Far too often, companies tell me that the reason why they got involved in social media and blogging is because they ‘felt like they had to’.  While that MAY be based in truth – because you probably DO have to – it’s still a bad reason to do anything.

I’m suddenly reminded of the “if he jumped off a bridge… would you?” saying.

Many businesses start blogging and throw themselves into social media in a hurry and for many, the pressures of producing a regular stream of quality content mounts quickly.

In the face of a looming blog or post deadline a lot of people start scrambling to find something to talk about at the last minute. This often leads to the violation of the #1, biggest, most important golden rule of social media.

NO SELF-PROMOTING!

The reason… NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU.

There I said it! I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings… but people just don’t care about you!

Social media & your company’s blog are not just another venue to dispense P/R. That’s why I rank this one as the WORST possible offense you can make.

Just like while dating… talking about yourself is a huge turn-off. 

This type of content seldom attracts quality visitors and what’s worse is this also discourages people who do visit from coming back, subscribing or participating.

The WORST ways to talk about yourself:

• How long you’ve been in business

• When/where you are open for business

• Your mission statement

• Any mention of “our competitors” or “the competition”

• How qualified, or experienced or friendly your staff is

• How convenient, or clean or comfortable your facility is

• Memberships in professional organizations

• Awards you have won

• Educational background

In fact, I would be VERY, VERY, VERY careful about the inclusion of these types of statements in your marketing AT ALL, period.

While some of this information might be important to your prospects at some point… there is a place and time for it. And it IS NOT “content”.

So… what DO your readers care about?

Well, your readers do care about what you can do for them today. Yes, they do care about how you can solve their problems.

There’s still plenty of room for you in there. But you must make it about them!

People crave information that will inform them or help them.

I’ve got 4 topic brainstorming ideas for you! I recommend that you keep most of your content within one of these areas (I’ve also included a few examples of each):

TOPIC 1: Common mistakes that you can help people avoid.

How it works: You establish trust by teaching them something. People subconsciously associate you with the avoidance of the problems you pointed out.

Examples:

• 3 Mistakes People Make When Treating Their Pool

• 5 Common Things That Cost You Money When You Buy Insurance

• Do You Make These 3 Mistakes When Helping Your Kids with Homework?

TOPIC 2: Frustrations people may have when buying from a competitor.

How it works: The psychology of this one is interesting… you never need to single-out or mention competitors, your reader will automatically associate you with the avoidance of the pain or problem that is so rampant in your industry. (Even if it’s not “rampant”.)

Examples:

• 5 Mistakes Rookie Lawyers Make when Writing Wills

• 3 Important Things to Ask a DJ Before you Hire Them

• 3 Biggest Problems with Most Public Schools

TOPIC 3: Tied directly the underlying goals that your customers have.

How it works: Lots of companies talk about product features or their capabilities. Your consumers don’t really care about the “features” so much as they do the overall desired effect. Play up your end-game and set yourself apart.

Examples:

• 3 Tips for Successfully Publishing Your First Book

• 5 Easy Steps to Copywriting Your Idea or Invention

• 3 Proven Techniques to Wake Up with More Energy

• Top 5 Ways to Get Rid of your Pest Problem One and For All

TOPIC 4: Answers your customers are trying to learn or are curious about.

How it works: When you point out the questions it validates your readers. They think: “hey I must have found the right guy” or “I must be on the right track” because you point out that ‘many other people’ have come to you with the same question they have. This can also be a great way to answer a question that people might be afraid to ask OR make them feel better about not knowing something.

Examples:

• 3 Questions I Get Asked All the Time About Buying Heating Oil

• 5 Things They Should Teach You in High School About Taxes

• 2 Questions You Should have Asked Your Doctor About those Pain Killers

Not only will you see that your visitors find this information useful and compelling but it’ll also have a viral flare to it, encouraging people to share it with others!

Now that you have some topic ideas… get to work! Start writing a few pieces and try to work ahead, creating a backlog of ready-to-go pieces that you can create your own “editorial calendar” around. Not only will this make your blog & social presence AWESOME, but it’ll put you back in control and help put a stop to that running-from-a-giant-bolder-like-Indiana-Jones like feeling.

I see it all the time – people are inundated by the volume of email they receive each day YET are somehow okay with receiving tons of notifications all day long about things they cannot or will not do anything about right now. Ask yourself: how many of your emails are really URGENT? Chances are… not many. Cut down on the notifications and get control over the junk coming into your Inbox with these 2 quick email productivity tips… you’ll feel a lot better!

Here’s how to disable notifications in Outlook.

Here’s how to disable notifications on BlackBerry. (Change ‘sound’, ‘visual’ and ‘tactile’ alerts to OFF or SILENT for all your email accounts.)

Here’s how to disable notifications on iPhone. (Simply turn your notification sound off.)

Here’s how to disable notifications on Android. (Seems like it may be slightly different depending on the manufacturer of your device but this should get you started.)

Last week Google got caught breaking their own rules! Aaron Wall at SEO Book caught Google red handed… BUYING BACKLINKS! This is practice that they forbid search and content marketers from using. 

This campaign clearly violates Google’s own SEO quality guidelines. Google actually used an outside marketing firm to publish sponsored blog posts touting their Chrome web browser’s capabilities and playing it up as a small business tool. The firm paid for the placement of these peices, many of which included direct links to YouTube videos on YouTube and the Chrome download page.

HOWEVER… once the story broke, Google promptly punished themselves!

The homepage for Google’s Chrome web browser will have an imposed page rank reduction for a 60 days. This is along the lines of the punishment you or I would have received if we were caught doing the same thing. Google has punished other high-profile companies in this way in the past (JCPenny, Overstock.com).

This has put Mozilla’s Firefox browser back in the #1 spot for terms like “browser” and “web browser” and dumped Chrome off the first page.

My only question is… if you were going to break the rules to rank Chrome higher, why pay a marketing agency for it? Why not just make yourself #1? I mean… they’re Google… they own the results pages, right? I guess they were too ethical for that.

Have you noticed all of the predictions out there that are SO GENERAL it will be almost impossible to track? Most of the so-called “predictions for 2012″ I’ve read,  should actually be titled ‘here’s some stuff you should do in 2012′. A lot of bloggers are pointing out trends or areas of focus for 2012 but very few are putting their neck out on the line by forecasting something actually happening… or NOT happening.

Even though I have a track-record to protect… I will put my neck on the line.

Here are my top predictions for 2012 from the most important stories and topics I’ve been following. In no particular order they are:

1) RIM co-CEO canned

Jim Balsillie becomes a scapegoat of sorts for RIM’s declining market share. CEO Mike Lazaridis continues to hang on (though his shares in RIM have been

Sorry Jim!

substantially devalued). Hopefully they clean house in the marketing department or hire a new agency. It is a shame RIM has the best products right now than they’ve had… Ever. But, no one knows about them.

Others have predicted RIM launches an Android-powered BlackBerry and gets bought by Amazon. Neither of which will happen.

2) Major smartphone virus/security threat

Anytime a single technology platform plateaus market share it becomes the target of attacks and security threats. For this reason I think we will see the first major smartphone security threat or major virus in 2012. It will affect Android users.

3) Apple Maps and iPhone 5

Apple unveils their own maps platform to replace Google Maps as the default. I see this move important to the future if Apple’s mobile ad platform. The release of Apple Maps (iMaps? Lol) may coincide with the iPhone 5 which i think will happen late in 2012 – probably in the fall. iPhone 5 gets and even larger screen. (Duh!)

4)  Social Growth Exhaustion

Sick of hearing how much social media usage is growing? It stops in 2012. This is the year that social growth levels off. Sound bad? It’s actually good. It means most of the people who are going to engage in social media are already registered.

5) Mobile search goes 50/50

I believe in 2012 search will be split 50/50 between mobile and traditional (PCs). Making mobile extremely important for marketers. Most talking-heads will tell you that mobile strategy is key to your success in 2012, and they’ll use terms like “mobile optimization” and “mobile ready”. But you shouldn’t listen to them, because…

6) Mobile convergence

I feel mobile technology is advancing so quickly that sites and web-based applications will no longer need to take extra steps to be “mobile compatible”. As a result, the distinction between ”the web” and “the mobile web” will become unimportant. This year most smartphones and tablets will become just as capable as your PC when it comes to web browsing and web apps.

7) Despite Rumors, Facebook STILL does NOT go public

Sorry folks, no IPO for Facebook this year either. It will reamin private with Zuck holding the marjory of the company close to the vest for now. You can read why I think so in my re-cap of last year’s predictions - the reason hasn’t changed. (Though I will note, if I’m correct in #4, going public in ‘12 could be good timing. YA HEAR THAT ZUCK?) And speaking of Facebook…

8 ) Ads will Appear in your Facebook News Feed

Your news feed will contain targeted, sponsored messages. This will happen soon. Really soon. Before the end of 1st quarter.

9) E-Mail marketing STILL strong

I’ve been listening to people predict the end of email marketing since 2006. And while it did experience a slump a few years ago – it was most likely more due those silly predictions than anything else! The truth is, email is the top text-based communication tool and will remain that way for quite some time. As a great writer once said: “Rumors of the death of the email have been greatly exaggerated.” 

10) IE5, IE6, Flash and Sliverlight… GONE

Sure another combo prediction. But it feels safe because of the rapidly growing base of HTML 5 development. It’s cross-platform capabilities will enable marketers to deliver more consistant experience to users than ever before. HTML 5′s multimedia capabilities will make plug-ins like Flash and Sliverlight a thing of the past. All of the benefits of HTML 5 will outweigh the small incentive for creating sites and web-based applications which are compatible with legacy web browsers like IE 6 and IE 7 (currently only 5.8% of users). Sure in terms of Internet users 5.8% is still millions of users. But if they want to be one of the cool kids – they’re going to just have to upgrade.

In my various talks and appearances throughout the year people always ask me about new technologies, shifts or trends to look out for in the future. So, last year I decided to make it official. On New Year’s Eve I tweeted 7 predictions for 2011. Here, I’ll break them down, see how many came true and give me self an over all percentage-based score.

1) MySpace tanks, get’s sold

MySpace launched in 2003 and was purchased for $580 million by News Corp in 2005 where it was propelled to it’s peak in June of 2006 when it was the most visited website in the world. However, it’s been down hill since. Last year, MySpace went through several redesigns and was holding on for dear-life. News Corp decided to cut their loses and sell it for just $35 Million to Specific Media, LLC and Justin Timberlake (yes, THAT Justin Timberlake).

As of this writing, MySpace is still the 142nd most trafficked website in the world but faces an uphill battle.

2) Google’s social media efforts tank

In 2011 Google announced they would be doing away with their 2 biggest social media projects: Google Wave and Google Buzz. *However, they also launched Google+. So I had to give myself a KINDA for this one.

 3) Facebook DOES NOT go public (again)

Despite countless rumors and tons of predictions by other that Facebook WILL go public, I stood by my guns and said NO. I was right. And I will comfortably make that prediction again for 2012 (even though SOME sources are now predicting a 2013 IPO).

While Facebook has accepted several rounds of investment capital in 2011, it was all private and even though the ticket prices were in the hundreds-of-millions they still only amounted to fractions-of-a-percent in total ownership. Zuck is still the majority shareholder of Facebook at 24% and I predict that he’ll keep it that way as long as he can.

Mark Zuckerberg is an idealist. His Majority ownership has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the final say and power to execute his vision.

Today, Facebook is the 3rd largest web company in the world and is easily one of the most powerful names in communications. President Obama isn’t the leader of the free world – Mark Zuckerberg is.

4) LinkedIn Goes Public

All indicators were GO for this prediction! LinkedIn posted SEC filings in January – just after I published my prediction – first shares were traded in May. At some point – I was mistaken as an initial LinkedIn share holder. I’m sorry to say, this was an error and I’m not rich.

Today LinkedIn has over 135 Million users and employes almost 1,800 people.

 5) Groupon, Skype & Pandora go Public too!

2 out of 3 ain’t bad, right? I actually felt so confident about the trio that I made a lump prediction.

Groupon just went public back in November (quite a bit later than I expected, actually) and at the time of this writing is trading in the $20 range.

Pandora went public over the summer with an estimated valuation of $3 Billion.

*While Skype, allegedly has been through more than 1 round of talks with the SEC there’s still no official word. I think it can happen in 2012 – probably one of the less glamours IPOs – in the $100 Million range. Either way, eBay should be kicking themselves for selling their majority stake in Skype too soon. (Hell, eBay will have enough problems once Amazon is done with them… but that’s a prediction for 2012.)

6) E-Mail Marketing becomes hot again

There was a lot of buzz suggesting ‘social media is the new email marketing’ – nevertheless, email did make a strong come back in 2011. 65% of companies marketing online indicated they increased spending on email in 2011.

I’ve said it before… email and social marketing are not competing medias, they are complementary and different.

Email marketing best practices have evolved over the last year but still beat out many other digital marketing mediums. Why? Email STILL works, it STILL converts and it’s not going anywhere this year either.

 7) RIM dumps BlackBerry OS 6 in favor of unix-based OS 

While I was right that BlackBerry OS 6 was the most short-lived BlackBerry OS ever, BlackBerry OS 7 isn’t the QNX based operating system RIM fans may have been hoping for. BlackBerry OS 7 IS a radically different and infinitely superior OS when compared to version 6 though.

Still, I do get to give myself a big fat KINDA because BlackBerry’s tablet – the PlayBook – DOES have the QNX-based operating system we were vying for on smartphones.

I would love to be able to refer to this software as something other than “the QNX-based OS” – in another BIG marketing & branding win for RIM – the OS STILL DOES NOT HAVE A NAME. (In case you didn’t pick up on it… that was a BlackBerry fan self-burn.)

In other BlackBerry news for 2011…

RIM has announced that they WILL be using the QNX-based OS on smartphones in the near future. However, everyone missed that announcement because the media was too busy talking about BlackBerry’s 3-day outage. (Additional BlackBerry fan self-burn.)

Sorry, RIM. You know I love you… but I couldn’t resist.

 Adding it all up…

And I didn’t bomb any of them!

What do you think?

PS… coming soon… 2012 predictions!

Please watch this holiday greeting from me, I have a special Christmas gift for you!

Today I was delighted to return as a speaker during Entrepreneur Week at Lehigh Carbon Community College. This time though, Entrepreneur Week took place amidst the excitement of the launch of LCCC’s Business Enterprise Center at the college’s Tamaqua campus. The ribbon cutting was held at the college on Tuesday.

The center looks fantastic and is very comfortable. But even more importantly, I’m excited about the opportunities that the center presents to students and also it’s room for positive impact on the local economy.

What’s interesting to me is how the opening of the center compliments the upcoming shift in our workforce.

Kenneth Gronbach points out in his recent book The Age Curve, that the next American generation to come into prominence – Generation Y – will change jobs more often than members of other generations. This will likely be due to reduced sense of entitlement and reluctance to accept the status quo. These factors will also lead Generation Y to be highly entrepreneurial – substantially more so than other generations.

Sounds like perfect timing to me!

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk and I’m really looking forward to continuing my involvement in the new Business Enterprise Center!

Nielsen – the TV ratings people – just issued their first report on Internet traffic declaring social media the #1 reason why Americans go online.

What makes this information different from the info that’s already been out there – like Alexa – is Nielsen isn’t measuring traffic so much as they are measuring the amount of time American’s spend with various sites online.

So technically, I guess it isn’t a report on “Internet traffic”. It’s probably the closest thing we have to “ratings” on the Internet.

Google is still the #1 most trafficked website in the World – reaching nearly half of all Internet users worldwide and almost 90% of users in the US while Facebook reaches about 70% of US Internet users.

However, Americans spend more time with Facebook than any other site… and by a wide margin.

From the New York Times coverage of the new Nielsen report:

During May, when the report was compiled, Americans spent 53.5 billion minutes on Facebook from computers at home and work. Behind Facebook during May was Blogger, at 723.8 million minutes; Tumblr, at 623.5 million minutes; Twitter, at 565.2 million minutes; and LinkedIn, at 325.7 million minutes.

Taking a quick cross-section of both of the lists it’s clear which new media properties are important to American’s. Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Twitter, LinkedIn and Amazon are near the top of all the lists.

After seeing where people visit most and where they spend the most time, I ask you this…

How is your brand represented there?

Additional Resources:
Go here for a complete list of the most trafficked sites in the US from Alexa. Or go here for Nielsen’s new social media report.

In my new series “YOUR Marketing Questions Answered!” I take on your marketing questions. Kicking it off Ted Brown, a freelance designer asks about productivity and getting things done.