business. Normal is the last three businesses that choked and spurted and collapsed under the weight of management. Normal is a poor imitation.
Businesses that run so smoothly as to seem self manage aren’t normal. In fact, they are terribly counter intuitive, but terribly simple it turns out. The key is a tremendous focus on three things only – clarity, culture and community.
Clarity
Until you can get excruciatingly clear about the one thing your business really does that no one else does and, perhaps more importantly, the handful of high payoff behaviors that you the owner of said business must to spend as much time as possible immersed in, you will have a very difficult time practicing anything that looks or feels like art.
Until you can feel why you do what you do and use that as your guide the road ahead will always seem uncharted.
When you are clear about the one thing everything just gets so simple. You don’t even have to think about decisions anymore because you have the perfect filter and the filter runs the business.
If clarity for your business means earning a referral from 100% of your customers everyone know what to ask, how to greet a customer and who owns the result.
Culture
If a business is to mange itself a culture of ownership should be the sole objective. This must come at the expense of hierarchy and the assertion of autonomy. Every business, regardless of size has a culture. The only question really is whether or not it serves the business and the people that come to work there.
I’ve worked with business owners for years now and in my experience control, or the inability to give over control, is the greatest threat to business growth. Until a business can extend trust to those around him and give up control, there will be little more than constriction and contraction.
This means that you must also be able to communicate your sense of clarity and package it in a set of core values that when practiced in action become the road map for culture and the mantra for “this is who we are.”
Community
There was a time when community meant only customer. Today the customer is the community and that includes its customers, employees, mentors, vendors, advisors and even competitors all conspiring to advance and influence the business ecosystem.
When there is a clear picture about what the business stands for and the people that fill in that picture are given the freedom to manage their outcomes, the creation of a strong, vibrant and supporting community is a natural outcome.
A fully alive, self-managed business is little more than the sum of these parts orchestrated with total purpose.
Teaching Your Business to Manage Itself
Posted on 06. Mar, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, culture, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Teaching Your Business to Manage Itself
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Have you ever encountered a business where everything just felt in place? The experience was perfect -the products, the people, the brand, everything worked in seemingly effortless fashion. You made an odd request; it was greeted with a smile. You went to try a new feature; it was right where it should be. You walked in, sat down and felt right at home.
Building a business can seem a bit like a giant set of Legos scattered all over the room. There are countless bits and parts and pieces that might fit together or they might not, but the game appears to be locked in composing these fragments in a manner that verges on what seems like some kind of normal.
But here’s the thing. Normal is a trap. Normal is the business you ran from to start this business. Normal is the last three businesses that choked and spurted and collapsed under the weight of management. Normal is a poor imitation.
Businesses that run so smoothly as to seem self manage aren’t normal. In fact, they are terribly counter intuitive, but terribly simple it turns out. The key is a tremendous focus on three things only – clarity, culture and community.
Clarity
Until you can get excruciatingly clear about the one thing your business really does that no one else does and, perhaps more importantly, the handful of high payoff behaviors that you the owner of said business must to spend as much time as possible immersed in, you will have a very difficult time practicing anything that looks or feels like art.
Until you can feel why you do what you do and use that as your guide the road ahead will always seem uncharted.
When you are clear about the one thing everything just gets so simple. You don’t even have to think about decisions anymore because you have the perfect filter and the filter runs the business.
If clarity for your business means earning a referral from 100% of your customers everyone know what to ask, how to greet a customer and who owns the result.
Culture
If a business is to mange itself a culture of ownership should be the sole objective. This must come at the expense of hierarchy and the assertion of autonomy. Every business, regardless of size has a culture. The only question really is whether or not it serves the business and the people that come to work there.
I’ve worked with business owners for years now and in my experience control, or the inability to give over control, is the greatest threat to business growth. Until a business can extend trust to those around him and give up control, there will be little more than constriction and contraction.
This means that you must also be able to communicate your sense of clarity and package it in a set of core values that when practiced in action become the road map for culture and the mantra for “this is who we are.”
Community
There was a time when community meant only customer. Today the customer is the community and that includes its customers, employees, mentors, vendors, advisors and even competitors all conspiring to advance and influence the business ecosystem.
When there is a clear picture about what the business stands for and the people that fill in that picture are given the freedom to manage their outcomes, the creation of a strong, vibrant and supporting community is a natural outcome.
A fully alive, self-managed business is little more than the sum of these parts orchestrated with total purpose.
How To Build Your Own Leads Group
Posted on 27. Feb, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
How To Build Your Own Leads Group
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Leads groups have been around for quite some time. They differ from networking in that they are all about passing active leads to members of the group. There are many formal leads networks, such as BNI, and many informal local breakfast groups that offer the opportunity for business owners to build their business via lead sharing.
Image GorillaGolfBlog via Flickr CC
I think this is a great tactic for many types of business, but the complaints I often hear are that some groups work and some don’t depending upon the make-up of the group. Many traditional groups require a big commitment in terms of time and meetings. It’s hard to control the quantity and quality of the leads.
My advice to business owners and sales folks alike is to take the best from what works and build your own leads network.
Hand pick your team
This is perhaps one of the most important step and it should start with your current customers. You can build a best of class team for your leads group by asking your current customers what companies they like to do business with or what companies and individuals they already refer. This way you can find team members that come recommended and that you already have a common bond with.
Create a map of all of the needs for products and services that your current clients have and look to fill your leads group with 10-15 businesses and individuals that fit into that list.
Set goals and expectations
One of the things that formal leads groups are pretty good at is setting rules and regulations. While I think that is pretty important to get established right up front, it’s your selection process that might be more important.
As you are selecting team members paint a picture for how you see the group operating and talk about goals and expectations, such as how often you’ll meet and what people need to do to stay active.
Integrate technology
One of the downfalls with current traditional groups is meeting requirements. Some groups require 90 minutes every week, with stiff penalties for missing meetings.
Technology today can take away a great deal of the need to meet as frequently face to face. I think it’s still important to do so, but I also think you should employ a tool like LocalBase to help facilitate lead sharing, tracking and scoring.
This way people can share and track leads in real time and measure and analyze the ultimate contribution of every member in the group very easily.
Create opportunities
Another way to make your leads group stand out is to think beyond pure lead sharing and expand into the area of creating opportunities for the entire group. Once you have your group members all sorted out, why not look into ways to create content sharing opportunities like a group blog. Or, pay to have an eBook created that the entire group could pass around their customer base that lists all the group members.
Think about ways that your group members could work together to create online and offline events or offer special discounts, product samples and gift certificates for services for each other.
Meet Up
Make sure that you keep the “in real life” aspect of your local group alive by meeting at least once a month to share leads and expand upon the ideas to grow the group. You might even consider asking group members to invite other potential members to these meetings.
Another powerful way to enhance your monthly meetings is to turn them into networking events as well so that members of the leads group can invite and meet prospective clients.
The control that this approach gives you also allows you to create the feel to the group that really suits your way of doing business. If you like have wine at your leads group you can. If you want to give your group a fun or educational or even exotic travel retreat feel, you can do that too.
The other thing that successful implementation of this approach can potentially do for the business or salesperson that originates the group is significantly elevate your status in the community as a business leader and innovator.
7 Stages of the Content Hourglass
Posted on 22. Feb, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
7 Stages of the Content Hourglass
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
The need to produce content in marketing has grown so foundational that you can’t really get through a day without hearing about it, reading about it and perhaps stressing out about it.
Marketers are beginning to think and act more like publishers and are producing, curating and repurposing content like never before. Really smart marketers are snapping up journalists as key members of their marketing teams.
But, if marketing content is to become the essential element that it must become in your business, you need to view its production from a strategic point of view.
You may indeed need more content, but you certainly need content that addresses every one of your base business objectives and you need to view the editorial calendar of sorts in this strategic light.
In other words, you need content for every aspect of the customer life-cycle and you need to stage that content in something I call the Marketing HourglassTM.
The hourglass acknowledges the fact that your job as a marketer is to get someone with a need to know, like and trust you and that you then need to plan to turn that know, like and trust into try, buy, repeat and refer – and that each of these stages must address a prospect’s evolving relationship with your organization.
In other words, you need to plan to walk with someone that comes to know about your business all the way down the path to where they become a fan and volunteer member of your sales team.
One of the best tools in the hourglass arsenal is content.
One of the best ways to employ content in a strategic manner is to match different kinds of content with the stages of the hourglass and customer life cycle.
So, your content hourglass might look something like this:
Know
The key element here is blog content created on a narrowly defined set of keyword phrases and topics. One of the best ways to become known is through organic search. This phase would also include advertising that draws awareness to other, more advanced forms of content such as eBooks and seminars.
In many businesses a referral introduction is the first exposure that someone gains to an organization. This calls for content that is geared towards this type of exposure and specifically acknowledges your referral process.
Like
An eNewsletter can be a tremendous content tool for nurturing during the like and trust building phases as it allows you to demonstrate expertise, knowledge, resources, and experience over time.
A series of blog posts around a specific topic turned into an eBook or email series is another great content play that helps tell your story.
Trust
Once you’ve gained attention you must move towards that all-important next step. We will buy products we simply like, but we’ll rarely commit to organizations unless we trust them.
Your customer generated videos, case studies and stories make great content here. Your SEO efforts (others trusting and linking to your content) and Social Media participation comes into play in the trust phase.
Getting your customers involved in the content creation game is an essential element and one that many are happy to be involved in.
The ability to tell why your organization does what it does in stories that illustrate purpose in action is perhaps the key trust building content piece of the puzzle.
Try
Try is a phase that many people skip, but I think it’s the easiest way to move people to buy, particularly in highly competitive and highly priced situations.
Here the content needs to represent a sample of the end result. This is where eBooks, online and offline seminars and evaluation type processes in the form of content shine.
Many people miss this point but this is an audition and it’s where you need to deliver more than anyone could possibly consider doing for a free or low cost version of what you sell. This is one of the first places where you plant the seed for a referral as well as a sale.
By producing content in the try phase that clearly demonstrates how much better your paid product or service is than most, you can differentiate your business and create evangelists out of those that don’t ever buy.
How to content in the form of videos, workbooks, examples, cheat sheets and checklists – the kind of stuff your competitors are charging real money for – is the stuff that the try phase in built on.
Buy
Content that converts consists of proof. You must be able to show real results, customer stories and clearly cast your buyer into the future receiving the promised results.
Many people miss the idea of content during just after the buy phase because the thinking is that the person has already made a decision and the product or service will speak for itself.
The total customer experience is measured by the end result, not the build up to the sale. In order to deliver a remarkable customer experience you’ve got to continue to educate with content.
Creating content that acts as a new customer kit or orientation to your business or product is the first step.
Most businesses should also consider quick start guides, in-depth user manuals and customer support communities. You can easily build this kind of content with your customers using services such as Get Satisfaction or Zendesk.
Repeat
Don’t wait for your customer to call you when they need something, stay top of mind through content that educates at a higher lever.
Use email and print to start to share how others have gotten more advanced results with your products or services. Create customer events that have a content sharing component.
Create a results review process where you help your client measure the results they are actually getting by working with your firm and use this process to capture content in the form of success stories.
Refer
Start this phase by documenting your referral process. Create tools that make it easy for you to teach your rabid customers and strategic partners how to refer you.
Create eBooks, videos and teaching events and offer them to your strategic partners to cobrand and present to their clients.
Work with a team of best of class providers (the folks that can help your clients get everything they need) and create a team blog. Create and acquire content that makes it easy for you to introduce your partners and gives them plenty of incentive to do likewise.
You don’t have to do all of your content creation from scratch either – there are many ways to effectively use other people’s content as part of the overall picture.
Content creation is the hardest job of a marketer these days but when you plan your content with your hourglass in mind it may well be the highest payoff work your can do.
How to Use a WordPress Blog as a Referral Generator
Posted on 09. Feb, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, WordPress
How to Use a WordPress Blog as a Referral Generator
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
I’ve seen and heard this scenario countless times. Two perfectly suited strategic partners determine they should start doing some things together in an effort to create referral opportunities for each other.
They shake hands and agree that it’s a fabulous idea, but then nothing happens. Mostly nothing happens because there’s no catalyst to get the ball rolling in a way that makes sense.
I mean, sure, they could both send out a mass mailing to their clients professing how great the other is, but would that really offer much value to the recipients?
One of the best ways to get a referral relationship moving is through content opportunities. It’s just such a logical way to extend what is already a proven marketing practice.
If you would like to build a killer local referral generator you should look no further than hosting a multi-author WordPress blog. (It doesn’t have to be WordPress, it’s just the best tool.)
Let’s say you’re an attorney that works with small business owners. In your work you’ve seen that small business owners need accounting advice, hiring advice, management advice, marketing advice, real estate advice, outsourcing advice, selling advice, leadership advice, and the list goes on and on.
Well, what if you built a team of best of class advice providers for many of the items listed above and you created and hosted a blog that featured contributions from each of these providers.
With any commitment at all your team could produce a local, keyword rich, content asset that would turn into a valuable resource for your clients and prospects and a logical referral generator for every member of the contributing team.
Of course, this could just be the start of your formal partnership team as you could easily turn this into group sponsored workshops and online seminars as well. Are you starting to see the power behind being the one that formalizes the network?
I hope it goes without saying that the content must be educational and valuable. This effort will offer little if it’s just an ad for all parties. Give great advice openly, use local keywords and phrases and create a consistent flow of new content and this tool will allow you to dominate local search results.
Creating a multi-author WordPress blog isn’t any more difficult that creating a single author blog, but there are a few considerations when it comes to promoting, managing and securing your platform that can be handled with the addition of the following plugins.
Promoting your contributors
WP Biographia – This is great plugin because it adds all kinds of extra fields like social links to the user profile screen and creates a bio for each author. This way when your authors post content their bio automatically shows at the end of each of their posts and features links to their social profiles making it easy for people to connect.
WordPress does not by default allow users to upload photos so add the User Photo plugin too and then Biographia will add your contributor’s photo.
Managing the content flow
User Role Editor – WordPress defines what set roles like subscribe or contributor can do (See a list) but sometimes you may want to edit these a bit. For example an author can’t by default upload images. If you have a trusted group of authors creating content and you want them to add images to their posts, which is usually a good thing, then use the editor to grant that permission.
Editorial Calendar – This tool simply creates a monthly calendar and allows you to drag drafts to dates for automatic publishing. This is a great way to take lots of content and spread it out for consistent publishing. For managing bigger groups and creating deadlines you might also look at DivvyHQ
Keeping things secure
Adminimize – This is a pretty cool tool as it lets you strip away everything you want from the admin dashboard. You might want to hide a bunch of stuff you as the admin don’t really use, but you certainly want to take away most of what your contributors see as well. Some things are naturally hidden based on WordPress default roles, but you can really make a clean posting screen for your contributors by taking away everything you know they don’t need access to.
Every business knows they need to produce great content. By facilitating the creation of this content in a way that can benefit your clients, prospects and referral partners, you can create a platform that will start to attract more of all of the above.
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