by Bruce Newman

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

Who would have thought 140 characters would be so pervasive? Not I, I admit.  And yet, Twitter has in several ways simply overpowered the social media landscape.

It’s hard to believe this has occurred. When you consider that 58% of Twitter users generate less than ten tweets and that the top 5% of users are responsible for 75% of the updates, it becomes readily apparent that a relative few are driving this entire platform.  The attention that Twitter has generated, however, has greatly eviscerated these statistics.

On November 10, 2009, Twitter and LinkedIn announced an agreement in which recent tweets would now be available from within LinkedIn and recent changes to LinkedIn updates could become tweets.  Since LinkedIn is a highly successful social media platform targeted for business professionals, this agreement represents a huge – and at no risk or expense – step for Twitter in building its business appeal and credentials.

This follows recent agreements between Twitter and Google and Twitter and Microsoft to index twitter messages in their respective Google and Bing search engines.  The advantage for Microsoft and Google is that their searches will now include real time input.  How they will present Twitter search results and how it affects their indexing and search algorithms is yet to be determined.  Regardless, it provides additional credibility and relevance to Twitter and the need to even more closely follow existing search engine rankings.

It should be noted that the purpose of this article isn’t to disparage Twitter, only to recognize its ever-growing reach.  Twitter provides real time information and feedback that can be crucial to the functioning and perception of many companies. Some companies have implemented successful Twitter (and social media) strategies.  However, the majority of companies have placed more emphasis on other social media platforms or excluded Twitter entirely.

Most importantly, how will this affect an end user?  At this point, it’s hard to tell.  Just by the nature of its agreements, Twitter’s value has increased and it must be given more credence when plotting social strategy.  If you use LinkedIn, for example, you should continue to regularly update your profile since people in your network will be automatically notified.  How will it affect search engine rankings?  Again, it’s too early to tell.  However, since search engines are putting more emphasis on context, person information and social media activity, the incorporation of a strategy that includes Twitter has now assumed greater importance.

All of these developments in this rapidly changing social media world denote its fluid nature and what has becoming increasingly apparent; the need for companies to implement a comprehensive strategy that allows them to effectively utilize social media to achieve their goals.
 
Bruce Newman is the Vice President at The Productivity Institute, LLC, a leader in locating, evaluating and matching the specific areas of expertise of consultants to the needs of its clients.  An expert on social media, Bruce constantly writes and gives talks on many facets of social media including branding, social media strategies and policy.  He has also developed several social media training courses. In addition, Bruce is the editor of the Productivity Institute Newsletter, a free content-is-king newsletter and thought leader.  Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter and the Productivity Institute blog.

by Bruce Newman

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

There are currently over 200 million blogs on the Internet.  54% of all bloggers post content or tweet daily.  34% of bloggers post opinions about products or brands.  The highest percentage of new bloggers are people in the 55-65 years old range.

These are amazing numbers and statistics.  They indicate the importance of blogging for both business and personal reasons. Blogging for business allows companies to gain attention, enhance market share, announce new products and be branded as an industry leader.  Positive buzz is extremely important, particularly since so many bloggers will readily post their opinions about a product or brand (which also denotes the need for a solid social media policy).  Conversely, blogging for personal reasons is often simply because people feel the need to write or to be heard.

With this huge number of blogs and new content, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the din.  Increasingly, a strategy must be employed for a blog to be successful.  Being a very good writer is no longer sufficient – unless you work for the New York Times or are very famous.  If you’re not in these categories, here are five important keys that will help your blog be successful.

1. Know your goals and target market

Determine the goals of your blog.  Is it to generate attention for your website or brand you as an industry leader?  Is it mainly to communicate with others?  Do you just want to provide information or use it as a political platform?  There are many different goals.  Select only one as your main goal and if applicable, several secondary goals which, when achieved will help you reach your main goal.

You must also know your target market – including your competition.  The more you know about how people are reacting to other blogs and what is triggering their reactions, the better idea you will have concerning what actions you must take to achieve your goals.

Knowing your target market also includes determining the keywords that you should scatter in all your posts and include in your titles.

2. Plan a mix of posts

Just straight text is not sufficient.  Augmenting your posts with videos or pictures will enhance their value.  It will also provide a basis for content distribution (as discussed in point 4, below). What is most important, however, is that you supply excellent content, for it is this content that will continue to drive people to your site and follow you.

Writing great headlines will also attract attention.  Since searches by keyword are extremely important, make sure to include them in both your headline and content.

3. Publish regularly

You must publish regularly.  If you stop publishing, the world will go on without you and you will be quickly forgotten.  No matter how loyal your readers or followers are, unless you write regularly, you will lose them.  The best solution is to establish a writing schedule. Twice a week is good, three times is even better.

4. Spread it around

Remember, your world does not revolve only around blog and maybe a handful of social media platforms.  Twitter and Facebook are important, but so are many other relevant blogs and sites - particularly if the target market of your article matches their specific niche.

5. Listen

Comments that reflect your article content are great. Definitely respond to them.  It will help develop a dialog that will attract more subscribers and attention.  Unfortunately, too many people respond with inane comments such as, “I learned a lot” in order so they can generate back links to their websites.  You can ignore them, set a no-follow flag so they don’t get credit for their links or review all the comments before allowing them to display.  My personal preference is that people who provide thoughtful feedback should get back links (if they want them).  They should be rewarded for their thoughts and I enjoy read and responding to their comments.  I’ve started some great dialogs and made some good friends as a result.  But, because I do allow back links, I must approve (or ignore or spam) each comment first before I allow it to be published.

Blogging is an important part of any social media campaign.  By following these five steps, you significantly enhance its success.

Bruce Newman is the Vice President at The Productivity Institute, LLC, a leader in locating, evaluating and matching the specific areas of expertise of consultants to the needs of its clients.  An expert on social media, Bruce constantly writes and gives talks on many facets of social media including branding, social media strategies and policy.  He has also developed several social media training courses. In addition, Bruce is the editor of the Productivity Institute Newsletter, a free content-is-king newsletter and thought leader.  Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter and the Productivity Institute blog.

by Bruce Newman

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

The lure of social media is very strong.  Every day, we hear new statistics about its growing popularity, some YouTube video going viral or someone’s tweet (or response). Social media is now the most popular activity on the Internet and its appeal crosses all age and gender demographics. But that doesn’t mean that we should assume it’s the wherewithal for everything.

People used to believe that all they needed to create an Internet business was a website and that prospective customers would be automatically drawn to it.  That turned out to be untrue.  Today, many companies utilize advertising, search engine optimization and campaign planning to help generate Internet business.  “Build it and they will come”, is certainly not a winning mantra.

Social media falls in that same category.  Just because you may have a Twitter or Facebook account does not mean that you will become a social leader or even that people will follow you.  It’s not automatic and it won’t happen overnight.

When using social media, it is very important to create realistic social media goals.  If you’re Oprah, having a million twitter followers is realistic.  If you’re Bruce Newman, it’s not.  (In fact, I wouldn’t even want one million followers but that’s for another article when I discuss quantity vs. quality.)

Rules to live by:

1. Set realistic goals. They can be as simple as writing two articles a week or achieving 150 first level contacts in LinkedIn.  How you reach these 150 contacts, how frequently and to what extent you communicate with them and the building of the relationships is crucial.

2. Create a feasible social media strategy. Depending on your goals, this strategy may be simple or complex but it must be reasonable.  Of key importance is the realistic determination of the amount of time – usually on a daily basis depending on your goals – that it will require.

3. Do not be enticed by large numbers of followers.  It’s easy to generate large numbers of followers.  Along with the development of many social media sites has come the onslaught of automatic marketing programs designed to increase the number of followers.  Interestingly, what these programs don’t tell you is that a smaller number of active people in your network (i.e. followers, true friends, etc.) will provide a far superior response than a much larger number of random people who you count as contacts or followers. 

4. Realize that it takes months to generate a sizeable following.  Building relationships takes time; it doesn’t happen overnight.  As an analogy, think of meeting someone new at a party.  You like them and want to become friends (or more).  It may happen, but will take both time and effort to occur.  The same holds true for social media except that these relationships are instead, digital.

5. Follow the rules of proper social etiquette – be respectful, helpful and authentic.  In short, be yourself.  And be helpful.  

6. Don’t get frustrated. Social media is not a race. Ever hear baseball players say that the baseball season is not a sprint, but a marathon?  Think of social media in a similar fashion, though maybe as a half-marathon.  If your goals are realistic and you don’t reach them, fine.  Adjust them.  That’s the normal sequence of any plan – create and constantly adjust as you move forward.  The key thing here is to not get frustrated and stray from your original goals and plans (provided they were indeed realistic).  Many potentially successful social media campaigns have been prematurely cancelled or extensively re-worked because of insufficient time constraints or frustration.

Social media has opened the world to a tremendously exciting and interactive means of communication.  By properly abiding by its rules, understanding its strengths and limitations and by setting realistic goals, you too can benefit from its enormous potential.

Bruce Newman is the Vice President at The Productivity Institute, LLC, a leader in locating, evaluating and matching the specific areas of expertise of consultants to the needs of its clients.  An expert on social media, Bruce constantly writes and gives talks on many facets of social media including branding, social media strategies and policy.  He has also developed several social media training courses. In addition, Bruce is the editor of the Productivity Institute Newsletter, a free content-is-king newsletter and thought leader.  Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter and the Productivity Institute blog.

by Bruce Newman

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

The importance of social media in business is rapidly increasing.  In fact, Google has already started to include several aspects of social media in its page rank calculations.  What previously worked in achieving a high page ranking may be rapidly losing its effectiveness. 

The list below depicts many of the steps you should take to effectively utilize social networking.  By following some or all of these steps, you will help improve your page ranking while greatly increasing the number and quality of the people who follow you.  Merely signing up on several social media sites is no longer adequate.

1.  Join at least three social networking sites.  The top three are: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  All have strengths and limitations but most importantly, they have large, vibrant communities and groups you can join.

2. Always ensure that your profile is complete.  Update it regularly as many media sites will automatically publish that updated information.

3. Search for key people in your target area and closely observe their actions and the groups they belong to. This will supply you with insight as you develop your own strategy.

4. Find specific groups that are relevant to your target area. Join them and become active.

5. Add value and content to the groups by blogging and commenting on both articles and forums.  Make sure your contact information and a link accompanies with your comments.

6. Ask questions.  Generally, the more specific the question, the fewer number of responses but they will be of a higher quality.

7. Make friend requests to people who make comments to you.  A direct reply is a powerful additional step you can also take.

8. Publish your articles in your blog and on multiple sites.  Ensure that it can be announced and bookmarked on other sites.

These steps will help generate a following.  They take more time and effort than just signing up for the numerous automated tools and groups that are available, but it will enable you to become a thought leader with a significant following and most likely, an improved page rank. 

Bruce Newman is the Vice President at The Productivity Institute, LLC, an acknowledged leader in locating, evaluating and matching the specific areas of expertise of consultants to the needs of its clients.  Bruce has started writing and giving talks on many facets of social media including branding, social media strategies and policy.  He has also developed several social media training courses. In addition, Bruce is the editor of the Productivity Institute Newsletter, a free content-is-king newsletter and thought leader.  Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter and the Productivity Institute blog.

by Bruce Newman

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

There are two aspects involving traffic to your website and blog: attracting visitors and retaining them once they arrive.  In this article, I will focus on strategies that will bring them to your site.  In a subsequent article, I will discuss various visitor retention strategies.  Both sets of strategies denote the importance of social media and utilizing productive strategies.

1. Provide constant, informative content.  This can be done across a wide variety of media – blogs, video, podcasts, etc., with the key criteria being that it must contain good, relevant content.  And, it must be original.  People receive few accolades (if any) for retweeting articles on Twitter.

2. Make comments.  Find industry leaders and leave meaningful comments on their blogs and articles.  Omit such inane comments as, “I learned a lot from your article”, which are very common and of little value.  In fact, they might negatively predispose people towards you.  Instead, spend a few minutes providing some thoughtful response or even a simple but well thought out question.  People will take note of your comments and may respond directly to you.  Most importantly, make sure that you always include your contact information and a link with your comments.

3. Use keywords.  I can’t stress enough the importance of keywords.  Make sure your articles use them – particularly in the titles or in any paragraphs that use bold or italicized text.  Simply put, search engines love them.  If you are not currently using keywords, start using them immediately.  There are several good programs out there you can use.  There are also many keyword “experts” available but be careful - they can charge megabucks and not deliver much value.  The cost of a good keyword service should be around $500.

4. Use social networking.  Remember, it’s not designed to sell – only to inform.  You will get a lot better response by providing the quality content mentioned above than by saying, “Buy my product or service”.  Social media is defined as the sharing of information within groups or organizations.  Join these groups and become active.  The more value you supply, the more people will become aware of your presence and what you have to offer.

5. Join and participate in forums.  A good friend of mine constantly posted to a technical forum, offering quality suggestions and content.  As a result, he received several job offers from companies seeking his expertise – and they approached him.  (He’s also very good.)

6. Offer something for free.  It could be an e-book, a free consultation, information, a contest or survey results (if they participate), etc.  As long as people perceive - and receive - value, you will accomplish two things: first, you will generate buzz and help distinguish yourself as a thought leader and two, you will generate traffic and probably new business.

Building traffic to your website or blog can be a time-consuming and frustrating process.  Furthermore, it rarely happens immediately as it’s truly a gradual process.  However, if done properly and consistently, it should ensure a steadily increasing stream of traffic – and results.

Bruce Newman is the Vice President at The Productivity Institute, LLC, an acknowledged leader in locating, evaluating and matching the specific areas of expertise of consultants to the needs of its clients.  Bruce has started writing and giving talks on the power of social media and how to harness it to improve brand awareness and sales. He is also the editor of the Productivity Institute Newsletter, a free content-is-king newsletter and thought leader.  Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter and the Productivity Institute blog.

by David Gussin

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

Everyone should have a web presence. That said, the importance of the Internet for the majority of businesses is exaggerated. Being on page one of search engines will rarely make your phones ring off the hook. No doubt, being on page 1 of Google is better than being on page 2, 3, or 4, but to depend on that as the primary source of revenue for most industries, is a mistake.

It’s not just Google or other search engines or online social networking that you should depend on. If your picture was on front of a major publication tomorrow, in two days everybody would forget your name. Advertising, networking and promoting yourself and your business is about constantly working to get your name out there. You have to make the phone calls, you have to get out there and shake hands, you have to do the follow-up, you have to do a quality job when given the chance, than you have to wake up and do it again. The key to your success is your hard work, determination and perseverance.

“Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail” - Marva Collins

Here are some tools and ideas that might help:

1) Blog.516Ads.com - While the Long Island information may not be relevant to the national audience, the concept of an advertising/community network is relevant. It’s about igniting business while doing good for the community – a major contrast to the mass media to which we’ve become accustomed. For example, instead of reporting on problems, advertising/community networks attempt to solve them. This is a major impetus for all types of networks. A walk for the March of Dimes or some important cause, for example, helps solve a problem while strengthening and enlarging networking activities. This is truly one of the beneficial advantages of a local and social network.

If your community doesn’t have an advertising/community network, consider building one.

2) Backpage.com – There’s Craigslist.org and Kijiji.com where you can place free advertisements. My favorite place to post free classifieds ads is Backpage.com. Owned by the Village Voice, it has some features that make it stand out including the ability to auto repost. For $3, it gets put to the top of the category 26 times, every three days. Backpage.com not only posts your classified but includes links for the last five. If you make full use of it, you can have six advertisements running simultaneously on one page.

3) HelpAReporter.com - HARO for short is a unique site with benefits and drawbacks. By signing up for HARO, on Monday through Friday, three times a day, you’ll receive e-mails with 20 - 30 inquiries from reporters across the country from many newspapers and magazines around the world. By simply responding to a reporter’s inquiry, you can find yourself in an article, sometimes “becoming” the article. It might also help brand you as an expert or begin generating a relationship with a particular reporter. The drawback is that the HARO inquiries are very specific and usually will be far removed from your area of expertise. As such, you might find that sifting through all of the inquiries is not worth the effort.

4) Yelp.com – This relatively new review site is receiving high search rankings. Take advantage of its rating system: review your fellow networkers and in turn, have them review you. Do it now! Down the road, Yelp’s operating paradigm could be flawed due to the threat (and problems) of negative reviews and manipulation. For right now, it’s still good. Use it.

One final tool: blogging and social media. A quality blog is an incredible tool for three quick reasons. 1. It’s easy to use, you can do it yourself and it allows you to keep your website up to date. 2. Search engines love blogs. A blog with quality information and active comments can greatly improve search engine rankings - particularly if your blog is in a localized area. 3. E-mails and newsletters that are sent out have a shelf life of one or two days, at best. By placing that same content on your blog, and offering an RSS feed, Feedburner or some similar feed, will allow your content to permanently remain on your blog while providing the means for anyone interested to automatically receive it. Remember that most major blog engines (such as Blogger, WordPress and WordPad) automatically trigger when updates are performed so that a high quality entry will not only trigger them but also help enlarge your network and reputation. Start blogging.

David Gussin is the creator of www.516ads.com, a rapidly growing advertising/networking community. David can be reached at david@516ads.com .

by Mel DePaoli

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

Twitter is quite the enigma. Everyone has an opinion, but no one really knows what you are supposed to do with it. The New York Times said it best with It’s What You Make It. I am not going to go through all of the features of Twitter because you can find that elsewhere. Instead, I am going to talk about using Twitter for business.

Like so many, I am relatively new to the world of Twitter. Before signing up though I wanted to know “if anyone has received business from Twitter.” I posted that question on various sites to see what others experience has been. The general consensus was that no one has received business (directly) from Twitter. So if you are looking to get more business from a new source, you will have to look elsewhere.

That being said, if you are looking for a tool to get the word out about your company, your product or your service, Twitter is IT! Twitter is a great way to talk about what is important in your area of specialty. It also makes you think, because you have to use smaller phrases and words that will entice your follows to read what you write and hopefully re-tweet your tweet.

So what are things that will interest your followers and help you get results? Notice the fine print—get you results! Whether you advertise, use social media or network the goal for any of that is to drive business results. So what are you looking to get out of Twitter? That will drive how you tweet. Do you want to increase visibility, have someone read that blog you spend all that time posting to, or drive people to your website because your conversion rate once they are there will take care of the rest? How about practice conveying value to prospects or the idea you had for an article but forget where you were going with it? Twitter is great for all of those things.

Like anything else out there, Twitter has a learning curve. There are a ton of acronyms, it makes you aware of the length of your URLs and you cannot assume that your followers will read every message you tweet. Because of this, your messages have to be true to your brand, but simple enough that they make sense individually.

You will hear some tell you that Twitter is addicting, others do not have a problem. Hmmm sounds like any other addiction. The great thing about Twitter is that it allows you to target your audience when they are available. If your audience is online from 5-7pm then that is when you post your tweets because that is when they will see them. @DanZarrella did his own study and noticed that most tweets are viewed in the morning from 9-11. Though this is interesting, he did not mention what time zone and the chart he shows doesn’t account for this either. He does show interesting stats on words that encourage re-tweeting though.

Another thing to take into account is mixing business and personal. If your objective is to use Twitter as a business tool, then leave off the comments about how you are working in bed, eating a jelly donut, or just got over a cold—we don’t care and you really are not that important. So get over yourself!

Ahh I forgot to mention the challenge in being able to tweet 24/7. Like you, I have other things I need to do. Therefore, tweeting live is not always an option. A great tool to assist you with your tweeting is TweetLater.com. You create an account with them and can schedule ahead of time your tweets. How wonderful is that? TweetLater gives me the benefits of tweeting, but still allows me to get the real work done that I need to.

So take the good with the bad and make the most of the service. There is a lot of talk about changes that Twitter may be making in the future. We will see. For me they sound good, so I am looking forward to them.

Mel DePaoli is the president and founder of Omicle located in Seattle, WA. She is also interviewing companies for her upcoming book series Brand or Culture: Which Comes First. Please visit www.omicle.com for more information about how Omicle can become your Catalyst for Discovery and www.brandorculture.com to get involved in the Brand or Culture Debate! Ms. DePaoli can be reached at mel@omicle.com.