by on November 5, 2010 Leave a Comment

How often to write blog posts?

Question came in to WAM Towers today from a friend who was confused as to how often she should update her blog.

How long is that piece of floss you’re petting coquettishly, oh lovely one?

The question is sound. It’s asked often.

Some say daily, some say as often as you eat a meal. I guess, then, it depends on your BMI.

Seriously, there are two very important things to think about when you’re considering your blog posting strategy:

  1. How much time do you have (assuming you don’t have a Virtual Assistant)?
  2. How much time does your reader have?

Write only to the taste and requirement of your reader (I use this in the singular sense since whenever I write, I write with one person in mind so it’s more friendly and informal) and so as not to clash with other demands on your time.

Chris Brogan makes a very good point when he says you should seize the moment when you’re feeling creative and stockpile articles so you can space them out to cover lean times.

Here’s a quick tip. If you’re using WordPress, which of course you are, get the excellent Editorial Calendar plugin so you can at a glance see when your scheduled posts are set for publication.

Here’s Brogan’s take on why the Editorial Calendar plugin is so damn essential.

I’d take a step back here. Have you taken time to define the outer recesses of your chosen area of expertise to be covered in your blog? Have you mindmapped yourself to awe by starting with your core subject and then breaking it down into sub-topics, different areas within the same realm, and started writing article headings by the dozen?

Get that mindmap done (plenty of free mindmapping applications including FreeMind for PC, Linux and Mac). Get your topline headings sorted. Throw them in to your blog, schedule them, then go back and actually write the damn things when you get the chance.

In summary – write according to demands, on your time and by your reader. If you need insight on what your reader wants, check your analytics to see when the spikes are trending out.

Does that rock your boat?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
by on February 24, 2010 Leave a Comment

Comfortable with your nicheuality?

Yesterday I was a real grump. Booby had gotten me into hot water, I was about as much use as a paper bag in a twister and things just weren’t hitting time at the right time. I was a broken man.

Today I rose, dropped 30 minutes on the streets and returned home for a warming shower and a long kiss from the bird.

What are you to learn from this?

That it’s ok to not have discovered your niche yet.

Let’s rewind to yesterday. On the agenda: creating an eNewsletter. Guys, gals, you know this: I ain’t a designer. Period. There is no way you could make me a designer. I’m as design as you are necrophile. We make terrible bedfellows, the design and I.

Fact, I was so design intolerant yesterday I was gonna outsource the frickin job just to get it out of my greasy hands.

But my heart told me NO!

My heart told me that you have to persist. I already knew the value of patience (aka its big brother tenacity) from my PPPI blogging basics lecture a couple of weeks ago. But the persistence rush was strong and logical and so I gave it a few hours until daybreak.

Boy, am I glad I did.

This morning, a totally new perpective. A durable, irresistible urge to follow the Can-Do path. So now I’m buzzed, psyched and primed to do an awesome job on this eNewsletter. Gonna brush up on a few CSS basics (if I didn’t learn them when I was creating that site recently, I never will) and bless the world with some more DT creative shenanigans.

It’s refreshing, thinking about your niche in this way.

One day it’s foggy. The mists never clear. You have a hog of a 24 hours and you think you’re never gonna crack it.

Then sunrise comes around (I never live on the right side of the country to see this and, well, frankly, it bugs the bejesus out of me) and something – from somewhere – casts a bright, white light in your direction. The bright, white light is a manifestation of enlightenment. You’ve been a carpenter in your heart all your life and suddenly your hands turn a block of wood into an armoire. You’ve always wanted to butcher but for the first time, you’ve slain a lamb with your bare hands.

I exaggerate – naturellement – but what I enumerate here is that your niche – your nicheuality – is just around the corner, if you haven’t yet acknowledged it.

Because niche really, really matters, it’s so important to plug away at what your heart is telling you to do. To crush it; to deliver it with a smile. We all have niche, whether we like it or not. Once you break the seal and discover yours you’ll be endowed with multiple sub-niches, too.

I speak with the experience of talking to legion niche miners who have nailed it and found theirs. The truth is: I haven’t, yet. But I’m living vicariously through these characters who have. And I believe them, wholeheartedly.

Live pure, live real. Live every second in absolute contentment. When you waiver, pretend, and be confident that salvation of your sentiments is just around the corner.

Now get out there and seize the day by the scruff. Your niche, and complete blogging contentment, is just around that corner…

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
by on February 17, 2010 Leave a Comment

Blogcasting: the future of customer communications

Consumption is a curious concept. Consumers, even more so.

The fickle, unique nature of each customer means you cannot rely on your message being digested using one medium other another.

It’s not enough to be all about words and pictures. And it’s easy to prognosticate more diverse demands.

Is your business talking the customer’s language, in as many ways as possible?

Take results of the most recent TravelHorizons survey, a quarterly pulse check on consumer attitudes by the American Travel Association (the research itself is conducted by my very good friend Peter Yesawich and his team at the Y Partnership).

In 2008, most people relied on the thousands of words at tripadvisor to help decide the paths their leisure journeys should take. It was easy, relevant and quick.

One year on, the favourite source for travel inspiration is… YouTube.

You could accredit this to scepticism over the veracity of travel reviews. You could say that a greater selection, faster internet connectivity and more prevalent use of the camcorder has nudged people to the world’s biggest video site.

I think the crusade for authenticity is a driver. I don’t think you can get an accurate impression of a holiday experience by reading a story.

But I also think people are sick of reading screens. It’s not quick enough. It’s not easy to recall what you read when you discuss the subject with others.

Set that against audio or video (or at best, both) stimulations. The effect is far more emotional; more powerful; more likely to help you draw a meaningful conclusion.

I just picked up a Sanyo Xacti from Play.com. It cost me £99. You slide an SD card in, record High Definition video. £99 to make a video you could spread far and wide, for no extra cost on Viddler, Vimeo, YouTube or whichever video distribution platform you choose to use.

Podcasts are even easier to  pull together. It takes a guest with passion, it takes you to research your subject (has it really been any easier to get what you want than today?) and it takes a certain knowledge of who you want to target with your program, and what results you want to achieve.

  • Skype to patch yourselves together
  • Pamela to record it
  • A couple of high-quality headsets costing no more than £20 each
  • A copy of the free and easy-to-use Audacity audio mixer and recorder to cut and trim your final piece…
  • And you’re all set.

Of course, it takes imagination, a certain desire to think outside the box, to make your efforts stand out.

To be really successful, you need the words and the sonic sensations. You need what is best described as a Blogcasting strategy.

And you probably want some real-world examples of how blogging and podcasting is making a difference to companies.

So I tapped the collective intelligence of seven people I know well, who each benefit from the mighty blog and/or podcast as businesses or customers.

Enough of me. Let the people tell their stories:

  1. We are using a business blog for years now and really enjoy the interaction it enables us with our prospects/clients by opening up the comment box to questions. Double whammy really: the wording used in the questions add to the keywords (some of which we would not have thought of otherwise) and sometimes a question and our answer turns into a completely new post.
  2. I live in a small village in England. In my village there are two shops that sell newspapers and sweeties for the children. I use Gordon’s shop. Why? Because when I go there he chats with us, he tells us what’s happening in his shop, his life and the village. He doesn’t push products or sell to us. He just makes us feel welcome and keeps us in touch. The other shop waits until I’ve made my choice of purchase, then takes my money and thanks me politely. That’s how business blogging helps a business. Engagement. Making your customers feeling a part of your enterprise. It isn’t to get people to buy more, that’ll be seen through as marketing. It is to ensure that when people buy, they do it from you, not your competitor.
  3. Podcasts help create a closer emotional connection to your prospects. Having someone’s voice come directly to your earbuds is a very intimate connection. You start to feel like you know them, and therefore you start to trust them. Also, podcasts are portable in a way that blogs are not: you can listen while doing other things. So if you’re trying to reach a mobile workforce, a podcast may be better than a blog, or an important supplement to it. Ideally, the two complement one another, and in any case most podcasts are published through blogging platforms, and should have fairly detailed show notes both to assist people in finding them (direct audio search is still pretty iffy) and to help people decide whether to listen and which parts to listen to if the show is long and their time is limited. For me, blogging is both a way to demonstrate expertise (since I’m in a service business) and to demonstrate writing skills (since I’m a writer). I release recordings of presentations I’ve given as podcasts, as well as producing occasional purpose-made shows (I’d make a poor podcasting consultant if I couldn’t produce a show for myself). And don’t forget the value of *reading* blogs and *listening* to podcasts for your business. You can get quite an education in marketing and make a lot of connections that help your business that way. WAM: I gotta say the idea of blogging and podcasting on intranets and for employees is inspirational. More on this soon.
  4. It makes sense to include video or audio podcasts as often as possible to add compelling content to back up an opinion or demonstrate an example. That’s why I’m immediately drawn to podcasts in blogs, especially if they’re from trusted sources. I ignore the daily drivel on YouTube, but the blog format allows me to monitor my RSS feeds, again from trusted sources, and get the best video/audio blogs as they are published. I don’t think the written word will ever go away entirely, but a combination of video/audio plus text is certainly gaining ground in the blogverse, and for good reason.
  5. I highly encourage the use of blog articles, podcasts and online video both as resources that are free and to provide additional streams of revenue for premium content. In particular if you publish content that not only indicates the ‘what’ but also ideas about the ‘how’ of what you teach or the products and services you offer this can help you establish trust with your customer/potential customer. My experience is that if your content is congruent with you and your companies expertise, it can also help the customer make a decision of whether to work with you. And providing additional content perhaps in a members/customers only part of your website can help you continue that relationship adding value to them over time and they may even become a strong advocate for you and your company and a great source of referrals.
  6. Five years ago a static website with all your information was a great virtual business card for your business. Today, that won’t cut it. The bare minimum is a blog along with the business website where people can get a better feel for your business.
  7. We publish new content everyday. We create articles that are helpful to our best customers that they may be specifically looking for on the web. For example, we write about marketing tips, social media for business, lead generation, etc. As part of our blogging strategy, we create a live video podcast and post the episodes on our blog. By offering helpful and searchable content, people find us on their own through search engines and social media. On every blog post, we include a call-to-action with targeted content. This brings the person to a form on a landing page. If the person decides to fill out the form (and they’re a good fit for our software), they become a lead. It’s self selection and completely organic! WAM: Good point. Blogs aren’t just self-sustaining – they can generate sales via enewsletter sign-up forms, or other CTA elements that feel soft-sell but do the same job as, but better than, a direct mail campaign.

Blogcasting is the sweet spot in the 21st century marketing principles of any company.

Wherever you are with your customer relationship strategy, it’s obvious you need to be playing with at least one of these tools.

What do you think? Are you Blogcasting, or do you plan to be? Drop me a line if you want to discuss your opportunities in greater detail.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
by on October 20, 2009 Leave a Comment

How to seduce social media sceptics

I just wrote a spanking piece for bytestart, my favourite site for small business development advice on the whole of this ‘ere world of webness. I want to reproduce it here in part since it relates directly to you, my wonderful friend.

When it comes to marketing on the web, size really doesn’t matter. You can be a corner shop or multinational titan of commerce – on the internet it’s a level playing field for everyone.

The best news of all is you can get ahead of the competition for free!

All you need is some smart thinking and two simple tools:

  • Blogging
  • Podcasting

That’s the bytestart stuff out the way for now. You can read the rest by clicking on the link above.

I want to take you on a slightly different journey from here since you’re already muchly acquainted with the potency of Conversaction. I want to take you deeper.

Since I wrote this article I’ve heard from slightly larger clients that they have on occasions hit stumbling blocks with their social media strategies courtesy of the boys and girls at the top of the corporate tree. As you know I firmly believe that Conversaction should play a fundamental role in the social media functions of any SME.

But there’s indubitably resistance from the naysayer brigade to integrating any form of electronica into the customer service channel. I think it’s lack of knowledge that strikes fear into their quaking corpses.

Help is at hand, however. Here:

  1. If you come across over-burdening sensitivity to the opportunities that Conversaction will bring to your company, find a way of making it their idea. Leading questions will help you achieve this. “How can we reach out to the customer better; cheaper?” “There must be a way we can gather more intelligent insight into our customers’ needs…” “We really need to connect to our customers in a new and exciting way. A cost-effective way. [Pause for dramatic effect; gasps] Imagine if we could really do this!”
  2. Selling tangible benefits is key to any convincing business ‘argument’. The facts are there for everyone to see – social media is both inexpensive and hugely successful when a strategy is in place that is tailored to your company’s exacting requirements.
  3. If your competition is using a social media, Conversaction-style strategy, focus on it. Pick out the salient points, reveal them with great drama to your superiors. There’s a millisecond of cerebral computation between the revelation and realisation in this process. Covet it and deliver the killer line as the penny drops: “… but we can do better!”
  4. Quantify the values of both having a social media strategy, and NOT having one. How much more business comes in through Facebook, Twitter, referral etc. vs. how far does the stock drop when someone with a broken guitar makes a video on YouTube? You also need to propose strategy for control, so the sensitive leaders won’t feel like the interns are posting as the face of the company. These days, a consumer company without a social media presence doesn’t really exist in the public’s eyes. But one also needs to have some control over what is the official voice of the company, and what isn’t.
  5. Get the C-levellers to do some Twitter searches on the product category. The results will amaze. You can set up automated alerts using the search URL from search.twitter.com and inserting it into Google Alerts. You can also find out from this how many people are searching for those keywords. Awesomeness. It’s a deadly way to win approval for social media strateginess to kick off in your organisation.

Of course there are many, many more ways to inspire your bosses to take the next step. You need to create excitement, because that’s in a nutshell what social media is all about. It’s instantaneous – anything real time is guaranteed to stir the minds of even the staunchest of critics. Check out:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
by on October 15, 2009 1 Comment

Why blogging and podcasting works

You probably want some real-world examples of how blogging and podcasting is making a difference to companies.

So I tapped the collective intelligence of seven people I know well, who each benefit from the mighty blog and/or podcast as businesses or customers.

Enough of me. Let the people tell their stories:

  1. We are using a business blog for years now and really enjoy the interaction it enables us with our prospects/clients by opening up the comment box to questions. Double whammy really: the wording used in the questions add to the keywords (some of which we would not have thought of otherwise) and sometimes a question and our answer turns into a completely new post.
  2. I live in a small village in England. In my village there are two shops that sell newspapers and sweeties for the children. I use Gordon’s shop. Why? Because when I go there he chats with us, he tells us what’s happening in his shop, his life and the village. He doesn’t push products or sell to us. He just makes us feel welcome and keeps us in touch. The other shop waits until I’ve made my choice of purchase, then takes my money and thanks me politely. That’s how business blogging helps a business. Engagement. Making your customers feeling a part of your enterprise. It isn’t to get people to buy more, that’ll be seen through as marketing. It is to ensure that when people buy, they do it from you, not your competitor.
  3. Podcasts help create a closer emotional connection to your prospects. Having someone’s voice come directly to your earbuds is a very intimate connection. You start to feel like you know them, and therefore you start to trust them. Also, podcasts are portable in a way that blogs are not: you can listen while doing other things. So if you’re trying to reach a mobile workforce, a podcast may be better than a blog, or an important supplement to it. Ideally, the two complement one another, and in any case most podcasts are published through blogging platforms, and should have fairly detailed show notes both to assist people in finding them (direct audio search is still pretty iffy) and to help people decide whether to listen and which parts to listen to if the show is long and their time is limited. For me, blogging is both a way to demonstrate expertise (since I’m in a service business) and to demonstrate writing skills (since I’m a writer). I release recordings of presentations I’ve given as podcasts, as well as producing occasional purpose-made shows (I’d make a poor podcasting consultant if I couldn’t produce a show for myself). And don’t forget the value of *reading* blogs and *listening* to podcasts for your business. You can get quite an education in marketing and make a lot of connections that help your business that way. WAM: I gotta say the idea of blogging and podcasting on intranets and for employees is inspirational. More on this soon.
  4. It makes sense to include video or audio podcasts as often as possible to add compelling content to back up an opinion or demonstrate an example. That’s why I’m immediately drawn to podcasts in blogs, especially if they’re from trusted sources. I ignore the daily drivel on YouTube, but the blog format allows me to monitor my RSS feeds, again from trusted sources, and get the best video/audio blogs as they are published. I don’t think the written word will ever go away entirely, but a combination of video/audio plus text is certainly gaining ground in the blogverse, and for good reason.
  5. I highly encourage the use of blog articles, podcasts and online video both as resources that are free and to provide additional streams of revenue for premium content. In particular if you publish content that not only indicates the ‘what’ but also ideas about the ‘how’ of what you teach or the products and services you offer this can help you establish trust with your customer/potential customer. My experience is that if your content is congruent with you and your companies expertise, it can also help the customer make a decision of whether to work with you.  And providing additional content perhaps in a members/customers only part of your website can help you continue that relationship adding value to them over time and they may even become a strong advocate for you and your company and a great source of referrals.
  6. Five years ago a static website with all your information was a great virtual business card for your business. Today, that won’t cut it. The bare minimum is a blog along with the business website where people can get a better feel for your business.
  7. We publish new content everyday. We create articles that are helpful to our best customers that they may be specifically looking for on the web. For example, we write about marketing tips, social media for business, lead generation, etc. As part of our blogging strategy, we create a live video podcast and post the episodes on our blog. By offering helpful and searchable content, people find us on their own through search engines and social media. On every blog post, we include a call-to-action with targeted content. This brings the person to a form on a landing page. If the person decides to fill out the form (and they’re a good fit for our software), they become a lead. It’s self selection and completely organic! WAM: Good point. Blogs aren’t just self-sustaining – they can generate sales via enewsletter sign-up forms, or other CTA elements that feel soft-sell but do the same job as, but better than, a direct mail campaign.

Wherever you are with your customer relationship strategy, it’s obvious you need to be playing with at least one of these tools.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: