Ignore Digg. Quality is First.

Image via CrunchBase

Here is an example of information spreading on the web via Twitter and Blogging. One of my twitter and friendfeed buddies, Zee, fed a post on Twitter that was in turn sent to me by re-tweet from Roger Byrne (@styletime on Twitter). The post is called 15 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started My First Blog by Neil Patel. If you have been using the Internet, blogging, or reading you have probably run across Neil Patel’s name on a blog or two. He knows how to create relationships and engage people online.

One of the things that I found interesting on his blog post was the point he made about not writing for Digg. I have heard from multiple bloggers that it is important to hit Digg because you drive a ton of traffic to your site.

“On the other hand Quick Sprout hasn’t got on Digg more than once and I have a very strong core user base. This is the main reason Quick Sprout has tons of reader interaction compared to other blogs.”

Neil took the opposite approach when building readership to his blog. He decided to focus solely on the people hitting his blog through links and other avenues other than the ungodly amount of traffic from Digg. I think that is extremely important.

I have been pushing myself to care more about the daily reader than the hundreds of hits I get from outside sources. It is always cool to open your Google Analytics and see an increase in traffic but how qualified is that traffic? The important relationships to forge are the people that are constantly contributing to your content and vice/versa.

Thanks to Neil for helping me get back on track and focus on the quality of my blog. Thanks to Roger and Zee for constantly feeding me information that helps all of us along this wonderful process.

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Small Biz Use of Social Media to Double in 12 Months

My father, Dan Lacy, sent me a SearchEngineWatch.com link in my email today that talked about the number of small business and social media. Now, I am a huge fan of small businesses and I am a huge fan of social media. I had to open it.

According to the Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, the number of small businesses using social networking services and strategies will double in the next year. Now, this is good news for companies like man that want to help small businesses leverage social media. It is good to see a tool being adopted by the small businesse market (my favorite).

I do have one word of warning to small business owners wanting to leverage social media. If you are wanting to enter the social media space whether it is through social networking sits, a blog, podcasts, wikis, blah blah blah make sure you have a strategy in place to complete your efforts. Get the right training and social media partner. It is a must.

Danny Brown made a great comment on the post saying:

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Notoriety to Aspiration: 5 of 10 Social Media Commandments

As a collective group we have been working through the 10 Commandments of Emotional Branding in Marc Gobe’s book, Emotional Branding. We have been applying the ten concepts to social media marketing and how you should be applying them to your social business strategy.

The fifth commandment is the concept moving from notoriety to aspiration.

From Marc Gobe:

“Being known does not mean that you are also loved! Notoriety is what gets you known. But if you want to be desired, you must convey something that is in keeping with the customer’s aspirations. (pg. xxx, Emotional Branding)”

This is my favorite commandment in the entire list because it one of the more important principles in social media: QUALITY over QUANTITY. Anyone can spend twelve hours a day adding everyone and their mother to their social profile. The question is, what makes them different from everyone else spending an ungodly amount of time online? Nothing. It takes a little personality to push you over the edge. Scott Stratten at Un-Marketing does this the best way possible on Twitter. Add him.

There is a split down the middle for small business owners. Many of us want to create relationships online but there is no guarantee for return on investment. This is especially important if you are using social media as a customer relationship and marketing tool. The truth of the matter is this…

It takes time and resources to truly utilize social media. It should be implemented into your marketing budget as a piece of the pie. And remember…

You can add as many people as you want but don’t be upset when you have thousands of followers and no revenue.

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3 of 10 Social Media Commandment: From Honesty to Trust

Good morning everyone! Here is the third installment of the 10 Commandments to Social Media Marketing. We have been talking about listening to consumers and about transforming your product into an experience but now it is time for the main enchilada: Honesty and Trust.

In his book, Emotional Branding, Marc Gobe talks about taking a brand from honesty to trust. We have been relating his 10 Commandments of Emotional Branding to social media and the third commandment hits it home for me.

From Marc:

“Honesty is expected. Trust is engaging and intimate. It needs to be earned…Trust is something else altogether. It is one of the most important values of a brand and it requires real effort from corporations. It is what you would expect from a friend.”

Honesty is expected? Absolutely it is expected! This is not only a moral and ethical obligation for a company but YOU (the corp) are going to be found out anyway. With millions of bytes of content being produced on a daily basis it is important to remember to be honest with all the content being developed surrounding your plan.

Social media allows you to take ENGAGE with your clients. It creates multiple tools that allows you to build a relationship and interact with the people that will spread your message to their friends and eventually the masses. Trust can be built in an online environment. It can be built by using the tools available to you through Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIN… etc… etc… etc…

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You Need A Job? Get Off Your.. I’m Tired of Helping

I have reached a critical point. I wouldn’t say it is as much of a breaking point as it is a… just being pissed off point. Let me explain.

We all have friends, family, and acquaintances that have lost their job. It is a recession and the economy is not as strong as it once was (back in the day). It makes sense that someone you are connected to.. somewhere.. is going to lose their job. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a friend losing their job?

Right. “How can I help them find a job to provide for their family or themselves.”

Second scenario. You have a friend that asks for help or asks for you to provide assistance to a third party. Out of the goodness of your heart… you help that person.

Now.. maybe I am just over the top and I expect to much from people but when someone helps me, gives me advice, or the tools to get the job done… I use it and I thank them. It is a novel concept, I know. I actually use the tools and advice the mentor gave me in order to further myself in life.

I don’t know if certain people in my generation are just lazy or complete idiots. I have had multiple times when I have helped out a third party (someone relocating or a friend-of-a-friend) and they do nothing I tell them to do.

“Are you looking to relocate to Indianapolis? Cool. Well you should join LinkedIN, SmallerIndiana, and Facebook. You are welcome to connect with anyone you want from my LinkedIN account. I will forward the introduction and Smaller INdiana is a great place to meet like minded individuals that will also have jobs or know of job openings. You could also start a blog/site where your resume is highlighted.”

The majority of the time they don’t do any of it. They even forget to send me their resume until three days later. If I was looking for a job I would be salivating at the chance to connect with over 400 professionals through an account on LinkedIN. I would be listening intently to advice given by someone.. anyone.

My advice:

Quit being normal. Quit being lazy. Get off your ass and get something done. Be proactive. Be extraordinary. Write a note and thank someone for helping you out. Do everything they ask and do it the day they give you the information. Don’t wait 5 days to setup a stupid social media profile because they are watching.

And do you think I am going to forward a resume that wasn’t sent to me until a week after I talked to you? Click. Trash.

And next time YOU decide to call me and ask for advice… you will be receiving a bill in the mail for my hourly rate because you don’t deserve it.

Okay I’m done.

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Why Is It Important to Listen?

There have been many conversations surrounding the value of social media. How do we measure a return on investment using these tools? How do we guarantee that the tools are going to work in our favor?

There are a couple of things you should be using social media for in the near future. That will give you an intangible benefit to your company. The first thing is customer service. We will talk about the concept of using social media as a customer service tool in the future. I wanted to focus on the second reason which is reputation management.

Are you listening to what people are saying about you online? I can give you two bad examples and one good example of companies who are listening to what clients and potential clients are discussing.

The first bad example is that of Independent Federal Credit Union in Anderson, IN. I had a bad customer service experience at one of their branches in Anderson. You can read the entire post at An Example Of Terrible Customer Service: IFCU. The problem isn’t necessarily that they had bad customer service. The problem is that they had NO IDEA I had written a blog post about my experience.

When you are not listening to what people are saying about you… how can you change opinions?

The second example is from KSM Business Technology and Digitech in Indianapolis. You can read about the entire experience at the post about KSM Business Technologies Being Worst than Godaddy at customer service. The sad thing about this post is that they are a business technology and hosting company. They had no idea I had a bad experience with a couple of their reps and now it is blasted out over the masses on the Internet. They still have no idea.

This has nothing to do with the size of the company (the offending or the offended). This has everything to do with caring about the customer experience.

You want to know… You NEED to know… You SHOULD know…

If you can think of a reason why you should not be listening to clients and potential clients on the Internet. Please let me know.

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It’s Not About Professional Networking In Social Media

I was surprised when I was reading some stats from the PEW Internet & American Life Project via ReadWriteWeb. Apparently the majority of adult social network users are not using the networks for business or professional networking. According to the PEW report the majority of adults (89%) are using social networks to stay in touch with friends. A surprising 6% of all adult users on the Internet are using LinkedIN which makes more sense if you think about it.

LinkedIN has boasted around 30 million users and when you think about the odd 250 million Internet users worldwide… it makes complete sense.

My question for LinkedIN and other professional social networks?

How do you get more people onto your site? How do you utilize your far from perfect application development and draw in more business owners, corporate professionals, and white-collar individuals?

Or does it matter?I don’t think LinkedIN has to expand to the point when they are catering to the people who will not use social media.

It isn’t about numbers anymore. You do not need 60 million people on a network to start making money. LinkedIN should be focusing on it’s 30 million members… switching them over to the premium service.

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Thanks To You and Yours: 10 Bloggers I Like

I wanted to take a brief moment to thank everyone who has read and posted comments on this blog for the past 6-12 months. Seriously..

I love writing. I love blogging. I love social media. But the biggest thing is the people who contribute to this great community. Here is a shout-out to some commenter and twitters I enjoy.

Thanks to everyone.

10 People to Follow and Thank

1. Jeff Bennett. Jeff Bennett.org Jeff Bennett is an entrepreneur, husband, father, coach, teacher and enthusiast for many things. As an entrepreneur Jeff is the President and COO of NameMedia, Inc., a venture backed online media and commerce company based in Massachusetts that is developing media properties for Social Media, Direct Search and Commerce.

Latest Post: First Pictures From Scene of US Airways Crash From Twitter

2. Jeb Banner: SmallBox Web: design, build, promote and enhance Websites. Because we know how the Web works, we can make the Web work for you.

Latest Post: Having A Meaningful Online Conversation

3. Robby Slaughter: Turning Left Against Traffic: has had a lifelong passion for information technology, spanning some twenty years of education, teaching, full-time employment and consulting. His current areas of focus are usability, software development, process and methodology, technical communication, and data architecture.

Latest Post: The Expert Detector

4. Tom Williams: Innogage Blog: broke from traditional passive marketing knowing that Social Media would force companies and colleges to “Innovatively Engage” (aka InnoGage) their customers & students in the marketing process.

Latest Post: Blogs: Cornerstone of Social Media – Video Interview

5. Jeremy Williams: TourismTech Corner: will shine a light on technology and how it affects the world of tourism. The primary objective is to show how using interactive social media can help your website become more service-oriented and more valuable to your customers.

Latest Post: Social Media and ROI

6. Louisa Nardini: SupaNova Training: her passion is showing people how to use the Internet to build their own successful online business or to increase the profitability of their existing business.

Latest Post: Incredible Launch Offer from PepBlogger

7. Zac Martin: Pigs Don’t Fly : is an 19 year old university student, currently in his third year of a Marketing degree. He is a freelance social media marketing consultant and the Marketing Officer for the Student Union at Monash University.

Latest Post: Social Media Marketing Madness

8. Erin McMahon: Live United Y’All : The staff at Metro United Way have created this blog because we want to foster a vital, caring online community just as we build our real-life community. We want to encourage conversation and interaction, share our work and offer our community more avenues to give, advocate and volunteer to advance the common good.

Latest Post: Pop Quiz

9. Chris Hebert: Web Dazzling: Chris has been a long time knowledge seeker.  She learned to read at an early age, and continues to read “How To” books on a daily basis.

Latest Post: Microsoft Windows 7 Beta Info

10. Andrea Hill: Digital Likeness: s passionate about optimizing digital experiences. She also keeps a running blog at www.afhill.com/gothedistance.

Latest Post: The Paradox of Choice Book Review

There are many, many more people who have helped make this blog a reality. Thank you all. I look forward to another year of excellent social media marketing ADVICE!

Don’t Delegate Social Media. Embrace It.

**Disclaimer: I am very much in favor of using Interns because they are plenty of experienced and energetic college students who do great jobs for companies. This post is merely something to talk about a company developing a social media strategy and not throwing it off on the first person.***

Let me run you through a scenario from my days in college.

I was an Intern, an inexperienced and cocky Intern. This was my freshman year of college and my Father wanted me to complete an internship at his radio stations in Terre Haute, IN. Believe me, I wanted to go. I thought it would be a good experience to learn about sales, marketing, and the world of traditional advertising.

And that lasted about… 3 weeks.

Yes, 3 weeks into the process I started getting bored and wanted to do something else. Being a Freshman in college there is only so much you can do without wanting to go and… do what college kids do. With all that said, I helped the radio stations move more into the Internet world and I sold a few ad spots. But I wasn’t really that involved in the organization because of the short time I would be there.

Guess what? I didn’t really care much about building a brand or contributing to the overall five year plan the company had in place.

Believe me.. this story applies to social media.

Jay Baer said it best in Delegation Equals Death in Social Media:

Almost every time I work with a public relations firm… “Us old dogs don’t really understand all this new social media stuff, but we’ve got this brilliant young guy right out of school….” Bang Bang.. You’re Dead.

I am getting tired of hearing about companies throwing social media strategy and tools off on an Intern. To be honest with you, I get tired of hearing about brand building and extremely important communication tools being used by someone who is not OVERLY invested in the growth of the company.

Social media allows you to directly communicate with your clients. It allows you to increase customer support, increase customer interaction with your company experience, and allows for truly grou-breaking information gathering potential.

Would you put an Intern in the front lines of your top customer support center? Probably not.

An entire company needs to be involved and be on board with using social media tools. The company use of the tool needs to be PLANNED and EXECUTED.

Jay asked the question, “Are you a social media cheerleader? Are you ready to drop the pom-poms and get your hands dirty?”

I say, “Burn the stupid pom-poms and throw some dirt. Let’s start using social media to transform communication.”

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1 of 4 Customer Types of Social Media: The-Lost

I had a post a couple of days ago talking about the four customer types of social media which was a piggy back post off of Jason Baer’s 7 Critical Elements of your Social Strategy.  I wanted to start focusing more in-depth on each customer type.

First on the list is “The-Lost.”

The-Lost can be categorized as a person or user that has either maybe heard of you or has not heard of you at all. Jason calls this section of a social media marketing strategy the Awareness phase. This is very much brand development on the part of the marketer.

You want to gain the mind-share of a web browser or potential client. We all know that this individual is lost because they haven’t discovered the beauty of your product or service.

We have described what it takes to become a member of the Lost. I guess the question is now: How do you market to an individual that is “lost”?

Using Social Media to Capture the Lost: Join the Community

This is not rocket science. There are many level of an individual in the Lost category. Let’s focus on the Generation Y Lost. If you are seeking to gain acceptance into the social media world of a Lost Gen Y it is important to become involved in the community. Community acceptance is huge for this demographic and Social Media type.

I am a part of Generation Y and I can tell you first and foremost… we are not brand loyal. By joining a community there is an aspect to being transparent that needs to be obtained. You cannot join a Gen Y community as a logo and business name. Go ahead an be disingenuous… and be killed.

Slowly start to work your way into the minds of the Lost. Their friends will help them along the way.