I love keeping my eye on my Twitter stream.  It always amazes me to see the comments, discussions, quotes, and stories that quickly scroll down my Tweetdeck screen.  This morning, one in particular grabbed my attention. It was talking about how the Medical University of South Carolina had created a “social media newsroom” to share insightful and educational information to “the community.”

How amazing it is to finally have a case study

Over the past few months there have been numerous conferences and events around the high-level concepts of using social media.  A new “social media guru” pops up on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media networks almost every 10 minutes claiming that if you listen to them, you will be making “big bucks with 1 hour of work.”  Most of these individuals and talks at events seem to be regurgitating the same information in terms of trust, being authentic, having authority, and other high-level concepts. Many do not actually get into the details of presenting actionable steps and strategies on how to actually leverage social media in your organization.

While I am NOT saying that this high-level information isn’t needed or important and I do surely agree it is powerful, I just believe we’ve finally gotten to the point where we’ve beaten that “dead horse” and it’s time to move on to showing how it’s all done.  To reinforce that thought, there are numerous posts by other employed professionals, business owners, and even college students who are also asking for real-world case studies on how organizations are leveraging social media to create a positive impact on their business (whether financially or otherwise.) Unfortunately, not too many examples have been presented.  Even the cool, hip marketing firms that are usually “on top of the buzz” have not really come out to share how they use it to grow their business.  We’re all being held in limbo holding our breathe!

Side note: If you have heard of any, please share in the comments… it just means I’m not connected to the right people or attending the right events to hear about them! I do not claim to be a social media expert even though I operate a strategic marketing firm.  I just want to be taught like the rest of us!

The school that got “hip” on social media

Then there’s the Medical University of South Carolina’s new “social media newsroom.”  Yes that’s right, a freakin’ school has come up with what I think is a brilliant strategy for leveraging social media to provide insightful and educational medical information to the masses.  On top of that, the WAY in which they provide this information (through social media tools) was purposefully used to get individuals such as myself – who love to update my LinkedIn crew, share information on Facebook, post about topics on my blog, and retweet links on Twitter – to become the pathway that delivers their information to the masses. Ingenious!

Is this what those social media experts have talked about all along? Sure.

Did we have an example other than the followings around the social media experts themselves to see how it was actually done? Not really, but now we do!

Here’s a few things they’re doing with social media:

1. Posting a photostream on Flickr about events, individual patient stories, and doctors making a difference
2. Posting informative and educational videos on YouTube and on their site on topics such as swine flu, sports injury prevention, stroke, and hearing loss.
3. Maintaining a blog that informs and educates readers on advancements in technology, tests, treatments, and amazing medical stories.
4. And to top it all off, a Twitter stream that feeds links to this information out to their around 2,000 followers who keep it flowing to the rest of Twitterville.

Now that’s amazing to me!  To see an organization such as this take on such an effort and do it well thus far, in my humble opinion, should be a testament to any business or organization that the use of social media (with an effective and planned strategy, a.k.a. “the missing link of leveraging social media”) can successfully impact your business in a positive manner.

See, there is something worthwhile you can learn from school and they’re not all as outdated as many claim, at least not in South Carolina.

Read the original press release about the Social Media Newsroom at the Medical University of South Carolina here.

That’s one case study in the books, any more?

So, do you know of any organization that is creatively leveraging social media?

Share them with us in the comments below!

Many of you men (and/or women!) may not agree with me, but I absolutely love to mow my lawn. It is something that I look forward to every week and almost can’t wait when the time arrives where my grass has grown to the point it needs a quick snip of the tip. I know that’s strange. I know we work hard during the week and all we want to do when the weekend rolls around is to find something relaxing like scratch our bellies and watch football (in this case, I may not be referring to you women!) We look for almost anything that DOESN’T require work.

So why do I love it so much? Because it has become my “thinking place!”

My Business in 360 Degrees While Riding Around My Lawn

When I jump on my lawn tractor, grab my iPod, start it up, and get going the world becomes a place I am completely separated from.   Now maybe it only works because I have a lawn tractor as opposed to a push mower that requires extra effort, but I essentially turn off the rest of the world and get lost in my thoughts and my music.

What ends up happening during this time is the part that I find the most amazing.  It’s when I am sitting there on my tractor riding around my lawn that I do some of my best thinking for my business.  I mean, I know my lawn. I’ve mowed it many times. So when I’m riding around for like the hundredth or so time, my body just naturally seems to know when to turn, stop, back-up, and go forward.  Therefore, my mind seems completely free to think about whatever it wants to!

Being a business owner, my mind quickly jumps to my business and whatever opportunities or growth ideas I’ve had on my mind.  I think and think and think and plan and plan and plan in my head and I can promise you, by the end of EACH time I mow, I’ve got something new figured out. I’ve got something new up my sleeve to try. I’ve got something new that could bring about some great change and results in my business. It sometimes just keeps me in awe how much I can come up with in 40 minutes while “figure-eighting” my way to the end of my lawn.

After doing this for almost 2 years (since I’ve owned a yard to actually mow) you know what I realized?  I’ve always needed to find my “thinking place” so that I could strategically plan and lay out the growth path of my business.  This time, this place has brought about some great things for mPower Consulting and I’ve come to get excited about that time because I’ve learned how to make my business the core focus while I’m there.

So, if it works for me, it can work for you!

I’m not suggesting that you all jump on your mowers and get to thinking strategically. What I’m suggesting is that you determine where you do your best thinking in regards to your business and then purposefully allocate time to be in those places to think strategically about how to take your business to the next level.  Trust me, you’ll be surprised by your results!

Here’s my top 5 tips for finding your “thinking place”:

1.It should be a task or place where there are no distractions, none, notta, zilch, nothing!
2.It should be a task or a place where if you are doing something, it requires little thought or effort (but keeps your body busy since if you’re like me, you can’t sit still!)
3.It should be a place where there is no opportunity to write down your thoughts. Now this is strange I know, BUT if you are writing down your thoughts, you are not opening your mind to flow freely because you’re too busy trying to write down the last thought. SO, this takes practice to remember what you thought, but allows you to follow thoughts to the end without interruption getting a clearer and more complete thought!
4.It is NOT in your home office, work office, or anywhere else you normally conduct business!
5.I recommend that it be somewhere outdoors. Why? Because how can you think “out of the box” if you’re inside a room… which essentially IS “in a box?”  Get out, breathe fresh air, change your scenery and open your mind up to the possibilities!

So, are there any other business owners or professionals that already have their “thinking place?”

If so, where is it or what do you do to get into that place?

*Photo credit to Brenda Anderson

This has been one crazy year has it not?  With the economy in the bottom of the barrel, people losing jobs left and right and consumer confidence and spending down, us business owners have had one heck of a volatile year to get through (and it may not even be over this year!)  We used to be able to project our next quarter now we can’t even seem to project next week!  All it takes is more sounding of the “recession is still upon us” horn and things get even tighter. It may be sad but guess what; you may be only making it worse!

How you could you possibly be making it any worse you ask?

Well, let me ask one question to you as a fellow business owner: Have you been reacting hastily and panicky to the whole situation or have you taken this as a time when you should completely step back and find out if and how your business has changed?

Before you answer, let me tell you, it’s likely that it has changed… dramatically! On top of that, every time you desperately make a quick move to try and keep your little world in perfect utopia, you kill another little piece of your business.  How do I know this?  Hey, we’re not all perfect you know!

Now is the time to stop the merciless killing and get smart about how we manage our businesses moving forward! But first we need to learn how we’re killing our business.

Three Reasons You’re Killing Your Business

When I meet business owners at different events or sit with them as new prospects, I can quickly tell who are the ones who have a grasp on what this economic meltdown has done to their businesses and those that think their world will get back to normal if they can just “hang in there.”  Here’s the issue with that thought, the world has just about completely changed and each time you try something to get things “back to normal” (which no longer exists) you’re just opening up a new wound in your business to bleed your lifeblood… cash.

The three common culprits:

1. You are hastily making decisions about cutting prices using elaborate promotional schemes that cut into margins while not giving any focus to how that will affect the business in a long-term view.I call this the “well, we gotta get something out of our customers” syndrome. Stop it! You’re bleeding yourself dry!
2. Rather than reviewing the business as a whole and finding the fat around the operational processes and supply chain, you instead quickly apply cuts in terms of employees, marketing budgets, customer service operations and even to the extremes of cutting your operating hours (yes, like “not working” is going to help you grow and survive at all?!)This isn’t just cutting a hole to bleed business out of this is actually chopping off limbs that are key to providing your value! Why would you destroy the strongest assets of your business? There may be fat on them, but they are what deliver your value!
3. You look at the world around you with an “end of our world” perspective that you’re trying to prevent from happening as opposed to a “we have a whole new world of opportunity” perspective that helps you identify how to leverage opportunities in this new economy to that may only require minimal changes to how you currently operate.

So what am I saying in all of this?  If you cut your margins, cut your available resources to barebone levels or have a doom `n gloom mentality then it is likely you are a few months away from the doors slamming shut on you, permanently.

Stop Panicking and Start Thinking Straight

Now is not the time to cry “It’s the end of the world!” Now is the time to realize there is a whole new world of opportunities out there for you to identify and grab a hold of to continue growing your business.  What that requires is for you to NOT PANIC and make rash moves, but to step back to look at the whole picture and think strategically about each step.  We need to remember that every day is “Game Day” as business owner Monica Tate-Maile says in her post for Harvard Publishing titled “For Entrepreneurs: Every Day is Game Day.” Read it, get focused.

So, first off, if you are the panicky business owner: STOP… and breath, count to ten, do some yoga or whatever else lowers your blood pressure.  Now, let’s give ourselves a few actions we can perform and a few things to focus on to help us identify what has changed, what needs to change, where the opportunities are and how we can go after them.

Five actions to take to start thinking straight about your business:

1. Get away from the business with your management team (or with your family if it is just you) and focus on life.
   1. The key here is to relax and not talk about business.  It is to enjoy your time together to strengthen your relationship, which in turn strengthens your ability to work as a team, your ability to listen and be honest with one another and your ability to trust one another with the changes to come.
2. Schedule a “Our Changing World” meeting for your leadership team where you will take a look at the entire economy, not just your market, and point out what has changed
   1. Look at who the new consumer is (what makes them tick, what they want to know about businesses, what they expect from businesses, what makes them buy, how they like to buy, etc.)
   2. Look at your competition and see if and how they have changed or how they are reacting to the changes in the world around them. If you see growth in them, find out how to copy it and make it your own. If you see panic, use that to encourage your team to continuing pushing forward to overtake your industry adversaries.
   3. Look at other industries, whether complimentary or not, and see how they’ve changed and how they are reacting to the to the changes in the world around them
3. Do not look to find a market for your product, find a market that has a need/problem that you can make a product for.
   1. It may be a product you already have that you never thought of how it could help this market. This may require little changes in the product itself and just a new marketing campaign and message to redirect it to this qualified market.
   2. It may be a product you need to develop from scratch, but at least you have found a qualified market that has proven it has the money and will to buy.  This is a more drastic change, but drastic times call for drastic measures.  Can you make a product for them?  Why don’t you if your market has disappeared?
4. Redefine your messaging
   1. Listen, if the world is so dramatically different it’s a sure thing that your message no longer communicates the same value as it did before.  Start over. Again, listen to the market and find what they want first, not what you think you should now represent. Communicate how your product will fulfill their need.
5. Focus on the customer and not on sales
   1. Make every touch-point of your organization the best experience it can be for the customer, not for the business.
   2. Now is the time to beef up and improve the quality of your customer service operations to keep new customers satisfied and current customers loyal.

It’s a whole new world out there and us business owners have to be willing to realize that we may need to start over in order to survive and thrive.  Clearing out the panic and opening our minds to the new opportunities that may be all around us is the only way we’ll make it through another year of this mess. So start now before it’s too late!

So what about you?  How have you handled the change in the economic world of your business?

I had the privilege of attending an event yesterday that simply blew my mind. First off let me tell you that as a business owner, I hate answering the question “What do you do?” You know that one, the one you are always asked when attending networking meetings or anytime you’re face-to-face with a potential new connection. My answer always just seems so standard and impersonal and though I have an “elevator speech” (which I hate,) I find myself constantly trying to change how I answer the question to seem somewhat differentiated from everyone else in the room who is going to spew out their 30 seconds of “We do blah, blah, blah.”

Then I got to listen to my new friend Bill Whitley.  Bill is the author of the book “The Art of the Rainmaker” and is a successful serial entrepreneur three times over (literally… that many successful businesses!) Now Bill hates elevator speeches just as much as I do and what he did was to come up with a new concept for how to attract new business and new clients by engaging them initially as prospects with what he calls a “Customer Attraction Story.”

The basic definition I would give to this new concept: “It’s your elevator speech on steroids!”

We All Grew Up Listening to Stories

Now why would think that if the person in front of you barely wants to listen to your 30 second spiel about what you offer, that they would listen to you tell a whole freakin’ story?

Well, we want to be engaged don’t we? We would rather be entertained than simply spoken to right? The most followed bloggers on the web and the best professional speakers all tell stories don’t they?

Let’s face it, we just like stories!  We especially like stories about heroes who faced a challenge and overcame it to a “happily ever after ending.” Hercules, Achilles, Oedipus, Perseus & Andromeda anyone? (OK, so I’m partial to ancient Greek heroes… keep reading!)

The point is there is something engaging in stories that captivate our attention and make us focus on the characters, what they went through, and how the story ended. So if we are that captivated by stories and what you want when explaining what you do to others is that same level of attention, then why don’t we use stories to communicate what we can do and have done for our clients (our hero) to our prospects?

Start Pumping the Story-telling Juices

Bill’s concept behind this “Customer Attraction Story” focuses around the fact that instead of talking about “what you do” as a list of your products, services, and how you operate; you instead tell a story about one of your clients that faced a huge challenge, how you provided a brilliant solution to that problem, and what amazing results came from those actions.

Now doesn’t this make sense?

You are telling a prospect an engaging and detailed story about how someone just like them faced a challenge that could be very similar to their own and you show them how you did something that helped them overcome the situation to some form of a happy ending.

Do you see it now?

While your client (the hero) is the focus of the story, you are shown as what pushed them over the hurdle and that communicates your value clearly and effectively to your prospect. Then, it follows that up with stating how it made life so much better for the hero!  At the end story to potentially get the reaction you desire from your listener, all you have to do is say, “So what about you? Can you face that challenge?”

Let Bill Tell You Himself

Bill put together a great video explaining this concept in his own words. Check it out and get his book!  If you can, attend one of his interactive workshops. I promise it will help you turn your pitch into a powerful story that will start attracting new business!

Watch Bill’s Video »

Connect to Bill on LinkedIn »

Photo by Tomás Rotger

So I’ve been thinking about what the heck I want to do with this blog. Really I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do with this blog and I have found myself questioning why I started it in the first place?  Was it for me to talk about topics that interested me? Was it to share my expertise through writing impactful, intellectual articles on all things marketing? Was it for me to become the next “hot-shot blogger”? Why the heck did I start this thing?

Funny enough, I know a few people who have been asking themselves the same question about their own blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, and LinkedIn profiles.  It seems that whenever something is new and or innovative and it starts to hit mainstream, so many of us jump on the bandwagon without looking back, then find ourselves questioning why we did it to begin with and should we be doing it differently.

Now typically, this happens with those that aren’t considered “tech savvy” or understanding how these systems work and therefore have no real basis for how they should begin. My story may be slightly different.  I’ve been blogging on and off over the years, but nothing consistent enough to qualify myself as some sort of “guru” (which I HATE that word, but that’s another matter.)  I’ve also been in and around the technology industry my whole professional career – 10+ years – and was always in some type of marketing position.  So I’m typically what you’d call an “early adopter” and to pretty much everyone I know, I’m the “techie guy.” So, you would think that I know what I’m getting myself into and how to do it, right?

But here’s the thing: Just because you know about something (such as blogging) and how it should be utilized by others doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to apply it in your own situation.

Knowing How to Start but Forgetting Why We Do It

It seems that when we dive into something new in our professional lives and/or businesses, such as blogging, we all start with certain assumptions and a basic level of understanding.  We form goals and establish performance criteria for determining how we’re doing. I mean, this is business, right? I’m doing this for a reason, aren’t I? I want to make connections, build an audience, then make some money. So, don’t I need processes to provie how I’m doing?

Then I think to myself, “What the crap am I doing? Am I trying to measure my existence?”  This blog is not suppose to be about me and yet it is suppose to be from me! I’m not trying to be a Seth Godin (awesome marketer, read all his books) or now a Chris Brogan or Julien Smith (now very famous bloggers and social media experts who authored a great book, “Trust Agents!” Read it!) I’m Brian Hamlett. I’m my own person and rather than try to spew all my knowledge about marketing and technology and try to project myself as some expert you need to be engaging (which I’m always learning so I could never claim myself as some sort of “master of all,”) why don’t I share my real thoughts about the things I care about, whether they involve areas of my professional life or not?

Hitting the Reset Button

So, it’s time for a reset of my digital life. Interestingly, the “real me” that I should be reflecting here already exists on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.  There I engage in just about any conversation or discussion that interests me and I never try to talk like I’m some “expert” in anything.  Why? I don’t really have anything to prove there! I just like to share about my love of business ownership, technology, marketing, the outdoors, this, that and everything else in my life.  It allows me to truly represent myself, my opinions, my thoughts, my perceptions, everything that makes me who I am. That’s why we engage in social media, right?  To connect and get to know one another?  The “real us”?  So why would I only project the “marketing professional” side of me?

So it’s time to get personal! I have plenty to talk about and I absolutely LOVE discussions! So let’s connect. Let’s chat. And I’ll start sharing with you the “real me”!

Have You Hit the Reset Button?

So have you determined that you needed to hit the reset button on your digital existence?

Have you ever hit the reset button on just your whole life?

It has always surprised me when meeting fellow entrepreneurs how many have a plan to take over the world in their areas of expertise that includes no one but themselves.  Sure, in my little world of “one” I reign supreme, but attempting to press my will in the world around me will quickly land me in the middle of a mutiny!

If there is anything that history has taught us in the world of business, it’s that collaboration – one or more individuals working together for a common goal – is a strong breeder of success.

Here’s just a few success stories that were bread out of collaboration:

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google
• Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft
• Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak of Apple
• Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Roebuck of Sears, Roebuck and Co. (it’s official name)
• Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of Dolce & Gabbana
• Sonny and Cher
• Bert and Ernie
• Tom and Jerry anyone?

Sure, there are those individuals like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and Pierre Omidyar of eBay fame that did it pretty much on their own. But I bet behind each of those individual success stories are key influencers that gave advice, feedback, and assistance as these entrepreneurial rockstars were just getting started or beginning to hit growth.

How I Learned to Collaborate for Business Growth

My consulting practice, mPower Consulting, has undergone a powerful strategic shift that has centered around the idea of collaboration.  I originally started it as a web design/online marketing consultancy since that was a strong skillset I had developed that I knew could get our foot in the door with clients.  At that time, it was all about everything our clients wanted and how we could make sure we offered all of it.  We were buying books, manuals, taking courses, anything to be able to have some level of expertise in all of these service areas.

What I soon realized was what I already knew, we were not the best at everything! We know what we know what we know and that’s it.  Now, I’ve always been a fan of the idea of being a “life-long learner” but let’s face it, our brains can only hold so much and to keep trying to fill it with a little knowledge of how to do a million different things begins to dilute those things that we know a lot about and are great at.

So then it hit me: “Why don’t we just focus on what we’re best at, what we know we can provide value with, and then team up with other great organizations who are experts at the rest?”

Duh! That should have been simple to figure out, right?

Not so much! Those of us in business have always been in love with the idea of being the “one-stop shop” and the “everything to everyone” where we can provide (and charge) for all sorts of products and services, but unlike Wal-Mart, it’s not really a possibility for most businesses, especially for those who are just starting out.

So now with collaboration as our driver, we’re working with 15 other local businesses that we pull into our client projects to collaborate with based on their areas of expertise.  This has allowed us to focus on what we do great and funny enough, we’re able to charge more for it! Our partners (or “resource network” as we call them) bring in their value and we all look like the heroes to the client.  What was I thinking all this time?

Through the continued development of our relationship, we’ve also been able to learn from one another and offer advice for how we can improve different areas of our businesses.  Our collaboration has gone internal and helped us build better businesses. It has been absolutely invaluable and mPower Consulting has begun to attract new, exciting, and challenging projects from clients we never may have reached before as we tried to be the everything to everyone.

Learn this, collaboration can fuel growth faster than you by yourself can!

Eight Steps to Start Collaborating

You might be thinking, “Well how do I find businesses to collaborate with.” Well, I’m going to tell you.  To truly find great business collaborators, it will take time and it will take effort.  You will have to search, research, analyze, test, measure, and continue testing to find the right businesses you should be connected to.

Though that sounds challenging, here’s eight simple steps I started with to find the organizations we collaborate with:

1. Identify your top 5 weaknesses in what you are trying to offer your client (trust me, you have weaknesses)
2. Join a networking organization, review the membership, and identify at least 3 organizations who appear to be strong in your areas of weakness
3. Research their business and determine if you could provide their clients value (This is important because why would they want to collaborate with you if there was nothing really in it for them? Make it about helping each other.)
4. Reach out, connect and have an informal meeting with the owners of those organizations (it needs to be the owner)
5. At the meeting, first talk about how you think they can provide your clients with value, then compliment with how you think you could provide value to their clients (Make it more about what they would want than what you would want.)
6. If you both agree you can provide value to one another, just find some projects to work on with each other and work through them as a test to determine if this is true and if you can work well together
7. In-between projects, continue meeting and building a relationship between your organizations
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 as it will take some time to really start opening your collaboration to be both externally with one another’s clients and internally with one another’s businesses

How Do You Collaborate?

So what about you? Do you collaborate with other individuals/businesses? How has it helped your business?

A quick search on any search engine will show two schools of thought about traditional marketing media. Either 1) traditional marketing is dead, or 2) traditional marketing is not dead… yet. I would say that I’m a believer of the latter.  Traditional marketing is not dead, it’s just dying.

With the rise of social media (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) came the beginnings of the demise of traditional media (magazines, newspapers, TV, radio.)  More advertisers are moving their marketing budgets from offline activities to online activities. A report by eMarketer projects that the online ad spending will continue to grow at a rate of ~1% from where it is today in 2009, at 9.9%, to 15.2% by 2013.

That begs the question of what affect this has on the media outlets that have always survived by garnering a large portion of a corporate marketing budget?

The Bleeding of Traditional Media

I call this the “bleeding” of traditional media.  It was something that they actually saw coming, but seem to never guess would affect them and their $1,000,000 one page print ads.  Traditional media marketing was always about hitting numbers.  The number of impressions, the number of viewers, consistency, and frequency.  Hit as many people as you can with your message and that will translate into a certain percentage of consumers converting to customers.

The problem is we’ve been marketed and sold to death!  We’ve actually learned to AVOID ads.  We walk, read, listen and look right past them! There are all sorts of reports and studies talking about “ad avoidance” from the likes of AdWeek, Huffington Post, and even the World Advertising Research Center!  You people with Tivo, you know what I mean! Fast-forwarding past the ads! Shame on you!

But hello! This is the financial foundation of traditional media! So what are they to do?

Learn to Adapt or Die

Just like TV did not kill radio and video recorders did not replace TV shows, traditional marketing will not be replaced by the likes of social media marketing… unless they do not learn to adapt. It’s time for traditional media to move into the next phase of their existence. What that is we do not currently know, but what I do believe is that there is still a use of traditional media. They just need to figure out how to combine the concepts we love about social media: connecting and forming communities, relationships built on mutual trust, openness and honesty consistently communicated, and always looking for feedback that is applied not just requested.

These mediums are still great tools for connecting and disseminating information to large audiences of people. They just need to learn how to become a part of our communities of influence rather than trying to be the global dictator of them. So it’s learn to adapt or death is just around the corner.

What are your thoughts?

So what do you think? Do you think traditional media is dead? Dying?

How do you think they could adapt to form a sustainable medium?

All of us beginning bloggers shoud take a few notes from the King of Content, Brian Clark. He founded one of the most powerful blogs on copywriting called, CopyBlogger.  On that site, Brian has continuous guest bloggers who share with with their readers tips, tricks and techniques on how to write more impactful content to grow our audiences.

Writing to Make You Famous

If you ever thought that writing would never make you famous, just take a look at what Brian Has been able to accomplish with three years and a blog.

• The Guardian named Copyblogger one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs.
• Advertising Age ranks Copyblogger as a top 5 blog about marketing.
• Technorati says Copyblogger is one of the most popular blogs in the world, and a top 20 favorite among readers.
• The editors of Performancing honored Copyblogger founder and editor Brian Clark by naming him the most influential blogger of 2007, and he came in at number 30 among the 50 most influential bloggers compiled by top blogger Leo Babauta.

Brian Clark has been featured in the following books:

• Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin.
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott.
• Free Agent Nation by Daniel Pink.
• Gravitational Marketing by Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller.
• Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields.

(source: Copyblogger.com)

Helpings Others Build a Successful Online Business

On top of Brian’s success in both offline and online businesses, he has recently created a new platform called Teaching Sells, in which Brian has created an online learning center where any individual can learn how to build a successful business by teaching others with an online membership web site.

As one of the early members, I can say that this program has opened my eyes even more to the possibilities of building a successful business on the web!

Now I know I might take some heat for this from my fellow marketers or zealous fans of social media, but I’m sorry, Social Media is NOT the silver bullet for marketing my business. It’s not even a bronze bullet.  Frankly, it’s maybe a nickel-plated bullet in a clip full of other bullets.

Why? Because most of us are still trying to figure out how to use all these social media web services!

Sure, there’s 28 million people a month visiting Twitter. Sure, there’s 250 million active members on Facebook. Sure, MySpace has over 100 million and Bebo over 20 million. So what!? Just because we’re on the site, doesn’t mean we really know what we’re doing, how we’re suppose to use it, or why we actually would care about it!

The point is that these web sites and those like them are simply tools.  Tools that we’re still trying to get accustomed to just like how we were when the first affordable “personal computer” were hitting homes near you! Those PC’s were known as “dumb machines” in that they could not do anything without input Guess what, these social media sites are the same.  Like then, we are learning the concepts of how to use these tools. What are the inputs? What do we get out of it? How can we use this in our daily lives?

Ah ha! There is the silver bullet! The concepts that we learn from using these tools!

The Silver Bullet is in How We Connect, Communicate, and Create Communities

Social media has brought back the idea that we are all human.  That we all have emotions. That we all have thoughts, beliefs, desires, goals, likes and dislikes.  It’s reminded us of the friendly handshake and how we really only trust people that are a lot like us and we have a relationships with.

Connect

Social media has allowed us to connect to one another on a personal level even if we’re geographically far apart. It’s allowed us to get to know one another through conversations that turn into relationships built on commonality and trust.

Businesses have to learn how to engage customers on a more personal, direct level.  We have to open up and show that we’re really just a group of people that want to help our customers in some area of their lives. We’ve kept ourselves too formal, too closed off.

Communicate

These social media tools allow us to use many different media formats to communicate with one another. We share audio, video, and pictures with one another as ways of reinforcing our relationships. We can chat with one another instantly or share messages back and forth through emails and comments on one another’s pages and blogs.  We learn to share our voice and combine our voices.  This allow us to stand together and rally around things we believe in, want to engage in, and have a desire to see change.

Businesses have to realize that we cannot communicate using one method and neglect all the others.  And our messaging is not about who we are, but about who our customers are and why WE WANT JOIN THEM in making their lives better. To do this, we should communicate the way our customers want to communicate instead of forcing them to use our methods.

Creating Communities

The best part about these social media tools is that they taught us how to form communities.  Even better, we can form communities right next door to thousands of other communities of which we can be a part of as well!  Each community may appeal to one of our passions, our desires, or our expertise.  We can become known, respected, and desired to be connected to, to have engaged in the community.

Businesses think the community should be completely around them. Instead, make the community around what you are trying to change in the world.  Does your product or service help people accomplish something? What is that something? That is where you build your community!

The Concepts for Success

These concepts are what combine together to form the “silver bullet” of marketing your business. Learn them, practice them, refine them, and implement them and your business will attract customers. And not just for your product or service, but what you stand for.

Do You Believe in this Silver Bullet?

What about you? What do you think Social Media has taught us? And how does that apply to businesses?

I recently came across a study on Twitter that was conducted by Pear Analytics.  It was interesting in that they wanted to find out how we all REALLY use Twitter.  Their hypothesis or assumption was that Twitter was mainly used for self-promotion (those of us that want to push our wares out to the Twitterverse hoping for a buck or two.) When the results came back, however, there easily could be a case that says Twitter… is a complete waste of time!

Before you jump at my throat, read the report for yourself! Then let’s talk! (Get it here)

Twitter is Full of Useless, Unwanted Information

The clear winner of the categories the surveyed tweets were collected into was “Pointless Babble.”  I found this completely interesting – and yet not surprising – in that so many of those I have connected to constantly share information, input, web links, news stories, conversations and more that I truly deem valuable.  So for me, Twitter is quickly becoming a valuable tool to my further professional and personal development!

Source: Pear Analytics | Twitter Study - August 2009

However, I really am not surprised by the results. Why?  Because the results reflect how Twitter was originally built. The original concept was simple, answer the question “What are you doing right now?” So for any Twitter newbie, they thought the idea was to tell you they were scratching their foot, going to the movies, or watching Grey’s Anatomy.

Over time, those of us that have been using Twitter have found new ways to use it as a communications platform.  We do not care to answer the original question, but desire to connect, converse, share, link, debate, and promote ourselves to one another.  This changes the value perception of Twitter… at least for me.

The Five Loud Mouths of Twitter

The part of the study that really caught my attention was the highlight of a visual representation Dave MCandless did for Gizmodo titled If Only 100 People Were on Twitter. What intrigued me was the section stating that “5 loud mouths created 75% of the tweets” on Twitter.  So out of the 28 million people that Quantcast states Twitter attracts per month (accessed 8/27/09), 5% of those are the ones who create the bulk of the conversation (albeit, that’s like 1.4 million people!)  So in truth, there is A LOT of waste on Twitter! Over 50% of it could be called waste in my opinion!

Marketers Have a Case for Why Twitter Won’t Work?

WOW! As a marketer, I have to ask myself this: If 50% of Twitter is useless and there are actually only 1.35 million ACTIVE participants that may engage my brand, what percentage is actually my customer? Is that large enough to support an effort that will require full-time support, tracking, and engagement?

Now, this is just a simple question most will ask themselves being that Twitter has been one of the most hyped-up “you gotta be on here” places for businesses, and yet we do not have many case studies of long-term success of using Twitter to engage customers of a large corporation.

Is Twitter a Waste of Time to You?

It’s your turn now. I want to know, what percentage of what you read on Twitter is a waste of time?

I started out both my professional and entrepreneurial career ten years ago with a little book called: Sam’s Learn HTML in 24 Hours (I’d recommend the 7th edition for those wanting to learn HTML/CSS).  With that book began my journey into the online world with learning how to build web sites people wanted to use, love to use, but most importantly knew how to use.  One of the key interactive elements I learned was important for web sites to have that is both beneficial to the web site visitor and the owner of the site are web forms, most importantly a contact form. This will allow your web site visitors to contact you 24/7, without having to directly speak to you (because let’s face it, we’d all rather just tell you what we want, then have you contact us back with the answer!)

So how do you build contact forms in your WordPress-enabled blog? For me, it’s the nifty little plugin called “Contact Form 7.”

How to Intall Contact Form 7

Installing this plugin is very easy and can be accomplished one of two ways:

(NOTE: I am using the latest version of WordPress  (version 2.8.4) so your setup may differ slightly.)

1. Using WordPress’s built-in plugin installer

This would be considered the simplest way, but some of you may have a hosting setup where this is not allowed due to what is called “permissions.”  I still, however, would recommend trying this first as a way to determine how your WordPress installation is setup.

1. Log-in to your WordPress administrative console
2. Click the Plugins link in your main navigation column
3. Click the Add New link in the Plugins sub-navigation
4. In the search bar, type Contact Form 7 and click Search
5. This plugin should appear as the first listed item, if not, locate it and click the Install link to the right of the plugin description
6. Follow the dialogue to begin installing the plugin
7. If all is successful, you will get a notice and an option beneath the notice that says Activate this plugin, click this to begin using the plugin
8. You will now have a main navigation item called Contact, which is where you will create your forms and edit the settings

2. Downloading the source archive and uploading it to your WordPress installation

This option requires you to download the plugin from the WordPress plugin directory (found here) and then uploading the files via FTP to your WordPress directory on your hosting server. If you do not have an FTP client or do not know how to use one, you can read about them here.

1. Download the Contact Form 7 archive from the WordPress plugin directory
2. Unzip/unarchive the downloaded file to your computer
3. Open your FTP client and connect to your web hosting space
4. Upload the whole contact-form-7 folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory of your WordPress installation (after upload you should have a folder structure like this: /wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7 where all the actual files are inside this folder
5. Log-in to your WordPress administrative console
6. Click the Plugins main navigation link and in the list, click the activate link associated with the plugin
7. You will now have a main navigation item called Contact, which is where you will create your forms and edit the settings

Start Simple, then Customize as Your Learn More

As much as we’d all love to be able to quickly learn and use new technology, this tool is not for the beginner to HTML and/or programming in general.  Whereas I could probably teach you how to create your own forms in 30 minutes to an hour (fully explaining how you could create all sorts of different layouts, form fields, etc.,) it would be more beneficial if you simply started with the pre-built form and then learned more about the plugin moving forward.

To start using the pre-built form, there are two important steps you must accomplish to get it working:

1. Open the plugins settings by clicking on the Contact link in your main navigation, in the middle area section called Mail 1, insert the email address you want the form submissions going to in the “To” field.
2. Copy the form code available in the top box above the form code and paste it into the page, widget, or blog post where you want your form to appear. For instance, I copied the form code “” and pasted it directly into the text editor for my “Contact” page in my Pages section.

That’s it! Visit your blog and test the form by submitting a request and see what you get in your inbox!

If you haven’t heard of Chris Brogan, you obviously haven’t spent much time in the world of social media. Chris has sort of become an industry rockstar, if we’re all accepting that “social media” has become its own industry.  As Chris states, he’s been blogging since it was called “journaling” (for over 10 years) and now is one of the most sought after speakers, coaches, and consultants who help businesses and organizations use social media to develop connections and build relationships that translates into channels to provide value.

A Different View of Social Media

Funny enough, I haven’t even personally met Chris.  I’ve just been a relatively recent fan who: follows his RSS feed, his Twitter feed, his Facebook profile, his FriendFeed, reads his blog daily, and have recently bought his first book called Trust Agents.

Okay, so I sound a little obsessed here.  Honestly, it’s because I found someone that thinks a lot along the same lines that I do and that always intrigues me.  He see’s the “human-side” to everything, including how we interact online, and tries to figure out the answer to the question “why?”  I, very much, take that same approach.  The difference is that I sometimes feel Chris is about 10 steps ahead of me so I read his work and follow him to catch up!  He also just brings a whole new level of thinking to my own business and how I build a community around it, myself, and things I’m passionate about! He’s also a person of integrity, which I’m always attracted to and he lives what he preaches.

A Proclaimed “Expert”… with Proof that it Works!

Need an example, if you looked back over the past two years you would see how Chris and his co-author Julien Smith used social media to connect with people who would be interested in the book they were writing. They then built a community around the book by sharing with their followers the progress of the book as they were writing it. During that time they asked their community engaging questions and starting discussions that continued to give them further insights and ideas for the concepts that would become part of the book while promoting its release all at the same time. By the end, they had used social media and their community to pump up its release… and it came out #1 in three categories on Amazon.com when it was released!

Read the book… the concepts they used to promote it is exactly what they talk about in the book. Talk about putting your money/effort where you mouth is!

This sounds like it would be a relatively easy task. I mean, how many things can you actually write about? In truth, when we decide to start blogging we oftentimes come to find that this is one of the most difficult tasks for us to accomplish.

Why? Because we actually know a lot! We just can’t or shouldn’t write about most of it!

What should I blog about?

A lot of professional bloggers that I follow have addressed this very question before in their own blogs.  Most of them have always said that you need to start with something that you’re passionate and know something about and work from there. In reality, this only partially works for us.  Why? Because what we are passionate about is not a topic that always align with our goals for our blog.

Their passion is that they love blogging. They love sharing information on how to blog, and the goal for their blog – to earn a living or to promote their company’s services – is supported by writing about how to blog. So the goal of the blog has much more affect on determining what to write about than simply what we’re passionate about.

This very question is something I ran into when I recently decided to launch a separate blog for myself personally rather than keeping all my personal content on my consulting practice’s corporate blog over at mPower Consulting.  My goal was to allow myself to talk about any and all subjects that appeal to me individually and to create connections and relationships with individuals and organizations that may not have benefited being connected to mPower Consulting.  Sure, I may tell them that my practice could help them better utilize the tools out there such as social media to improve the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns, but I wouldn’t tell them about “all the things I hate about people who sell on Twitter” next to an article about “how the use of social media can wow your customers into buying your products!” That just doesn’t make sense (which is why I haven’t written those two articles… yet.)

So, I had to come up with some ways to determine how I was going to pick my topic.  What I ended up with was 5 ways NOT to pick my topics (through trial and error) to find the 5 ways that did work for me!

Five Ways NOT to Pick Your Topics

1. Don’t try to become someone else. In other words, don’t write about a topic you know little about simply because you want to be. That person usually has spent years developing their audiences, building their expertise, and that has generated their success, which is all you really want! Be yourself, because sometimes that stands out more when everyone else is trying to be the same!
2. Don’t write about something that no one else is talking about… unless you can tell the future!  Creating a blog around a topic that no one else is talking about means that you are starting with an audience of none.  That can be extremely discouraging as you may not see anyone dropping by to even say, “Hello, your site stinks.”  The only time to do this is if you think you have a complete “game-changing” idea or topic that no one is talking about. Typically though, your idea builds off of an already established and highly talked about topic.
3. Don’t perform a query of “The top searched topics” on Google, then pick one of those. It’s likely you will have no clue what you’re talking about, which will generate little if any success… unless you’re lucky!
4. Don’t copycat someone else. This is much like the first “don’t” only that if it is a topic you want to talk about and can, don’t just copy the leaders in the field!  You audience will soon figure it out and hate you for it. Stand on your own expertise and opinion.
5. Don’t use a list and “Eeny, meeny, miny,moe.” This is the worst idea and yet I bet is used often (I’ve heard it used a few times.) With this, you never know what you’ll get (which might be fun) and makes it difficult to plan how you’re going to sustain it!

Five Ways TO Pick Your Topics

1. Determine what you want to accomplish with your blog, then pick topics that support that effort. This usually will pull from your expertise.
2. Write down everything you are passionate about, then circle the ones you know the most about.
3. Post questions out on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites regarding ideas you have and let the world tell you what they want to know
4. Keep an eye on the news and on social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. These sites give a good cross-section of what’s going on in many categories of topics. See which ones you’re drawn to!
5. If all else fails, just start writing about your life.  No one may care and you may not build an audience, but it will get your mind thinking and alert to what is going on in all areas of your life. That will help you both come up with ideas for blog topics, plus will give you the experience and familiarity with writing blog posts!

How Do You Pick Your Topics?

I want to know: How do you pick the topics you write about?

I’ve been a member of Brian Clark’s “Teaching Sells” since its first release.  I joined Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s Trust Agents online community on Facebook and bought their newly released book.  I attended an event held for author Pamela Slim who writes on her blog Escape from Cubicle Nation and has a book of the same name.

All of these examples of people I am connected to, have paid money to, and religiously follow have one thing in common… they’re all engageous!

Engageous is my term that means “perpetually engaging without pause.”  It’s the idea that in order to build a true following or community, you must constantly be engaging your followers, customers, fans in constant communication and interaction. Now this doesn’t mean every second of everyday, but it does mean that in some form or fashion you try to engage your audience daily.  If letting them know that you will not be available still can engage them.  Give them something to talk about while you’re away!

How They Pulled Me In

I learned about Brian Clark’s “Teaching Sells” online membership site through a professional connection.  I was already following him on his blog at Copyblogger, and read all the hype about this new upcoming service.  Constantly being engaged by his concepts in his posts and the free information given at Teaching Sells, I was almost instantly sold and was one of 300 people who actually got in the first year’s enrollment that sold out in 24 hours.  I paid $1,000 for that access and it has been invaluable!

Chris and Julien did this through Twitter, Facebook, and their own blogs to both conduct research for and promote their book Trust Agents. That’s how they sucked me in.  I followed a tweet that took me to the Trust Agents landing page, that took me to Facebook where Chris and Julien were constantly updating the followers there as to the status of the book. On top of that they asked engaging questions and created open discussions about the topic of trust, being a trust agent, and the changes in this new trust economy.  Guess what, that only made me want the book more! As of this writing, it’s sitting on a UPS truck waiting to be delivered to my door! HURRY UP!

Pamela Slim is a new person in my little world.  I heard she was visiting Charlotte for a week and was invited to an event of thought leaders around the topics of entrepreneurship, new media marketing, social media, and connectivity.  After sitting down with her in a fantastic discussion about supporting entrepreneurship in the Charlotte area with other business owners, professionals, and public officials, I became an instant follower and bought her book, followed her on Twitter, and read her blog.

Still Think Social Media Cannot Generate Sales?

These are just a few examples of people I have exchanged money for what I deemed valuable from them.  But what each one of these had in common that pulled me in was this, they were engageous. They knew it was about the conversation not the conversion.

Are you engageous?  If you are, share your story with me.  What are you engaging people in?

I’ll admit, I’m a Pamela Slim fan.  Why? Because I got to meet her personally.  I got to see that what she states on her blog Escape from Cublic Nation and in her Twitter Feed (@pamslim) and everywhere else I have read about her is exactly what she lives day in and day out. I respect and am attracted to that in entrepreneurs. On top of that, I love seeing where she has come in her professional career and where she has gotten.

Consider her your “recovering entrepreneur.”  I believe we were all born with the ability and desire in so many ways to create our own destinies, but some of us get caught up in a false belief that we have to work for someone else to succeed rather than being able to make it on our own. Pamela is that very person who started there, but learned to break away. After leaving her wonderful corporate job at Barclay’s Global Investors, she found herself in what is commonly the position of most corporate robots turned entrepreneurs, an outsourced contractor to those same large corporations! But Pamela was able to convert those experiences into a wonderful consulting practice called Ganas Consulting.  She has shown how true passion and effort can lead you to create something that not only supports you financially but fulfills you emotionally, mentally, physically, and for some of us spiritually!

What I really love is that the way she speaks, writes, coaches, and interacts is consistent with who she really is as a person.  Remember that entrepreneurs!  Stay true to yourself and your passions, and most of your business will come naturally to you. That is… MOST of your business!

Check out more about Pamela Slim at her blog Escape from Cubicle Nation