Posts tagged best practices
The power of simple design to tell a story
Jan 31st
Wanted to share this brief presentation as a superb example of how effective, simple design can be used to tell a story. In less than three minutes, the primary findings on a research study on the source of individual power are wonderfully illustrated.
Think how effective this communication method is compared to simply reading a blog article on what could have been a very dry subject. What are your thoughts on this presentation?
The ultimate guide to blogging when you don’t have time to blog
Jan 26th
This is a blog post for anybody who has trouble finding the time to blog. In other words, everybody. I humbly submit a few practical ideas to help you become a time-efficient blogger.
1) Leap.I mentioned this in a recent post, but it bears repeating. The number one challenge most bloggers face isn’t time, it’s CONFIDENCE. Can we agree that you will take the leap? You will? Good, I knew it! You may proceed to item 2.
2) Don’t be Chris. Kids practicing basketball pretend they’re Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. They won’t be, but they can still have fun playing basketball. When I first started blogging, I tried to be Chris Brogan, who writes at least one post every day. I nearly killed myself. The bionic blogger and has set the bar unbelievably high. You can’t be Chris, but you can be YOU quite successfully. That’s good enough.
3) Take a little bite. Take the pressure off yourself by setting a goal of writing just one 400-word essay a week. Doesn’t that sound MUCH easier? Bonus points: Long posts lose readers any way.
4) Set sacred blog time. How long will it take you to write that one short essay? Probably an hour? Give yourself the gift of one quiet, undisturbed, productive hour each week to write.
5) Write lots of headlines. It takes time to come up with ideas so write them down right when they come to you. Inspirations for blog topics are everywhere. When I see an interesting tweet or news article that could be a post subject, I go into WordPress and quickly write the headline for the essay. That way, when it comes time for my quiet hour, I have a whole list of essay topics to choose from.
6) Stop second-guessing. Go back to your essay a day or so before you intend to publish it. Proof it. Tighten it up. And after 15 minutes, stop! You can waste far too much time re-writing and second-guessing yourself.
7) You don’t have to be profound. Here’s a recent post from my friend Danny Brown. He saw something interesting — a video demo of the electronic magazine of the future. He simply pasted the YouTube link into his blog, wrote a brief comment, and voila — c’est le post. This was a fun, interesting article. He did good work. How long did it take him to write it? Probably 10 minutes.
8) Listen to yourself. A lot of people tell me that my blog posts reflect questions and concerns they have but have never articulated. Why not? When you have a thought, idea or rant — write it out at that very moment when it is fresh and you are full of passion. This is the most efficient way to write and it almost always results in a great post.
9) Leave the technical stuff to a technical person. Don’t spend your precious time trying to figure out why your blog widgets are haywire. Pay an expert to figure it out, even if you like that technical stuff … especially if you like that stuff!
10) Try a video blog. I haven’t worked this area myself yet, but if you’re naturally eloquent, it might be a lot quicker for you than writing out a post. Best practice: Jason Falls.
11) Turn your comment into a post. You probably contribute comments to other blogs. Why not re-use the time it took to write that comment? Copy your comment and use it as the seed for an original post. Look at the comment section today. How many of these ideas could become a stand-alone article?
12) If you run out of ideas, see number 6. Repeat as needed. Seriously though, Google “ideas for blogs.” There are lots of lists of thought-joggers out there. If you are having trouble blogging, write about it. Seems like that would be the best cure.
I hope that gives you a practical framework to have some blogging success, even when time is tight. What other time-saving tricks can you recommend?
Other posts that might help:
Ten ideas for the beginning blogger
Can you out-source authenticity? (Great comment section!)
Successful business blogging in just one step
Blogging is the ultimate team sport
How to be a ghost blogger
It worked for Zappos. It probably won’t work for you.
Jan 24th
Zappos* is a successful company with a well-publicized, aggressive employee use of social media. In fact, it may be the most famous social media model in all of blogdom. They have 13 blogs, 50,000 videos and their employees tweet like rabbits in heat. It’s worked for them and it’s a wonderful case study. I get it. But it’s probably the wrong model for most companies.
And here’s the point where the waves of Zappo-sniffing social media purists come crashing down on me. So be it. This is dangerous stuff.
It is relatively safe to blog and tweet about shoes. But in many companies, the risk of an all-employee social media free love policy will far outweigh the benefits. For many important companies all it will take is one Twitter-induced SEC violation, a leak of vital competitive information, or a national defense breach, and the hammer will come down on the use of social media forever. Policies are usually made to deal with the lowest common denominator.
Is this a leadership issue? Not necessarily. There are irresponsible people everywhere. There are disgruntled employees even in the best-managed companies. Where corruption can occur it will occur. Welcome to the human race.
So what’s the answer?
Under the following conditions, the Zappos model might be ideal:
- Company culture supports employee engagement
- Company leadership understands the model
- Customer base is active on the social web in a meaningful way
- Benefits outweigh risk of security breach
If just one of these conditions are not met, the free love policy cannot work.
That’s not to say that social media won’t work in some form with almost any company if there is appropriate training, role clarity, effective policy and boundaries. But you have to fit the tactics to the strategy — and the culture — just like any initiative.
A marketing leader has to make effective decisions based on what IS, not on what you WISH for. You can’t “will” a social media effort to work in your company just because it worked in the Zappos corporate culture.
For an excellent and thorough perspective on the need for effective and appropriate corporate social media policies, I recommend Kent Huffman’s recent post on the subject.
OK, your turn. Let ‘er rip!
*If you are unfamiliar with the Zappos social media model, Jeff Bullas has written wonderful case studies on this company:
8,000 Twitter followers. Now what?
Jan 20th
Something amazing has happened. I have nearly 8,000 Twitter followers in eight months. How does somebody maintain a meaningful presence on Twitter with a crowd like that? I’m a work in progress, but here’s what’s going on with me. Maybe it will help you too!
First, after I block out the creeps, I consider it an honor to have somebody follow me. Sure, they still might be trying to spam me, but my underlying assumption is that a new follower has genuine interest in me and I generally follow them back. I want to treat anybody who follows me with respect. My intent is to connect with you if you sincerely want to connect with me.
The wave of noise
Obviously there is no way to have a meaningful dialogue with 8,000 — or even 1,000 — people. It is a wave of noise. As my followers grew, I realized that I was simply not going to be “engaged” with most of them.
The compromise is, I try to stay engaged in a meaningful way with anybody who makes an attempt to connect with me through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or (gasp) the real world. I manage this through Seesmic (or Tweetdeck, take your pick). I have segregated lists of people who connect with me and I try to watch their activity and support them as much as possible. If you make an effort to engage with me, I’ll put you on one of these lists so I can hopefully get to know you and engage. I truly want to help and support people in my audience any way I can, whether it is tweeting, reading your blog, or having a chat about a problem.
Everybody’s equal
In my Twitter World, even though you may be one out of 8,000, everybody has an equal chance at dialogue. I generally follow back — now it’s up to you! I also make an attempt to engage in some way with new followers, especially if I see something in their profile that indicates a common interest. In general, if people connect to me, we stay connected.
I also maintain a Seesmic list of the folks I consider to be thought-leaders from a wide range of disciplines. Learning from these great thinkers and having access to them is one of the best benefits of Twitter, in my opinion.
I have not used public Twitter lists for two reasons. First, I don’t see an advantage over the lists I’ve already built on Seesmic. Second, I don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings. If I had a list of “B2B thought leaders” and one of my followers wasn’t on it, it could hurt their feelings. As I said, bottom line this is about respecting people. I know there is a real person behind that little picture and you are amazing in your own way.
What’s next?
This strategy seems to be working for the time being. Can I maintain relevance with an audience of 10,000 or 20,000? I’m sure I’ll have to adjust and I’ll probably have a new post to write you at that point!
In the mean time, I would appreciate your feedback. What issues do you face with your growing list of followers? What ideas do you have that can help me do a better job staying connected with you?
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You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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