Thanks, mrbubble.comTired of hearing social media experts talk to other social media experts about social media?
I’ll admit it – I can’t stand the echo chamber. It’s mind-numbing of late – signal-to-noise ratio is really tilted toward blowhards talking a good ballgame.
There’s a better way. Actually, here’s a 4-step program. 1/3 the steps of a 12-step program. Go!
1. Ignore “Influence.”
That’s right – don’t give a hoot about whether someone has a Clout-a-riffic score of 8000 degrees Kelvin, or whether they are a best-selling author of self-help books for descendants of Vikings.
This means that you should interact with people on the social channels – Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, VikingDate.com – with one question in mind:
Is this person interesting?
2. Exit the Bubble.
Everyone reads blogs about social media. Everyone blogs about social media. Social media blogs exist so people who blog about social media can be read by everyone who blogs about social media.
Does this make you want to scream?
Don’t get us wrong – there are dozens of GOOD social media blogs out there. But once you start getting out of the bubble, you discover that there are actually people who are writing about stuff that you might be interested in.
Exit. The. Bubble.
3. Have a POINT – and only visit blogs that have one.
Our point behind blogging is simple: thought leadership and positioning of our firm – StraterEdge Consulting – as people who know what we’re talking about when it comes to Sales Velocity and Marketing Effectiveness.
When you visit a blog that says “Random musings” or “Ramblings” or “One twenty-something’s journey toward” something…this is likely a blog without a point.
4. Don’t Believe the Hype.
Everyone. Is. Awesome!
If you visit enough blogs it will appear that the same 15 people seem to comment on the same 15 blogs and then they cross-pollinate on each other’s blogs and it becomes a circumlocution of awesomeness.
You can do one of two things: hang out and try to crack the code, or realize that the Awesomeness Cliques will always be there, social media is like high school, and it’s time to move on.
There’s a world OUTSIDE of the Social Media Bubble. Go find it.
A Road Sign with 23 on It.This is not a list of the top blogs on the planet. Rather, this is a list of 23 blogs that I like to visit from time to time. Scroll to the bottom to see how to get yours added.
*THESE are in NO PARTICULAR ORDER.
1. SocialMouths. Francisco has the goods. Follow his tutorial on creating a Facebook Fan Page with iFrames.
2. V3. Shelly has become a friend of mine thanks to her ability to share smart things.
3. Marian Librarian. Wise beyond her years and gets social. Actionable advice. Very direct.
11. Social Media DDS. Note: if you get your niche and do the social media thing, share your advice. See Claudia.
12. 12 Minute Marketing. Yes. That’s a service of Area 224. Yes. Big things are in store.
We’re halfway through. Reminder, these are blogs that we visit semi-regularly at Area 224 HQ. At the bottom, instructions on how to get yours (potentially) added to this list.
13. Escaping Mediocrity. Sarah’s gutsy enough to end all of her emails with “Love you.”
14. NittyGriddy. Ingrid is pretty smart and savvy.
15. Develop Socially. Great one-two punch of Justin and Samantha.
16. {grow}. Mark’s blog isn’t just smart because it’s usually the first one alphabetically in anyone’s blogroll. Do visit it.
17. 678 Partners. Parissa is 1/2 of the team, we like companies that have numbers in them. Plus she says smart things.
18. Church Relevance. Visit this one if you want to see how churches are connecting using new media.
19. Awaken Your Superhero. I have gone on record saying that Christopher Penn needs to write a book.
We Love Numbers. So Here are Three Steps to Guaranteed Web Visitors*.
*your experience may vary.
We’re semi-reflective today, thanks to Google Analytics. We’re looking at what drove you, the visitor, to our site and what kept you, the visitor, at our site.
Before we do that, though, let us thank you, the visitor, for (1) visiting and (2) coming back.
We know that some of you are in the midst of your own blogging journey. Or you’re building your business a brick at a time. Or you’re trying to make sense of where you’re taking things (personally or professionally). Glad we can help, even if it’s just for an average of 1 minute and 37 seconds per trip.
Behold, the dangers of Google Analytics.
Look at the time spent!
4 Minutes and 20 seconds per visit on St. Patrick’s Day?
Was it the Greening O’ The Site?
Did we hire one hour of a Filipino Developer’s time to just read our site?
This leads to the Question of the Day:
How do you guarantee that people visit your site AND stick around?
Some thoughts, culled from analyzing traffic the day before AND the day of our 4:20 average visit.
1. Explain Stuff.
On March 16, we explained Internet Marketing. Turned out to be a well-tweeted post. Wasn’t too controversial – at least using number of comments as a gauge. (Just 2.)
But it brought new people to the site AND it led to RSS subscriptions and repeat visits. Setting us up for the following day:
2. Have a Point of View.
We love this. In fact, corporate blogs and corporate bloggers are deathly afraid of this – so, when folks like our new BFF Anne Buchanan posted that some people will never get hired by her firm, it struck a chord.
It was also right in line with the chord we like to strike – make yourself stand out, have common sense, be unique, don’t act like a goober.
Soapbox time: WordPress is the only way to go. Self-hosted is preferred. Get a good theme – we use Thesis (AFFILIATE LINK HERE: Thesis Theme for WordPress: Options Galore and a Helpful Support Community.)
BUT, beyond that, fine feathered friends…
We bumped into two plugins that have done wonders, the Analytics say, for keeping you “engaged.”
To celebrate that awesome thing up there called the “Hellobar,” we’ve got a few invites to hand out.
First, background. The little bar at the top of this page, above the “Header” where you see “Area 224,” my name and my 40-year old face, is called the “Hellobar.”
Web friend Mike Stenger has been using it for awhile, and he said he had an invite he could score for me.
So we got it up and running with very little effort; and there’s even a WordPress Plugin!
#geek
When we found out that these same Digital Telepathy guys and gals worked with Tim Ferriss, that sealed the deal. (See shining examples on the 4-Hour Body Web Page.)
Dear Reader/Business Person/Web Site Owner: Want One?
Since it’s an invite-only Beta, you kinda have to know somebody to get one (thanks, Mike), or you have to be in the right place at the right time.
Between Today and Monday, March 14, we’re going to hand out 10 (TEN) Beta Invites to get your very own, 100% free, Hellobar. All you need to do is “Like” us and write on our wall sometime between today and Monday. We’ll pick two people per day, semi-randomly.
We take a page out of the “Perfect is Good, Done is Better” department for today’s missive.
This is, after all, the Year of Content. (3rd Anniversary Edition.) We get questions here at HQ at least once a month along these lines:
How can you crank out so many blog posts?
Don’t you have a real job?
How do you write so good?
And all three are tied in together in the subject of this here blog post. We’ve seen our traffic shoot up, we’ve seen business come our way (and we’ve turned some down) and we do think we have a writing style that is, well, good. Some tips – for what they’re worth. If this doesn’t motivate you, not sure what will.
(Actually, an open source photo of kittens will. Aren’t they cute?)
Thanks, Jarrod Lombardo
1. Have a Theme.
Nearly all of what we talk about here weaves in a couple different concepts: Entrepreneurship, Social Media, Startups, Communication, Marketing. We choose, usually, a couple of the concepts and weave them together. And we hustle to get them out the door in the a.m.
We’re also not afraid to revisit the old stuff. Something that happened a month ago, or five years ago. A post from last year that got people riled up.
Note that we’re not going to all of a sudden start writing about how cute kittens are unless we can tie that back to something we’ve noticed going on in the business world. But, that may work for you, your audience, or the audience you someday want to reach.
2. Make Writing PART OF your job description.
I am more likely to see your stuff if you actually put it out there. In order for you to actually put it out there, you need to make time to do it.
If blogging is a hobby, then it’s likely to fall down on the priority list, replaced by real work.
If blogging – writing – is part of your job description, you have gone from someone who likes to write to someone whose writing is a legitimate business development activity.
Make the time. Write.
For us, we schedule time first thing each morning. AND, when the mood strikes, or when an idea hits us like a ton of bricks, we queue up something for the files – maybe we’ll run it later, maybe we’ll see if there’s another outlet that would like to run it. Maybe it never sees the light of day.
But we write. And it leads to business.
3. Grammar and Spelling are Important, But.
In our haste to get posts out the door, we will sometimes neglect to spell check, or we’ll throw the wrong word in at the place wrong.
Back when I was running PR for a Fortune 500 company, the dreaded wordo or typo used to cause me sleepless nights. But, if you’re gonna live in the world we’re in right now, you’ve got to let go.
“It’s” and “its” drive me crazy. But it’s because I have internalized the difference, much like the 5-handicap golfer has internalized the rule about unplayable lies. This is great if you’re playing in a tournament, or if you want to impress your buddies at the Sunday Morning Tee Time.
Most of us, though, just want to go out there, hit the ball around, maybe wait for the beer cart girl to arrive, and have that one good shot per round that will get us back on the course.
Think of writing, blogging, and social media “stuff” in the same category. Doing a proposal that could get your company the next big contract? By all means, attack that with the red pen, get many readers looking at it, run it through the spell check.
Doing a blog post that needs to get out the door by 8:30? Go with the flow, even if there’s a chance of error.
4. We don’t have all the answers.
We check out other blogs, ones that always amaze us with their ability to amaze.
Two that are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT are these: Danny Brown and Redhead Writing. They succeed every time out in grabbing attention, telling a story, and changing how we think.
So, Gentle Readers, ready to crank your writing up to the next level?
First, background. The little bar at the top of this page, above the “Header” where you see “Area 224,” my name and my 40-year old face, is called the “
