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Five Ways to Get Better at Blogging

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Ah, yes, blogging. It seems like today almost every person, business, brand, and organization has a blog. And why not? Blogging represents one of the easiest, most cost effective, and efficient ways to get your message out. Blogging is perhaps the single easiest way for many small businesses to get their presence online. However, there is a huge difference between having a blog and having an effective blog. Here are five ways that your organization can get better at blogging…

Post blogs on a regular basis.
And by “regular basis,” I don’t necessarily mean every day. However, you should be posting at least two to three blogs per week. This helps ensure that your blog remains relevant and doesn’t appear dead to anyone who might want to browse your site. If the last blog post was from three weeks ago, a reader may give the impression that you don’t care all that much about your blog. Readers want relevant content and they want it on a consistent basis. Give them something new to look forward to and don’t make them wait over a week to get it. Because they won’t wait.
Try to use only a handful of categories for your blog posts.
Most blogging software allows you to assign your posts to categories. It is FAR better to use only a few categories than to create a new one for every post. This will help keep your blog more organized and, in turn, make it easier for your readers to find things. As an avid reader of many blogs, I know from personal experience that I’d rather browse through ten or eleven categories than thirty or more. Think of your categories as sections in a newspaper. By using and working with only the bare minimum of post categories, your blog will look and feel more focused, be easier to browse, and will help ensure that your readers don’t have to struggle to find information they need when they need or want it.
Link to some of older blog posts from time to time.
When you’re writing a blog post, always be mindful of other posts that you’ve already published that may be relevant. By including links to these older posts in your new blog post, you are providing the reader with more resources. Also, it’s much more likely that a reader will spend more time on your blog if you make it easy for them to navigate from relevant post to relevant post. As an added bonus, internal links (which is what these types of links are known as) make it easier for search engines to index your blog. This helps ensure that your blog is better represented in search engine results and may also lead to higher traffic on your site.
Blog about things that interest you.
This is because if you aren’t really interested in what your blogging about, it will become harder and harder for you to keep at it. The Internet is filled with the rotting remains of dead blogs who’s authors have simply given up on them. Do not let this happen to your blog. Additionally, the quality of your blog will be much better if you are writing about things that your passionate about. If you aren’t excited about what you’re writing about, don’t expect your others to be excited to read it.
Promote your blog posts.
If you’ve taken the time to write the post, why not take a few extra minutes to help tell the world about it? The easiest way to do this is to post links to your blog post on your Facebook, Twitter feed, and/or Myspace page. Additionally, be sure to submit your posts to sites like Digg and Propeller. All of this takes about five minutes of your time, but can result in much more traffic hitting your blog. You write this damn thing for people to read so take the time to ensure that people actually know about it.

Blogging is a great way for you to promote your business, build your brand, and increase your visibility. However, like anything worth doing, you have to put the time in to ensure that your blog is as effective, as interesting, and as well organized as possible. Additionally, a well written and maintained blog helps build your reputation as an expert in your industry. If you would like the experts at Laser Burn Media to help you make your blog as effective as possible, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

Tags: blogging, social media strategy
Posted in Social Marketing Strategy | 2 Comments »

Five Ways to Get Better at Facebook

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

It seems almost every business, organization, politician, and celebrity has their own Facebook page. Most of these pages, however, are all fairly generic and look exactly the same. They are also, usually, boring, unimaginative, and add little value to either the organization or the “fans” of the Facebook page. All of this is unfortunate because a well maintained, well thought-out Facebook page can prove to be tremendous asset to the organization. Here are five ways you can get better at Facebook.

Add original content to your Facebook page.
People need a reason to visit your Facebook page, so give them one. By uploading content (videos, pictures, announcements, etc.) to your Facebook page, people will have a real interest in paying attention to your page. Additionally, by providing this exclusive content to your page, it provides value to your Facebook fans and visitors. This goes a long way toward shaping the page into an effective business tool for your organization.
Send out regular updates to your fans.
One of the benefits of both Facebook Pages and Groups is that it allows you to send out messages to all of your fans or group members. This is an ideal way for you to pass along important information to your target audience. It also provides a way for you to achieve top of the mind awareness with your followers. Many people join a group or become a fan of a page and then forget all about it. By receiving regular updates from you, this is less likely to happen. A note of caution, though: Keep your updates regularly spaced out and DON’T spam the hell out of people. One or two messages a month is fine. One or two a week is pushing it and can do much more harm than good.
Pay attention to your Facebook fans and group members.
Facebook is a social application. This is important to remember, because it’s all too easy to simply use it as a forum for you to blast out information to you audience and ignore what they are talking about. Your Facebook page is an amazing way for you to not only communicate with your audience as whole, but also individually. By interacting with your Facebook followers on all levels, you add more depth and personality to your page. This is an easy way for your page to rise above your competitors, build relationships with your target audience, and build and strengthen your brand.
Take advantage of the Facebook Event feature.
Whenever you can, it is always a good idea to interweave your “real life” business with your virtual identity. Hosting exclusive events for Facebook followers in an excellent way to strengthen your relationship with your online followers and add value to your Facebook page. By promoting exclusive events, open only to Facebook friends, you provide an incentive for your target audience to pay attention to your page. It also allows you to strengthen your brand and build loyalty. But best of all, these events create a way for you convert online friends into real-life customers.
Incorporate Facebook into your customer service strategy.
Facebook provides a forum for you to speak with your target market, and also provides a forum for that target market to speak to you. By allowing your customers, or potential customers, to voice their opinions, questions, complaints, and feedback on your Facebook page, and to then respond to those concerns, you make your Facebook page a valuable tool for your customers. Knowing that an answer to their concerns is only a click away on Facebook, you can go a long way towards building and maintaining confidence in your products, your brand, and your commitment to meeting and exceeding your customers’ expectations. When isn’t that a good thing?

Some businesses and organizations see a Facebook page as a Pet Rock. They really want one, but once they have it…they’re not so sure what they should do with it. By incorporating these five simple strategy’s into your Facebook page, you can transform it from a meaningless novelty into a valuable business tool. And if you’re serious about using the power of social media to help build and strengthen your business, organization, or brand, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly. We can help.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

Posted in Facebook, Social Marketing Strategy | 2 Comments »

Twitter Role Models: Kevin Smith

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Many celebrities how have over one million followers on Twitter. Kevin Smith (@ThatKevinSmith), the famous movie director, actor, and comic book writer, is one of them. However, unlike most of the One Million Follower Club, Mr. Smith actually routinely interacts with many of his followers. What’s more, Kevin Smith has also began using Twitter as a sort of stage, performing marathon Tweet sessions where he responds to questions posed by his followers. Unlike many other celebrities, Kevin Smith isn’t just on Twitter. He is actually using Twitter to build his brand and he is doing an incredibly effective job at it.

One of the most powerful benefits of Twitter is its versatility. Tweets can be sent and received in any number of ways. Twitter allows people from all over the globe, with all levels and types of communication technologies, to interact in a seemless conversation. A person can choose if she wants to talk with one other person or one million other people. This represents an incredibly powerful tool with almost limitless potential. However, sadly, many Twitter users think that a successful Twitter campaign means having lots of Twitter followers. That’s a myth. A successfull Twitter campaign uses Twitter to build, grow, and communicate with an audience.

Kevin Smith understands this. He uses Twitter on a regular basis to <gasp!> actually interact with his followers. This results in Mr. Smith building a relationship with his followers. He responds to what they Tweet. He answers their questions. He offers up his Twitter account as a way for his fans and followers to “speak” directly to him. Even better, because of this relationship, his 1,000,000+ followers actually pay attention to what he Tweets. Because Smith has built a relationship with his followers, his Tweets matter more to them than most of the others they follow. Kevin Smith has found a way to use Twitter to get his audience to pay attention to what he Tweets. How many Social Media Managers working for big corporations have yet to achieve something like that?

One of the ways Kevin Smith has been so effective at using Twitter is the way in which he responds to his followers. He doesn’t simply obide by the typical @UserName <insert response here> format. What he does is this…

Via @othermattreed “Did John Hughes passing hit you harder or in a different way than you’d think?” Very. On a few levels over the week.

See the difference? In his response Smith includes the question along with the Twitter user name of the person who posed it. This may seem like some stupid little detail, but it’s not. Because all of his followers can now see, in the same Tweet, the question and the response, the Tweet has more meaning. Had he used the typical @UserName <reponse> format, the only one would understand the response in its propper context would be @UserName. Most of his other followers would have no clue as to what Smith was responding to, and without context, it would have no meaning to them. As a result, they would simply tune it out.

Kevin Smith is using Twitter more effectively than most. He has used it to grow his audience, build a relationship with that ever-increasing audience, and found a way to add value to his Tweets in the minds of his followers. He talks with them, not at them. Anyone, or any organization, seeking to do the same would be well advised to pay very close attention to Kevin Smith and his Twitter account. He’s showing how it’s done.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

Posted in Social Marketing Strategy, Twitter, Twitter Role Models | No Comments »

Big brands moving to social media

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Many more companies are starting to get on the social media band wagon. It is a subtle way to sell things on a social media site. It is not your typical sales style that these companies are used to. Every company want to be advertising in these social media sites. It is really word of mouth marketing in the end. Someone is usually spreading the word about the company at all times of the day and in all the contries that your brand has a presence in.

Multinational corporations, such as Ford Motor Co. and Coca-Cola Co., are beginning to use social media to increase positive sentiment, build customer rapport and correct misinformation, says Adam Brown, Coca-Cola’s Atlanta-based director of social media.

“Having the world’s most-recognized brand, we feel like there’s an obligation or a responsibility when people are talking about us; we have a duty to respond,” Mr. Brown says.

Best Buy Co. Inc. riled up the social-media world earlier this summer with a job posting for a senior manager of emerging media marketing. One of the job requirements, as originally posted, called for applicants to have more than 250 followers on Twitter. (When that caused an online backlash, the electronics retailer opened the process of crafting a job description to the public.)

The larger companies are starting to catch on to this free advertising source. Why wouldn’t a company use social media? Social media is so important and moves at such a rapid pace that it can become overwhelming for one person to handle. Most of the complaints that people post on Twitter or Facebook want a fast response. So it is not just word of mouth marketing it is also part customer service.

The lightning-fast pace of social media, and Twitter in particular, has forced businesses to act in a whole new way, says Mr. Brown of Coca-Cola.

“If you don’t respond within three or four hours, you might as well not respond at all,” he says.

For example, a man on Twitter recently expressed annoyance at his difficulty in claiming an all-expenses-paid trip he’d won through the My Coke Rewards program. He Tweeted, “Coca-Cola, bring down your drawbridge,” Mr. Brown recalls. Within half an hour, Mr. Brown had engaged the customer on Twitter, got on the phone with him and resolved the problem.

Not long after, the man changed his Twitter avatar to a can of Coke Zero.

It is so important to have a one-to –one conversation with your followers even if the post is positive. Keep your followers engaged in the conversation public square that we call social media.

-John Botch
www.Laserburnmedia.com
john@laserburnmedia.com

Posted in Business Advice, Facebook, Ning, Online Marketing, Social Marketing Strategy, Social Media in Society, Twitter | No Comments »

Brazen Carreerist, not your typical job posting site!

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Brazen Careerist added a new feature geared towards Generation Y career searchers. Yesterday Brazen launched a social media aspect to the site. Now you can go and get advice for your resume and other career guidance for people that need it the most right now.

Brazen Careerist has quietly been a great place to connect with young Generation Y adults who care about changing the world, turning their passions into careers, and advancing themselves. It was co-founded by Penelope Trunk, a well-known author and columnist in the area of careers, along with Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh.

Primarily the Brazen Careerist website was focused on articles and blog posts from the community (a blog network), but that all changed an hour ago when the website transformed from a community website into an all-out social network, focused on flipping the conventional wisdom surrounding the resume by focusing on “idea feeds.”

Brazen Careerist now focuses on the social aspects, and the profiles are the center of this new universe. While you’ll find general information – followers, following, groups, interests, social media accounts, etc. – what makes Brazen Career different is the Ideas Stream and the Resume section.

Idea Stream essentially is a news feed, but focuses on career-related ideas, updates from your groups (i.e. New York professionals, Bloggers, etc.). Resume is exactly as it sounds: a version of your resume with your work history, education, and summary.

For the professional, it makes sense: it’s a great way to connect with other professionals, learn about your industry, and ask others for advice. For the company or the headhunter looking to find raw talent, it may be a bit difficult to sift through all the potential hires, as detailed filtering is not yet implemented.

Brazen Careerist has been one of our favorite Generation Y websites. But while the old site was really just a blog network, the new one really is “a career management tool for next-generation professionals,” even if it does not introduce anything groundbreaking.

It’s an intellect’s version of LinkedIn (), though it will need to implement a lot more social and organizational features before it can realize its potential. It also faces the uphill battle of convincing busy Gen Yers that spending time building a profile is worth their time.

For a Gen Yer that has just graduated from college this is a great website. They still have some social media features that have to be added. For the Human resource representatives it still need some work, before the industry as a whole will adopt this site. This has the potential to be a great social media website because the HR people will be able to see what the candidates are really like. Overall this website should be a hit within the next year of two, if they keep on adding features.

John Botch

Laserburnmedia.com

john@laserburnmedia.com

Posted in Business Advice, Social Marketing Strategy, Social Media in Society | No Comments »

The Twenty Year Rule and Your Business

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

When I was in the Army, we would receive an “anti-suicide briefing” every time we would get ready to go on Christmas leave. Apparently, the holiday season was prime-time for depression and thoughts of suicide to run high. The Army hoped that having these briefings, usually conducted by an Army chaplain, would help any of us who might be struggling with depression to get through the holiday leave and back to work safely. At one of these briefings, a chaplain gave some great advice that I think can extend to all parts of your life, including your business. He called it the “Twenty Year Rule.”

The Twenty Year Rule was this: If it won’t matter twenty years from now, it’s only a minor thing. Don’t sweat it. Focus on the things that will matter twenty years from now and while you should deal with the minor stuff, don’t stress out over it. The beauty of this rule is that it really forces a person to focus on the big picture. Too often, whether it be in our personal lives or our professional ones, all of the annoying small stuff can get in the way, making it difficult to focus on the bigger picture. Instead of laying out long term strategy, we get caught up, and over-stressed, as we run around putting out little, annoying fires. The Twenty Year Rule makes it a little easier to put things in perspective and keep focused.

This rule can also extend to your marketing efforts. A good marketing plan always starts with a goal or long term strategy. However, as I’m sure most of you’re aware, it can be very easy to lose sight of the overall goal and get caught up in all the little stuff. Distractions. Conflicting advice. Meetings. The “hot new trend” in marketing. And all that similar such stuff. Your marketing should look to accomplish one thing: Connecting with your target audience and ultimately increasing your profitability and your competitive advantage. Everything else is just peanuts.

So my point is this: In every aspect of your business, pay attention to the little stuff, but remain focused on the big picture. Doing this will help you make better decisions, will help ensure all of your decisions are consistent with your long term business goals, and that you don’t have a minor (or a major!) mental breakdown because your swamped with lots of annoying, little stuff. Remember: If it won’t matter twenty years from now, don’t stress out about it now. Have a great day, all!

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

Tags: Business Advice, marketing, twenty year rule
Posted in Business Advice, Social Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

AddATweet has a competitor

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Kutano is the name of the new competitor of AddATweet. Kutano runs as a browser plug-in. The basic part of this plug in is that you can leave a comment on the website you are visiting. There is another tab to this plug-in that lets you talk to community members that are on the same site as you.

When AddATweet launched we were immediately intrigued by the idea of using a Twitter () app to create a web commenting system. The idea is certainly a sound one, which is why we’re not surprised to see a competitor already emerge on the scene.

Kutano, which launches today, is also a browser add-on for adding comments to web pages, but this one functions as a Twitter client, a là TwitterFox (), with an intelligent automatic link-aggregating component, and a way to add instant conversation threads and tweets to a web page. It’s a web browsing Twitter utility you never knew you wanted.

Kutano is pretty darn impressive. After installing the plug-in, and creating a Kutano account (a step AddATweet doesn’t require), the app loads in a left-hand frame within your browser. You can use it like any other basic Twitter app to keep up with your Twitter timeline, mentions, direct messages, and followers. But the beauty of the tool is that you can use it while you browse to create, or add to, a comment thread on a web page, view the tweets that link to a particular page, follow people from within the app, retweet, and tweet your replies and comments to Twitter.

For example, for any public page that you browse, you’ll notice two applicable Kutano tabs you can use to engage with page or website content. The first tab is like a conversation hub. Click the bubble icon to display page and site discussions created by other Kutano members. Click a conversation to view comments, add your own, reply to a user, follow a user, and optionally select to tweet your response or receive notifications of new activity for the discussion thread.

Should you want to start a new topic for discussion via Kutano, simply hit the plus sign at the top (in the discussion panel), name your discussion topic, and choose whether or not you want to tweet the topic.

The other tab with page related content offers up tweets penned by Twitterers related to site content, and it functions by pulling in tweets with the specific URLs from the page or website as shared on Twitter. Here you can view page or site-wide tweets, reply or retweet those tweets, click to follow the Twitterers in question, or add your own tweet.

This is the newest type of add on that lets you leave a comment to webpage and business owners. This concept is great on paper, but the question is will people take to Kutano like they have embraced Twitter? I think that Kutano will not have a problem with that at all.

John Botch

Laserburnmedia.com

john@laserburnmedia.com

Posted in Online Marketing, Social Marketing Strategy, Social Media in Society, Twitter | No Comments »

Are social media and social networks all about relationship media?

Friday, August 21st, 2009

This all goes back to the topic that has run through some of my previous blog posts. Word of mouth marketing runs throughout all types of marketing. Just think about how you use twitter and facebook. They both are relationship sites whether you like it or not.

Do Facebook & Twitter have any intrinsic value. Is it possible the value is between people and profiles and not the site? Take out the people, leave the content. Is there’s value and power to influence?

Twitter is a bit easier to look at this way. I tweet around 4 to 5 times a day on average. I probably read dozens of tweets a day. I rarely go to Twitter.com. My relationship with Twitter.com is nonexistent. For me, Twitter is actually more of a relationship API than a website.

Now this is something for marketers pause and consider. Twitter.com is as relevant as the concrete poured in the foundation of my neighbors house. The site is a construct where relationships happen but it does not create, foster or enable the relationships, therefore measuring the value of the concrete is erroneous.

Now can we take this even further and consider if ANY website holds value? Is it possible that nearly all traffic on the web is some form or relationship media, where the value and influence is between personas and not between the site and the visitor.

I recently tweeted on this and got a response claiming that even with social media, it is not always about relationships. The example given was a user recieved needed technical answers he was seeking from people he did not know, who had tweeted out into the ether.

From my perspective this person trusts the collective intelligence and personas of the Twitterverse. He is using the Twitter API as a channel to connect with people he doesn’t otherwise have access to. I believe that IS relationship media at work. He has definitely moved past finding value in a site or destination in exchange for connecting with expert personas.

Even beyond social interaction I think we can see the web has shifted primarily to relationship media. Consider the 90/9/1 rule where 90% of engagements on any social site are people consuming but not participating in the conversation. I see a relationship here. The 90% has a relationship with the 10% of content producers. And that relationship is often more sought after because it is deeper and more trusted than most institutional sources.

So for marketers what does this mean? I can’t help but wonder if we have moved to relationship media while not fully aware, and not comprehending what it means. Are we continuing to build sites while focused on the value of these destinations, meanwhile ignoring the value of personas & relationship fostering, that may truly be at the core to building relevance and influence on the web?

As long as you keep the conversation brand related when you find new customers, you should have success. It takes five minutes to set up both types of accounts. Twitter makes this next part easier. All you have to do is search for your brand, or you could search for people where you live. Most likely you know some of your customers by name already. You could also make a list of customer’s names or have a signup sheet or contest. If they want to sign up to become your friend on facebook or give you their twitter name so that you can follow them on twitter, and hope that they return the favor. This can all become time consuming especially if you have a store front with an online presence. Social media is relationship management for businesses. It allows businesses to protect their brand and gain new customers in the process.

John Botch

Laserburnmedia.com

john@laserburnmedia.com

Posted in Facebook, Ning, Online Marketing, Social Marketing Strategy, Social Media in Society, Twitter | No Comments »

New Website to offer a $10,000 contest to the first million adopters.

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

I don’t know if you heard or not, but there is a new retweeting site that just opened up today. Retweet.com is the website. They want to overtake tweetmeme.com and are not shy about it. Retweet.com is offering a chance for their first million users to win $10,000.

We’d like to take this opportunity to announce the public release of Retweet.com and give you a brief overview of what makes it special. When retweet.com goes live tomorrow [ 8/19/09 ] at around [ 12pm EST ] you will find we are running a competition to entice early adopters of tweetmeme.com to try retweet.com. The competition page, that will be found here ( http://retweet.com/win10k ) tomorrow will be announcing our $10,000 reward that will go to one lucky blogger who implements our retweet button, rewarded once we reach 1 million visitors. We believe that users should have the opportunity to be rewarded for helping a website succeed.

…

Retweet is the official place to find real-time news on popular stories, images, and videos. We provide this service by scanning thousands of updates on the worlds most popular micro-blogging service, Twitter.com and with the help of the future users whom have added our retweet button to their blog. The word retweet has now become one of the most popular terms online and thus makes the retweet.com brand name very powerful. We now live in a world where for the first time in history real-time news is possible thanks to modern web technologies and crowd sourced content creation, retweet is here to leverage this modern way of announcing and discovering news. We pride ourselves in providing “news for the people, by the people”.. meaning we do not decide what news finds it’s way to the home page of our site.”

It’s interesting that they publicly claim that they’re directly targeting Tweetmeme users. It’s also interesting that the $10k prize requires a million visitors. What standard will they use to measure that?

They have the original retweet button because they are retweet.com. The page looks appeasing when reviewing the front page. They seem to want to be your new news source for bloggers. A lot of people have already signed up, so you better make sure that you get in before their 1 millionth customer to be eligible for the contest.

John Botch

Laserburnmedia.com

john@laserburnmedia.com

Posted in Social Marketing Strategy, Social Media in Society, Twitter | No Comments »

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