20 posts categorized "Blogging and Blogtalk"

May 23, 2012

Want To Extend Your Reach? Don't Hire A Babysitter!

        Reach-Out-Hand
I assume that most of you who read my blog or subscribe to my newsletter are those who have something to say or sell, whether it’s your own or someone else’s. We’re all trying to be seen or heard and that’s increasingly complicated in a noisy world. 

Wouldn’t you agree?

The problem is that to be successful in the market today, you must possess two strategic assets: a compelling product and a meaningful platform. 

Platform is key. 

Most of us know it and it’s why we spend time networking, developing social media, writing emails and blogs, speaking, trying to connect with potential customers, etc. 

But here’s the issue, simply being on Facebook or Twitter, simply writing a book or newsletter, simply opening the doors of your business… doesn’t matter (unless others know about you and follow). 

That’s why I am excited about a new book from my good friend Michael Hyatt, one of the top bloggers in the world and Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers.  It’s called Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World. It’s a step-by-step guide to help you navigate the waters so that you can do what works in order to be seen and heard. 

Special: To celebrate the launch of the book this week, Michael is giving away $375.98 worth of free Platform bonus content for those who purchase the book between May 21 and May 25. Complete details are available at http://michaelhyatt.com/platform

As I was chatting with Mike he mentioned something that really stood out to me about building a platform. He said… 

“Accept Personal Responsibility - If you’re thinking of hiring a babysitter for your platform, think again. It is critical that you be 100% committed and the driving force behind its creation and growth. Think about it. Does anyone know your mission, product or service better than you do? Is anyone more passionate about it than you are? Does anyone have as much skin in the game as you do? Expertise, passion, and, frankly, the fate of your career will drive you to create something greater than anything a hired-out marketing team could imagine.” 

Basically he’s saying don’t phone it in and try to pass it off to someone else. If you want to be heard, you have to speak up and be the driver. 

In my years of being an author and speaker I have found that to be very true. Yes, you need to hire a great team and utilize great resources but don’t expect someone else to do all of the work that you too must be active in doing. 

If it’s important, you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse. 

I have two three copies of the book to give away - all you have to do is hit the retweet button and make a comment to this post.  

Platform3

November 09, 2011

Is Social Media The New Dutch Tulip?

ChartBig
I could write a long post about the above chart. 

But that picture is worth a thousand posts.  Instead, I direct you to an analysis of the Dutch Tulip Bubble and Crash.  Full a longer read, download Dutch Tulip Mania: The Social Politics Of A Financial Bubble. After you read it, ask yourself, should Facebook really be 50% of all the time we spend on the Internet? In light of all the other things we could be doing to research, fund raise, advocate, communicate....? Should Groupon really be worth over ten billion dollars in light of what happened to Blockbuster, Etoys.com and Enron?  Is Zynga really going to scale or will we grow tired (exhausted) of social gaming?

I'm not advocated quitting Facebook or Tweeting.  But I am suggesting you put the following throttle on your zeal for the unfiltered: If social media went away tomorrow, will your ability to help others decline?  That's the acid test for what you should invest your time in when it comes to social media. 

Unless you haven't reconnected with old friends, high school mates and other such Classmates.com-ish type hookups.  If that's the case, you have a few hours of productive work ahead of you.  And if you check your status/profile every ten minutes to see if someone responded to your last post, I'm aiming this missive squarely at you.   PS: If you bought secondary market shares of Facebook, I've got some land I'd like to sell you. #JustSayin

 

September 02, 2011

Maybe you shouldn't post anything today

Ask yourself: Do you give good Return On Attention?  

Today I'm scrambling around, doing multiple jobs and integrating my new docking station solution for my MacBook Air.  I suddenly realized, "OMG, I haven't blogged for a few days and the week's over!" As I've mentioned on a prior post, I have a blog, but I'm not a blogger. 

My blog, as well as my Facebook and Twitter accounts, are good marketing vehicles for my books, speaking and general business development.  They are also platforms for me to share my thoughts with others and hopefully add value to their life.  

But what are the rules of blogging or updating, really?  Daily, bi-weekly, weekly, whenever? The short answer: Doesn't matter if you give great Return On Attention.  If you just 'wham out' a post to make a make-believe self-deadline, you'll chase away your readers/followers quickly than going radio silence for a week or two.  

Back in 2006, Tim Ferriss called me to pick my brain about book marketing (offline).  He was with Crown, as was I at the time - so we were networked for a brain-share session.  I told him everything I knew about in-store and offline promotion of books.  Towards the end of the call, I offered him some blog advice: You should post more.  

His blog, covering lifestyle design, only had occassional postings, maybe six a month tops.  Sure, they were highly linked to and commented on, but in my rookie view of things - it just wasn't steady enough.  His silence on the other end of the phone spoke volumes.  He knew better.  

Later, he's been quoted as saying that he blogs when he 'has something really good' and the expected quality of his posts is what maintains his following and a healthy demand for his updates whenever they may be.  

This is the best strategy for all of us.  Sure, Seth Godin and Chris Brogan give us great daily stuff. They are bloggers, and can produce five or more great (short) reads a week with the occassional Opus-Post thought piece.  But not all of us can, or should even try to, sustain their super-human level of intellectual productivity.  

So, next time you think you need to whip something up to meet your imaginary deadline. Use the time to catch up on reading instead.  Next week, you might come up with something GREAT to post.

 

July 25, 2011

I have a blog, but I'm not a blogger

When people ask me, "what do you do?" I usually reply: Give advice. 

Does that mean I'm a consultant, speaker, author or blogger?  Fundamentally, I would say that I'm an idea author that does a great deal of research.  Even though I've been writing this blog for almost five years, giving a piece of advice every post, I would NOT describe myself as a blogger.  That's why I post about two times or so a week, and never on a schedule per se.   It's not my job. 

Blogs are just a tool for me to share, promote and develop ideas for my customers.  That's why I blog when I can, and not on a rigourous schedule that impedes my ability to do my work.  What makes a person a blogger, then?  GaryV is a blogger because his wine blog is the engine of his business growth (directly for Wine Library and indirectly as a driver of his profile - which fuels his 'social media expertise' and street cred.)  Seth Godin is a blogger, because his postings create a profile that sells his books and enables him to drive The Domino Project via his audience.  Chris Brogan is a blogger because his blog drives his Human Works business as well as the sale of his books.  PereZ Hilton directly makes money on his blog via ads and paid-links.  Take the blogs away and all four of them will see a noticeable drop in their earning power.

For many of my friends, such as Marcus Buckingham or Mark Sanborn, blogging is just a way of promoting or sharing.  Like me.   Sure, I've picked up a speaking gig or two via someone reading a blog post, but it's not how I make my money.  

Blogs then, should be included along with Facebooking, Tweeting, Newsletter writing and other online promotional tools - and not an albatross that hangs over our head every working day (have you blogged yet???).  For bloggers, daily publication makes sense.  For myself, and maybe for you, it's a matter of your schedule.  Let this liberate you immediately, along with my pronouncement that you must OWN your social media tools and not let them falsely own you. 

In a previous post (You Don't Need A Social Media Strategy) I argue that we must have a central business or brand strategy and leverage all social tools (including blogging) to work within that framework.  Tech is the tail, not the dog.  For most of you, your blog is a tool, not the tool kit.  If you put too much time into it, and not enough into your core - you'll shrink your business as each new publishing innovation demands your adoption.

Ten years ago, before there were blogs, we wrote newsletters to promote, share and build out business.  But for most, it wasn't our engine of economic value.  Ten years from now, who knows what publishing tech will offer us the same opportunity or requirement.  

 

October 13, 2010

The headline matters more than ever (the subject line)

Santa head med
Face it; your emails are part of a snow storm blowing into someone's Crack berry or  smart phone.  Instead of carefully reading through the items in your inbox, your recipients scroll them like spinning a roulette wheel.  I see it every day on the road. 

They open a few, answer even less, and your carefully written action-required email is ignored.  

If you want to jump out of the e-noise and improve your readership with your email buddies,  you need to hone your skills at writing good subject lines.  Think about newspapers, their MVPs are the people that come up wit eye-grabbing headlines.  We've been trained our whole life to scan for must-reads.  Same goes with emails or blog titles.  Good headlines drive click through.  

The basics are:
* Vague is bad
* Hey! is not a real subject line
* RE: RE: FW: FW: is not attractive and will not be read right away

When I know someone well, I will make a call to action in the subject line if my email is intended to get someone to do something. If I need to change a call, I put it in the subject line. If I need you to send me a file, I put it in the subject. You'd be amazed how your response rates jumps.

When I am in a less intimate business relationship, I work on a three to five word subject that zeros in on why I'm sending the email. If we are working on an event together I'll put "About the sales conference" in the subject.

When you reply, feel free to start a new subject (too often we just reply and the subject line stays the same, except now with a RE: before it.) Let the new subject line redefine where the email thread is going. This not only helps to focus the email exchange on a real outcome, it keeps the conversation going. This is especially true if many of your email buddies are usually mobile. They scroll through subjects and make their choices almost on impulse. 

Now let's talk blog posts or FB Notes: Banal titles don't drive click thrus or retweeets.  You need to grab them with either a provocative statement or a relevant promise (my approach, usually).  If you improve your headlining to gather attention, you'll see your statistics jump like you did when you learned or outsourced search engine optimization.  Don't be lazy here, you've done a great deal of work on that great post you want everyone to read.  

To sharpen your headline skills, visit Daily Beast or Huffington Post and study the relationship between clever headlines and retweets or comments.  Do the same over at Yahoo sports.  Don't bother with visually driven sites like TMZ as the gossip is the draw.

This is one of the ideas I teach over at my Email Training Website.  Email is the vast majority of your knowledge output, so consider yourself a publisher that need to focus as much on form as content.  

 

September 22, 2010

Invest only the time you are willing to lose

For the last few months, I must admit, I've been a bad blogger. 

I went from four posts a week to twice a week to give myself time to complete my new book (Today We Are Rich).  Writing that book was an experiment in total concentration - where I let everything else take back burner.   The book deserved my pretty-much undivided attention.

Often, we try and complete projects around each other, and most of the times that process produces an average-medium quality product.  This is becoming a problem for our multi-tasking culture, where social media's made us all publishers with daily/hourly deadlines.  We are taking on more creative work than we can handle - and putting out the weakest work ever.  

With my new book, I wanted to pour all of myself into it, so I gave up many of my extra-curricular activities.  Giving keynote speeches or serving my consulting clients continued.  But even then, I turned down business, especially towards the end of the process.  Blogging, having networking lunches, goofing, watching sports on weekends, etc. all went 'on hold.'  I worked on one thing, the book, 8-12 hours at a whack.  (Note: I used a Facebook public page and my Twitter account to road-test ideas and crowd source content solutions.  But that was directly connected to the writing process.)

Which then begs the question, is blogging my job?  Could I call myself a 'blogger'?  Nope.  Not a real blogger like Seth Godin or Chris Brogan.  Both of them have a business model for it, a huge congregation to feed daily and a real job doing what they do.  For the rest of us, it's really a marginal call.  I'll do well to make $1000.00 annually on Amazon affiliate fees and I don't have enough traffic for an ad model.  So the point of it is to 'get my name out there' from a business standpoint.  That's not a very compelling business case for a few hours a day.  

Here's what I'm taking away from my short hiatus from blogging: If it's not driving your business, it's an extra-curricular like having long lunches with 'potential business partners'.  Sometimes, you'll get work out of it, otherwise you get retweets, likes and other 'psychic income' (thanks Clay Shirkey).  

If you, like me, determine that social media content posting is a nice-to-have component to your bizlife, then follow this rule of time management:  Invest only the time you are willing to lose with social media.  Consider it one of your give-back services, where you offer advice or inspiration like a mentor does to his/her mentee.  With that rule in mind, you'll be able to consider taking a break from blogging, tweeting or Facebook to get 'some seriously important wow work' done (and done very very well). 

PS - This rule works really well when you are playing the tables in Vegas or pink sheets on Wall Street too: Invest what you are willing to lose.  

 

August 27, 2009

Two pieces of advice for all writers (podcast)

Today, I'm playing around with my fave new Mac App (Peak LE).  It allows me to record audio, edit and deliver via my Mac with no external devices required. 

Just a minute ago, I recorded today's audio post for you.  The subject: How To Write A Book That Works. Often we think that books should be timely, unique, needed or perfect for the times.  That is not the formula for success.  Listen to my short recording and you'll pick up the two secrets to writing a best seller: 

1. Write what you know 
2. Show us who you are 

Download Writing Advice Aug 2009

January 19, 2009

Tweeting with impact via Tiny URL

Someone recently asked me if you can make money on Twitter (or Facebook). 

At first, I shot back, "only indirectly, by developing a following that drives personal brand awareness." In other words, your Tweets (or status updates on Facebook) keep you top of mind with your social network, and sometimes you add value through your comments. In the long run, that's goodness and makes it all worthwhile. 

Recently, though, I've noticed Tweets and updates with short URLs at the end. In many cases, I click on them to find reference web pages related to the update. Nice. I started to do it recently, to tout a video I'm watching or a provocative article I'm reading online. 

This sets the stage for referral income. If you like a CD or book, and have an Amazon or BN.com associates account, you can make money with your updates. Here's an example: Login to your Amazon Associates account and click on the Links & Banners tab to get to the Product Link lookup page. Lookup the last great book you've read. Copy the link, it has a reference your account. Go to TinyURL and convert the link you got from Amazon Associates into a Tiny URL (no pun intended). Now it's small enough to fit in an update, leaving room for the rest of your message. 

Now post an update ("I'm reading Gladwell's new book, Outliers, and it rocks!") and then cut an paste the TINY URL (all of it) into the end of your update. Now, all your friends and followers have a recommendation, and a clickable link to the Amazon page where they can buy it. If they do, you'll receive a commission on that sale -- plus anything else they buy in that shopping spree! 

Finally, if you don't want to earn money for yourself, you can raise money for a cause by lending your updates. Same process: Find a cause you want to promote, locate the donate money/join web page, reduce it to a Tiny URL and update!  

In either scenario, it's easy to see how our updates will be fungible and valuable in the future. I predict that we'll even move the stock market via updates (eg., getting ready to buy 10000 shares of HAST, join me here...). So don't write off Twitter or Facebook as a 'waste of time'.  We are just getting started! 

DID YOU LIKE THIS POST?  THEN DIGG IT BELOW AND HELP SANDERS SAYS GROW ITS AUDIENCE!

January 12, 2009

Follow me on Twitter

Click here to view my Twitter profile and follow me.

I'll post up short shorts on what I'm doing, thinking, responding to and wishing for.  See you up there!

November 06, 2008

Interview social media expert Chris Brogan

Posted by Mark J Carter (with Saving The World at Work & Networking For A Cause)

Below is an interview with Chris Brogan.

Chris Brogan is a ten year veteran of using social media and technology to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at [chrisbrogan.com], a blog in the top 20 of the Advertising Age Power 150 and in the top 100 on Technorati.


Sanders: What are your top priorities as a person and a blogger, when it comes to changing the world?

Brogan: As a person, my top priorities are to be helpful. I've shifted from working on myself to working on raising up as many other people as I can. The reason is simple: I'm only one man and can't scale well. Now, I need an army.

Sanders: What ways would you say bloggers can create social change within the communities they belong to?

Brogan: Bloggers have the tools to spread information around quickly and simply. They are the Gutenberg Press of our times. They are the newspaper, the TV, the radio, and more. With this in mind, they can bring voice to previously silent needs.

Sanders: What other socially conscious bloggers do you respect and why?

Brogan: Beth Kanter, hands down. She is the patron saint of showing people how tech (especially online media) can help change the world. She's the best at what she does.

Sanders: What causes are most important to you and why?

Brogan: I'm very supportive of children's causes, probably because I'm a dad, but honestly, I support causes that benefit humans in need. I'm not as fussy about political issues, because I feel that some of those situations are higher up in Maslow's hierarchy of need. Let's just make the kids okay as a start.

****Be sure to visit www.SavingTheWorld.net; the new online community for socially conscious people and businesses. Create your own free profile, blog and more!

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