Posts tagged blog community building
Big blog posts that made a difference
Dec 29th
I’m frequently asked by new readers if there is some way to catch up with the best content on my blog. Well, hopefully it’s ALL good to somebody, but each year I look back and review the blog posts that seemed to make the biggest impact. Let’s start with the blog posts that you loved. Based on page views alone, here are the most popular posts of 2012:
Top 2012 posts by page views:
10. The Six Elements of Human Behavior that Drive Social Media — A fascinating look at the basics behind the phenomenon.
9. Florida State University Using Klout Scores to Determine Student Grades — This piece by Professor Todd Bacile ignited beyond the social web, drawing commentary in the traditional media and educator conferences.
8. Six Ways to Create Great Content in Just 15 Minutes a Day — We’re all starved for time. This post shows you how to get a little more of your day.
7. This is why you must use Twitter — In this post I show how Twitter can change your life.
6. 35 Experts weigh-in: How to create influence on Facebook — Great insights with a little help from my friends.
5. Three Careers That will Dominate Social Media (And it’s not What You Think) — I stepped out on a limb with this post but most people seemed to agree with my projections.
4. Pinterest Drives Enormous Blog and Business and Success — This was one of the first Pinterest business case studies on the web.
3. Why Facebook Will Be the Most Dangerous Company on Earth — I speculated why the Facebook IPO would signal disturbing changes at the world’s most popular social networking site.
2. Why Google+ Needs to be Jay-Z– A cool headline and a success recipe for Google+ rang true with {grow} readers.
1) 20 of the World’s Wittiest Twitter Bios — Humor works! I’ve created four posts in this popular series, with another one on the way soon!
15 Posts that moved the conversation
Here are posts that I’m proud of because I think they moved the conversation forward in the last year. They may not have been the most popular, but each one took a risk:
15. The Social Media Measurement Smackdown — It was time for a rant and the comment section blew up!
14. This is Why You’re Not Seth Godin — Sometimes roles models are not the ones to emulate.
13. The Profound Power of Five Blog Readers — Short but powerful testimony for tenacity!
12. Wisdom from the Most Influential PR Professional of the Century — I got to meet Harold Burson. ‘Nuff said.
11. 7 Reasons Every Job-Seeker Needs to Blog– I send this post out to some young person at least once a week. I hope it has helped!
10. Five ways the Mobile Revolution Impacts Your Blog — A new way of looking at mobile and it’s not all positive.
9. Social Proof and Your Battle for Credibility — Exploring one of the most controversial issues on the social web today.
8. The Business Case for Buying Facebook Likes — It’s icky, but let’s talk about it.
7. Six Factors that turn social media strategy into results – This post seemed to help a lot of people.
6. We are All Standing on Digital Quicksand – I love bringing tech-humanity issues together. Great discussion on this post.
5. Why Social Media Strategy Should NOT start with a drive for Facebook Fans – Injecting common sense through the hype!
4. Three amazing ways social media will change the world — A post filled with hope.
3. How the physics of social media could kill your marketing strategy — A simple but important lesson about what we’re up against.
2. Your 2013 Social Media Strategy: Grow a Pair – One of my riskier posts but it seemed to strike a chord with readers.
1. Is there anything new in blogging? No. — This post ignited a firestorm of commentary, counter-commentary and alternate posts.
Funniest posts:
Humor is a big part of {grow}. Here are a few that made people laugh!
5. What Proctology Exams Teach Us Aabout Social Media — A genius post by Chris Reimer that pokes fun at a social media trend.
4. Punterest. Kind of Like Pins Only Funnier — A totally whacked-out post!
3. 210 Seconds of Fame – I was on National television. A lesson in pure terror.
2. The Secret History of Pinterest — Revealed! – A tongue-in-cheek-post poking fun at the “visualization” of social media!
1. The World’s First Social Media Sniglets – There’s a first for everything. An assist by Kerry Gorgone for the funniest graphic ever!
Five favorite Guest Posts of 2012
I encourage guest posts from community members and we had posts from nearly 50 different perspectives this year. Here are five that really stood out to me:
Social Media Levels the Playing Field — One of the best things of 2012 was meeting Anne Reuss and this was my first guest post done in American Sign Language. It was also my most-viewed video blog of 2012.
Straight Talk on Social Media Gurus — Stanford Smith rocks. He just does. Stan has been a regular contributor and had so many great posts this year.
Social Media Good Samaritan Donates Tweets to Save Business — I wish this post by Pavel Konoplenko would have gone viral because it is such a sweet story depicting social media at its best.
Is There a Formula for Going Viral? — Srini Rao has been effectively riffing on this theme all year: Cutting through the clutter in a human and authentic way. This was one of his best efforts.
Four ways to be a spell-binding online personality — Mars Dorian rocked {grow} with his provocative writing and mind-bending art. Don’t miss this example of Mars at his best.
The post that had the biggest IMPACT
The kid who wanted a door for Christmas — It didn’t have the most shares, page views, or comments, but it did show the {grow} community at its best because it raised nearly $6,000 for a great cause and touched a lot of hearts.
The {growtoon} Nation
And we couldn’t end the year without a nod to the {growtoon}-ists! Didn’t they do a GREAT JOB in 2012? A great reason to look forward to Fridays. Selecting my favorite {growtoon} was VERY difficult. They all still make me chuckle. But this one by the hilarious Joey Strawn made me laugh out loud and represents a lot of clients I think! 
Well, after nearly 300 blog posts, 10,000 comments and a ton of fun, that wraps up the highlights for 2012. Thank you very much for reading and sharing my blog. I never take you for granted!
The Paradox of Social Media Popularity
Dec 20th
By Srinivas Rao, Contributing {grow} Columnist
The paradox of popularity is that it can create a paralysis that inhibits you from creating the work that made you popular in the first place!
The fear of how people will respond to you can start to creep into your work until it becomes so watered down that you become part of the echo chamber. In some ways, isn’t it liberating to be an early stage blogger with few readers? For those of you trying to build an audience I know that might sound ridiculous. But you’re free to say anything. You’re not necessarily biased by how the audience will respond. That is a powerful place to create from if you’re willing to embrace it.
Are you addicted to the glow?
As your blog grows in popularity, it’s not uncommon to become addicted to the glow of audience response. Pretty soon, you start to approach every piece of content with the question “What will they think?”
If you create something they love, you feel good, and you want to get that feeling again. I usually dread it when one of my posts does well here at Mark’s blog because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to replicate that glow.
If you create something they hate, and it upsets a few of your readers, you start to hold back and quit taking risks. At the same time, you begin to avoid the risk of creating something remarkable.
Don’t Try to Replicate Success
Every single time I’ve written something with the intention of making it as good as a post that went viral or was a big hit with my readers, it falls flat! That’s simply because it’s not authentic. I’m trying to apply a formula to authenticity.
Don’t forget that just because it’s words on a screen, people can’t feel what’s coming across. If you’re trying to replicate the previous positive response from an audience, you’re doomed before you start. At best you’ll create a pale imitation of your best work. It’s what I think of as the sequel syndrome. Most movie sequels are terrible. Remember the Karate Kid?
Try What’s Never Been Tried
We all know that “lists” posts seem to get shared a lot. It’s also the reason every single time I submit one Mark sends it back to me without his stamp of approval. He forces us to try what’s never been tried. To accomplish what’s never been done, you must try what’s never been tried. Look at the so called “best practices” adapt and break a few rules. It will change your work.
The reaction isn’t yours; it belongs to them. The art is yours - Seth Godin
What do YOU think?
Srinivas Rao writes about the things you should have learned in school, but never did and his the host-co founder of BlogcastFM. You can follow him on twitter @skooloflife
5 Essential tools to attract a relevant audience to your blog
Dec 4th
By Ian Cleary, {grow} Contributing Columnist
It is not difficult to drive traffic to your site but what’s the point if visitors don’t stay around and read your blog post, sign up to your email list or buy your product or service?
We’re all familiar with the following saying:
“Traffic is Vanity, Conversion is Sanity!”
Well, maybe you’re not familiar with that saying because I just made it up. But it does make sense!
Let’s look at five great social media tools to ensure you attract a relevant audience to your blog posts.
1. Tweet at the Optimal Times using SocialBro
The people that follow you on Twitter are some of the most likely targets for your blog post but you need to have a strategy for reaching them. One part of this is timing the delivery of your posts to try and get the attention of the majority of your followers.
SocialBro is a social media management tool. One key feature is that it works out when your followers are online. This is not going to be 100% accurate but gives you a good idea of the best times to tweet.
At 8am only 31% of my followers are actively tweeting but over 77% are active at 3pm in the afternoon.
I’m based in Europe but focus on the US so it makes sense that more of my followers are online in my afternoon which is the morning in the US. It also makes sense to tweet at 8am and at 3pm because I want to attract the attention of my European followers also.
Action: Consider SocialBro or similar tools to work out the best time to tweet
2. Target People Who Know You Using Google Author
When you are searching through Google for content you often see the authors picture displayed in the search results:
The person in the picture is Amy Porterfield. As I know Amy and value her as an expert in her field I am more likely to click on this post in the search results.
Getting your picture displayed as part of the search results is called Google Author and can help to not only get people to read your post, but it also helps readers to connect and become more familiar with you so that they will recognize your posts immediately going forward.
Action: Set up Google Author. Follow this link to read step-by-step instructions on setting this up How to setup Google Author Rich Snippets
3. Promote Your Post Using WiseStamp
Most of the people you are emailing on a daily basis are potential subscribers to your blog. Encourage them to read your latest blog post by including a link to your latest post in every e-mail you send.
Action: Add your latest blog post to your signature using Wisestamp or similar tool.
4. Encourage Your Readers to Share
By attracting a relevant audience it is more likely that their network would also be a relevant audience. Encourage your readers to share out your content to their followers.
I use the WordPress plugin DiggDigg The reason I like it is that when readers are scrolling down through the blog post it automatically moves with the reader so there’s always the option to share at any point.
Action: Make sure that you actively promote the option for social sharing. It’s not enough just having it at the very top of a post. How else can you encourage people to share?
5. Find Relevant Keywords Using Google Keyword Tool
One of the most important elements of optimizing your blog post for Google is the Title Tag. This is not visible on the page but it’s something that Google reads when it is figuring out how to index your content.
If a librarian thinks a history book belongs in the Geography section then how will the historians have a chance of finding it!
So help Google index your content correctly by doing some keyword research using Google Keyword Tool and ensure you give Google sufficient clues regarding what your content is about.
The following shows a search for ‘social media strategy’. In the Global monthly searches column Google shows you the average searches per month over the last 12 months. It also shows a list of similar keywords with the number of monthly searches.
Google also looks for a description which is not used for indexing but is displayed in search results. It’s also very important to include the correct description to ensure you are only attracting people that are relevant.
Action: Perform keyword research for every post and ensure you have the option for configuring the page title as part of your content management system.
Summary
We get caught up too much with numbers. How many visitors you have, how many fans on Facebook, how many Twitter followers? But it’s not all about volume. How many relevant followers to you have? How many relevant readers are you interacting with?
What are your tips and tools for attracting a relevant audience? We would really love to hear your thoughts.
Ian Cleary is a Social Media Tools Specialist. He is the founder of Razorsocial, a website that provides sharp insights on social media tools. Follow Ian on twitter @ianmcleary
Illustration courtesy BigStock.com
Why it pays to be a patient blogger
Nov 29th
I have a “healthy impatience.” Most successful business people do. But that is not necessarily an ideal quality to have as a beginning blogger!
Blogging success does not arrive at your doorstep wrapped up in a pretty bow. You have to work hard and have A LOT of patience.
- Last month, I had more page views than in my entire first year of blogging. A lot more.
- Ari Herzog recently left the 25,000th comment on my blog. After my first year, I had less than 100. And most of them were mine : )
- Uber blogger Chris Brogan famously said that it took him three years to attract his first 100 blog subscribers.
The point is, the overnight success thing worked for Justin Bieber, but it probably won’t work for you and your blog,
You. Must. Be. Patient.
Focus on creating the best possible content. Insanely great content.
When you get a reader, love them like crazy.
Help others, Support other new bloggers.
Take risks. Try it and see what happens.
Handle criticism with grace. It’s a sign of success. A reason to smile, in fact.
Be yourself. Really yourself. That’s your competitive advantage.
Be consistent. Just keep writing.
Have the courage to hit that publish button, even when you know it’s not perfect.
And yes … be patient. It will happen. It will happen. It will happen.
Welcome to {grow}
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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