The outdoor art that surrounds the park is mainly made of resin, which had been moulded into huge, interesting shapes. One of the things each of these sculptures had in common, was that although you can apparently ‘touch’ them, you can’t lean on them, sit on them or ‘hug’ them. This was rigidly enforced, even when one little girl sat her doll on a sculpture!

Not a touching experience

As a result, the park was ringing to the sound of parents telling their inquisitive children not to touch. Other parents were trying to explain to their children, why someone decided to build a park full of tactile art, which kids were forbidden from interacting with, the way they love to.

I wanted to make sure I didn’t just experience a couple of staff having a bad day, so I asked another staff member what the deal was regarding people touching the sculptures. As best as I could work out, you are allowed to place an outstretched hand on a sculpture without being warned, but that was it. Unbelievably, their marketing makes a big point of saying you can touch the art – making it sound a lot more accessible and hands-on than the reality I experienced.

What kind of message was being made, regarding art?

I wonder how many children went home thinking art was boring, rather than excited because art was magical? I wonder what the committee behind the park were thinking, when they decided to fill a family friendly venue, with tactile, rugged, outdoor art, which was as good as untouchable? I can fully understand them saying do not climb on the objects, for safety and insurance reasons, but to forbid a child from hugging or leaning on an object, which weighs tons and is built to withstand extreme weather, is a curious step.

The unfriendly enforcement I witnessed several times by the park employees, was also unlikely to win any new, budding artists.

An alternative approach

I then compared that approach, to The Tower of London. At The Tower of London, children are encouraged to take part in their surroundings. They are shown how interesting history is, with the chance to dress up as knights or princesses, kings or queens. They get to watch sword fighting and falconry displays. They have spaces available for kids to draw pictures of what they have seen, and enthusiastic staff are never far away to answer questions.

The fact that The Tower of London contains priceless objects, is not a hurdle in making it an exciting and interesting place to visit. Kids leave there seeing history as a vibrant, exciting subject.

Yes, I am sure the committee that run the art park had good reasons to use such a hands-off approach.

However, I can think of many reasons for them to have adopted the polar opposite approach – such as encouraging kids to take an interest in art, rather than position art as something that’s unfriendly and untouchable.

Jim Connolly can help you grow your business and achieve the breakthrough marketing results your hard work deserves. To find out more, simply click here!

Photo: D Brekke

Imagine this:

• Imagine a business, which provides a unique range of services, rather than the same generic range of services as it’s competitors.
• Imagine a business, which puts customer service before revenues, knowing that this is the best way to grow its revenues and profits.
• Imagine a business, which invests time every week on improving its processes.
• Imagine a business, which has developed a highly effective marketing strategy that generates high quality results regularly and consistently.
• Imagine a business, which has a dedicated customer retention program, so that it seldom loses a client or customer.
• Now, imagine a business just like that moved into your area, targeting your clients and your future clients!

Do it first!

Before something like that happens to you, I have a suggestion: Do it first!

Tick off every item on that list and eat their lunch.

Most business owners will wait until their business is under a sudden threat, before they up their game. They miss years worth of business development, because they fail to push and reach their full potential unless under external pressure. Sometimes a super smart, agile competitor comes to town and takes chunks of their market share. Other times, a business owner will lose a major client and see their revenues suddenly drop dramatically. In either case, the business owner is driven to improve as a reaction.

In short: Don’t wait for something negative to happen, before you learn just how high you can fly!

Jim Connolly can help you grow your business and achieve the breakthrough marketing results your hard work deserves. To find out more, simply click here!

When it comes to marketing, how often do you question what you believe?

Black hat – White hat

I was prompted to write about this, when I read a very interesting blog comment earlier today. It really made me think.

Here’s the gist of it. The commenter stated that in his opinion, all SEO could be defined as black hat (or unethical.) His point was that Google claims it wants only the most valuable sites to rank the highest, yet Google actively encourages so-called white hat (or ethical) SEO tactics. In other words, business owners who learn SEO or pay for professional SEO, are welcome to gain an advantage over sites with better content, with Google’s blessing.

The interesting thing for me there, was NOT whether black hat SEO is worse than white hat SEO.

The interesting thing for me, was that until I had read that comment, I’d never really thought about things that way before. I saw SEO as a very black and white thing (excuse the pun). White hat was good, black hat was bad – period. Now, I see there are shades of grey, too.

In short: It’s so easy, maybe too easy, to become stuck in our thinking. It does us all good, from time to time, to question our beliefs and check we’re not making decisions based on incorrect assumptions.

Jim Connolly can help you grow your business and achieve the breakthrough marketing results your hard work deserves. To find out more, simply click here!

Photo: Heather

For example:

• I know a guy who regularly has lunch at a local place, which he is constantly slamming for it’s high prices. The fact he eats there so often, means it’s hard to take his complaint too seriously.
• We see passive support all the time on Facebook, where people will rant about the Facebook approach to privacy, yet still decide to use the service daily. After all, they enjoy visiting Facebook and it’s where their friends are. The same is true of Google and other services.
  
• Phone and cable companies see passive support all day every day. Millions of customers decide to carry on paying them each month, even though the service is poor, because it’s easier than switching providers.

Passive support is the child of inaction

The reason passive support is so common, is that it is the natural by-product of inaction. Yes, it’s easy to talk the talk and fail to back it up with action, but we have to be aware that there’s a price to pay for taking the easy route.

The price?

Every time we elect to passively support something, which we claim to be against, we feed the very thing we are opposed to. It acquires our support.

Passive or otherwise, each time we give support to something we are opposed to, we fail to be the change we want to see in the world.

Jim Connolly can help you grow your business and achieve the breakthrough marketing results your hard work deserves. To find out more, simply click here!

Someone recently asked me why I often use the 3 word term ‘love and light’, when I comment on other blogs or chat with some friends on social networks. So, here’s the answer.

Love and light

I grew up in a very tough environment, the son of penniless immigrants. I saw people try and fight hate with deeper hate and I saw what happened when good people embraced darkness. By the time I reached 21, I’d already seen many of the kids I grew up with incarcerated, addicted to drugs or dead. These were not bad kids, just kids who made some bad choices.

I’m not capable of explaining why I use the term love and light, as elegantly as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr did. Here’s what Dr. King said:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever challenged you are experiencing today, I wish you love and light!

I wrote recently about a real challenge I was facing, regarding spam comments here on the blog. Today, I have the answer I need and also a wonderful piece of advice for any of you, who use WordPress and have a spam problem.

My comment spam challenge

As I wrote a couple of days ago, the volume of comment spam here was around 2,500 a day and increasing. Almost all this spam was being successfully caught by the Akismet plugin, however, in with this spam were some legitimate comments from readers. My challenge was the amount of time it took, for me to find legitimate comments, when a reader emailed me to say their comment had not been published. This was made harder, as many would forget to send me the email address they used for their comment, so I had no way to do a quick search.

When I wrote about this challenge, I saw 2 possible solutions:

1. Install a 3rd party commenting system, like LiveFyre or Disqus, with everyone needing to register in order to comment.
2. Turn blog comments off and have readers respond to the posts via social networks.

In the end, I did neither!

How I cured my comment spam problem (for now)

This morning, for the second day running, I went to my blog to find there were no spam comments in my spam filter. There were also no emails, from people whose comments had not been published. So, no spam comments, yet every legitimate comment went through. Here’s how I did it!

I received a huge amount of feedback from people regarding how to resolve my issue and 5 different people recommended the same simple plugin, which they said would solve the problem in minutes. They were right.

Conditional Capture for WordPress

The plugin is called Conditional Captcha for WordPress.

It works with Akismet, so whenever Akismet identifies a spam comment, it asks the sender to complete a simple captcha (see image.) If they complete it successfully, their comment is accepted. If they don’t, the comment is deleted.

Another thing I like about this plugin, is that unlike other captcha plugins, where everyone has to fill it in, this one is targeted. Unless Akismet thinks you are a spammer, you will never see it. This means it’s as quick and easy to comment here now, as it has always been.

Two additional lessons learned

After writing the blog post asking people for their feedback, two things became very clear, very fast.

The first was no surprise. It seems a lot of people dislike commenting on blogs, which use 3rd party commenting systems. Some, including me, find them unnecessarily confusing. Others dislike the idea of handing their details to a 3rd party Internet start-up or giving them access to their Twitter, Facebook accounts etc – Just to leave a comment. Many also said, they disliked how sites using 3rd party commenting systems often loaded slowly. Speed is a big deal to me, which is why I have dedicated hosting.

The second thing I learned, came as a huge surprise! I was amazed that the majority of people thought it was perfectly fine to simply turn blog comments off and have the conversations about the posts, on social networks instead. I was ready to be attacked for even suggesting this as a possibility, yet it seems people spend so much time on social networks now, that it’s easier for them to comment there, rather than on the actual blog. This was especially the case for those, like me, who usually read blogs on a tablet or phone. I currently get around 80% – 90% of my comments AWAY from this blog.

Best of both worlds

I can now provide you with the best of both worlds. Readers who like to comment here (I’ve had almost 30,000 comments so far) can do so and without any fuss. Those who like to comment on social networks will carry on doing so. I have also been able to save myself a lot of time and frustration, now that comment spam is no longer an issue.

I’m hesitant to recommend anything after using it for just 2 days. However, as I was getting as much blog comment spam in 2 days as many get in a month, I can confirm that Conditional Captcha for WordPress has been extremely accurate and easy to use. This plugin is also free, though ‘d have liked to have been given the option to either buy it or at least donate to the plugin’s creator.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who chimed in with their feedback, suggestions and fixes.

It’s beautifully ironic, that it was you, the reader community, who solved the problem for me.

THANK YOU!

Photo: Andrew Hyde

Blog comments have changed a lot, since I started blogging.

Initially, the vast majority of feedback I received from my posts, came from comments, which were left on my blog. Today, I get most of my blog comments from people on Google+, Twitter and Facebook (in that order.) There are posts here with 10 comments, which received 40 or 50 comments from people on social networks.

Comment spam has become a much bigger challenge

Back when I started, I would get maybe 10 or 20 spam comments a day, which was easy to control. It took just a minute, to spot any genuine comments that were incorrectly identified as spam and approve them. Today, the volume of spam has increased so much, that this is no longer sustainable. Comment spam to this site is getting out of control.

In fact, that’s what has prompted this post. For example, in the past 48 hours alone, I have been hit with over 4,000 spam comments (see image), all of which were caught in my spam filter. This has been getting steadily worse for years.

Here’s the problem: Sadly, somewhere in with those 4,816 spam filtered comments are legitimate comments from real people, who probably wonder why their comments have not been published. I regularly have people contact me, to ask where their comment is. I used to sift through the filtered comments to look for real comments, but it’s just too time consuming now. With so much spam to wade through, I now have to wait until someone asks me to look, so I can do a search using their email address, fish the comment out and then approve it. It’s time consuming, frustrating and getting slowly worse.

Clearly, something needs to change.

I’m looking for an answer & your feedback, please

My current thought is to either try using another commenting system, something that was better at allowing real comments through – or have comments here turned off and get all feedback from social networking sites.

I’d like your opinion on which of the 2 options you think is best.

Option 1: Install Disqus or LiveFyre

I spent much of Monday researching the various commenting systems, but none did exactly what I needed. The closest I found were Disqus and LiveFyre. If I use LiveFyre or Discus, you would need to either set up an account with them or sign in via a social network, before you could leave a comment here – in order to block comment spam the way I would need it to. This approach encourages accountability, though it wouldn’t eradicate non-automated comment spam.

A major plus is that either system should ensure that all legitimate comments get through.

As with any third-party commenting system, when these services are down, you won’t be able to comment here and I won’t be able to do anything about it. I’m not thrilled with that. Neither of these platforms would provide me with exactly what I want, which is to spend all my blogging time creating content for you and connecting with you. I would still have the aggravation of non-automated comment spam and the frustration of relying on a third party company, for my comments to work.

Although not perfect, I’m very happy to work with one of these systems if enough readers want to comment on the blog.

Option 2: Turn blog comments off and have feedback from you via social networking sites

This is already where the vast majority of reader feedback comes from. It would mean there was no spam to deal with. Also, there would be no need to slow my site down with plugins or worry about the third party commenting systems slowing the site down or not working. Time wise, as I am already responding to people’s comments about my posts on social networks, there would be a huge time saving for me. This would give me more time to produce content and connect. However, none of these benefits matter, if they result in the value of the blog decreasing to enough of it’s readership. That’s non-negotiable and it’s why I am keen to get your feedback.

What do you think?

I’d love to know what you think and I truly respect your opinions. This is especially the case, if you are one of those who comments on my posts, either here on the blog or via a social networking site. Which option would you prefer to see?

(UPDATE)

Problem solved. Here’s how I fixed the problem, quickly and easily, going from 2,500 spam comments a day, to zero!

Photo: j9sk9s

The most successful marketing today, is marketing that people share amongst their friends.

Pestering people is cheap

The reason we receive so many spam emails and see all those unwanted sales messages on social networking sites, is that it has never been cheaper (in every sense of the word) to pester huge numbers of people. There’s no barrier to entry today. Now, if we go back just 10 or 15 years, if you wanted to get a message in front of 100,000 people, it was expensive. Today, it can be done for peanuts.

Pestering people is cheap, has little risk attached and requires little creativity. As a result, it’s everywhere – even though people are getting better and better at ignoring it.

The inspiration deficit

Where we see a shortage, is in business owners who have crafted a compelling story, which people want to share. I call this the inspiration deficit.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other platforms are PACKED FULL of hundreds of millions of people, who are looking for something interesting to share with their friends. We even have a name for people, who spend their social networking time sharing other people’s information. We call them curators.

There’s no lack of people willing and ready to share our message.

The deficit is caused by the lack of business owners, who are willing to invest the time, effort, energy and creativity to build a story about their business that’s worth sharing.

The BIG inspiration pay off

As business owners, we must learn to stop pushing an uninspiring story. No, people are not interested in yet another provider, who is just a little less expensive or who delivers just a little faster than average. Instead, we need to learn to feed the marketplace with a compelling story and allow the marketplace to spread our message for us.

Is it worth the extra effort, to create a compelling service or customer experience, which people will feel motivated to talk about? Well, think of it like this. Right now, there are hundreds of millions of people waiting for you to give them a story worth sharing.

In the worst economic climate in living memory, that’s a pretty compelling reason to invest the extra effort.

PS: Need some free help on how to create inspirational ideas, products and services? Here are dozens of free articles, just for you!

Jim Connolly can help you grow your business and achieve the breakthrough marketing results your hard work deserves. To find out more, simply click here!

Photo: Seth 1492

If you would like to be massively more influential, in a really meaningful way, this post is for you!

Influence

Here’s what we know about real influence: It’s powerful. Politicians seek the endorsement of influential celebrities, because it influences how the public vote. Brands pay sports stars to appear in commercials for their fragrances, because it influences people to feel good about (and buy) their product. Companies will often pay influential former political leaders to sit on their board of directors, in order to influence investors. People with real influence have huge commercial value.

Online, what people often think of as influence is something very different. Today, many people confuse influence with something called social proof. They chase social proof, rather than build influence. So, what is social proof?

Influence and social proof are very different

Influence is real. It makes things happen. A truly influential person can take action and solve your biggest problem. They know the right people and have the respect of other, highly influential people.

For example: I once saw how one phone call from a truly influential person, stopped a business owner from losing both his business and his home. He made just one call and a 3 year old problem, which had driven the business owner to the brink, was solved in 60 seconds.

Social proof is very different. It’s about providing people with independent (looking) proof that suggests you are influential. It works well on some people, less well on others. Here are 2 common examples of social proof and how it can work:

• When we visit someone’s blog and we see lots of people sharing their posts, that’s social proof. It works like this: If lots of people seem to value this person’s content, it must be good. This blogger must be popular.
• When we see someone has thousands of followers on social networking sites, that’s social proof too. It works like this: If thousands of people follow this person, they must be some kind of leader, with great information to share.

Unlike influence, social proof online is super-easy to fake!

Yes, here’s the problem with social proof: Even a child can fake it. Here are some extremely common ways that people fake social proof.

• Any blogger can make it look like every post they write has been shared by lots of people, by simply setting up lots of dummy social media accounts, which automatically share everything from that blogs RSS feed. It takes a few hours to set up 20 or 30 accounts and that blogger can make themselves look like a social media rock star, to those unaware of what they are doing.
• Many people use the number of comments on a blog post, as social proof that the post was of value. The thing is, any blogger can post as many dummy comments on their own blog as they wish. Boom – every post they write can look like it has lots of comments. And of course, it’s easy to display a fake RSS reader number, so it looks like 50,000 or 100,000 people have subscribed to their blog.
• Anyone can have a hundred thousand Twitter followers, by simply using a script that randomly follows a thousand people a day and attracts ‘follows’, from the 20% of Twitter users, who feel compelled to follow everyone back. If you want faster results, you can just buy 10,000 or 20,000 followers for thirty dollars a time.
• BTW: If you want to spot who’s using the Twitter software trick to boost their numbers, it’s easy. Just click on who THEY follow and look for accounts, which have only tweeted once or twice. Because the software used for the trick works randomly, it follows people who’ve not even tweeted yet. It also follows people, who are totally inappropriate, like accounts from people who tweet in a language that person can’t read, etc. You’d be surprised how many social media and marketing ‘gurus’ use that trick!

The social proof trap

Most small business owners try to legitimately build social proof and invest valuable time into it, every working day. They work their butts off, to encourage people to comment on their blogs and share their blog posts. They strive to encourage people to follow them on Twitter, join them on LinkedIn, circle them on Google+ or ‘like’ them on Facebook. The challenge here, is that the enormous time spent on building social proof the legitimate way, could be used earning influence. Less time spent on social networking sites trying to boost your Klout score and other social proof numbers, means you have more time:

• You have more time to do work that matters.
• You have more time to write great content, which earns the respect of your marketplace.
• You have more time to build deeper relationships, with fewer people – rather than shallow relationships with RHINO’s.

Develop influence, then the social proof will follow

An alternative approach is to focus on developing influence, first. When you spend the time earning a position of true influence, you will get the most impressive social proof measurement of all – When you speak, people will listen and then act!

As Seth Godin said last week; “Hang out with people who aren’t looking for shortcuts. Learn from them.” That’s a hard message to sell, because it goes against the online trend for instant results. However, Seth is absolutely right.

No, you can’t automate your way to true influence and you can’t buy miracle software to develop the trust of your marketplace either. You have to get them the old fashioned way… you have to earn them and it takes time.

Jim Connolly can help you grow your business and achieve the breakthrough marketing results your hard work deserves. To find out more, simply click here!

Image: Sean MacEntee

Do you give your marketplace a powerful reason to listen to you?

Do you then make it extremely easy, for them to share what you have to say with their friends?

If you just answered ‘no’ to either of those questions, you are missing out on the best opportunity you have, to generate massive interest in your business.

In short: Develop a compelling story about your business, product or service that’s worth spreading. Next, make it super-simple for people to tell your story to their friends.

Then watch what happens!

Jim Connolly can help you grow your business and achieve the breakthrough marketing results your hard work deserves. To find out more, simply click here!