So often I work with businesses that almost fearful of taking the next step, who are frightened of failure or even fearful of success. 

I am always reminded of a story which Dad used to tell me

Coach: What stops you noticing all the opportunities around you?

Electrician: Fear of failure

Coach: What would you like instead?

Electrician: Confidence

Coach: What stops you feeling confident?

Electrician: Fear of failure

Coach: What would you like instead?

Electrician: Confidence

Coach: Notice the loop? Now can I ask you - do you really want to change?

Electrician: Yes I want to. I want the confidence to make the changes

Coach: OK. SO imagine 3 light bulbs screwed into a board with a common cable. The first one is a 10 watt, second 100 watt and third 1000 watt bulb. Which glows the brightest?

Electrician: The third one

Coach: If the same cable brings equal power to each socket, what's the difference?

Electrician: Electrical resistance - ah, I see it is me that is resisting opportunity.

Coach: Life, like electricity consists of pure energy. It flows through all is us equally. There is no end to this supply - only you can cut it off through resistance. Stop blaming external factors and accept full responsibility for your actions.

Once we identify that resistance, once we start working on addressing it....then the success fuse is lit again....do you know your resistance?

"I let the painting live"

The words of Jackson Pollock and when you think about it, so relevant to the way we see social media today. Just like Pollock, when we are producing, curating, commenting on social media we are the vehicle for our personality....our values...

In fact one could say

"I let the ideas live"

Why does social media frighten some people or even not work for some companies?

If you are going to let your ideas live then you have to

• Create ideas time, create thinking time....haven't the time people say, I say ideas are the revenue generators!
• Have a strong sense of who you are and who you are not....don't want to cut any part of the market out people say, I say better to be loved by a sector than not seen by the masses
• Don't fear being wrong, fear never sharing the idea.....don't like negative feedback people say, I say prefer that to launching and failing!
• Remember, like Pollock, you need to paint a picture of the idea to help people experience it....we don't have a story, we just make x people say, I say we all have a story...why do you make x? If you don't know then maybe that is why you can't differentiate on more than price?
• Revel in freeing ideas...play angel advocate not devils advocate....free ideas then see what works rather than stopping ideas from evolving...I mean imagine Alexander Graham Bell trying to describe how wonderful a telephone was! I can hear it now...but what's the point we have telegrams, and none of our customers have one!!

I use many analogies to the creative world...why?...because marketing, because social media is part of that creative world.

Our blog etc is our canvas on which we express our ideas....

I suppose you could say that is a load of Pollacks...I say, maybe but it may make you a lot of Monet!

I have now gained true insight after over 20 years in business.

Human beings are weird! 

Social media is a wonderful example. We get the chance to converse with our consumers and then decide we don't have time, we get the chance to show our personality and yet produce generic messages, we get the chance to listen, yet we still prefer to tell!

Questions we need to ask ourselves are:-

What are we ignoring as an opportunity?

What are we railling against...not for innovation but because we are humans?

How can we turn this human reaction into a positive?

I came across the following about Time from Barbara Adam which seemed to define why humans are weird!

Faced with change we create stability

Faced with variation we produce sameness

Faced with uncertainty we establish the sciences

Faced with directional change we fashion reversibility

Faced with transience we hold time still

Faced with ephemerality we impose structure

Faced with impermanence we create permanence

Faced with mutability we produce art and institutions

Faced with decay we invent preservation

Faced with decline we attempt to reverse it

Faced with entropy we produce ever more of it

Faced with deterioration science creates irradiation

Faced with death we crave an afterlife

Faced with mortality we seek immortality

Faced with extinction we presume reincarnation

Faced with finitude we produce things that outlast us

How many are true for you?

How many are negative turned to positive but also how many are positives which we turn negative?

If your business provides services to other businesses--perhaps you offer rapid prototyping or human resources services--then the way you market your company will be different from business to consumer (B2C) companies.

These differences even extend to your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, taking basic SEO strategies and refining them to better suit your needs. To get to that point, though, you have to have a firm grasp of the basics. Following that, you must clearly define your goals. If you don't know where you're trying to go, you'll never get there.

Most SEO campaigns are aimed at increasing visibility to individual consumers and are created accordingly, but if your clients are businesses you'll have to adjust those tactics to suit them.

Learn the Basics

There are a few practices that make up the foundation for any SEO campaign, namely your website's structure and navigation, keyword choice, context, content and the number of outbound links on each page.

• The URL for each web page should be simple and human-readable – not a computer-generated text string. This makes it easier for people to read it and gives search engines more information to help categorize each page and its contents. 
• Having clear, simple navigation menus that offer easy access to the most important pages tells search engines that your website is well-built and that you've taken the time to provide a good user experience.
• Choosing keywords that match your goals and your audience is the most important aspect of any SEO campaign. Being able to attain spot 1 for "apple pie" is a marvelous achievement, but if your business has nothing to do with pastries that time was wasted. 
• Keep outbound links to a minimum. If you have too many links your site will hemorrhage link juice or--worse--will be viewed as spammy by Google, earning you a sizeable downrank.

Define Your Goals

Your SEO path will be largely defined by the results you want to see.

1. Evaluate who your audience is, 
2. what service you're trying to sell and 
3. what you want searchers to do when they find your site. 
4. Do you want them to sign up for email updates on your products or would you rather they fill out a form so you can contact them about your services? 
5. Are you trying to provide as much information to them as possible or are you directing them down a conversion funnel as quickly as possible? Before you can figure out what you want to do, you need to figure out where you want to be.

Target Businesses

B2B SEO has some marked differences from B2C SEO.

• Keyword choice has to cover a broad range for businesses, because most business buying choices aren't decided by individuals and are based on extensive research. By selecting keywords to bring searchers in at each point in the purchasing process, from early research to in-depth research, all the way through to the final purchase, you increase your chances of profitable conversions.
• Content production for B2B has to be tied very closely to your industry, increasing your perception as a thought leader in your field and increasing the relevance in the eyes of search engines. 

Your content should answer questions that businesses have before they even ask, giving you the ability to create a relationship with potential clients by giving them reason to respect you and your work.

By targeting your SEO campaign specifically towards your desired clients, you can increase not only your rankings but also the likelihood that you'll see more profitable conversions down the line.

Today in a guest post from the wonderful Joseph Baker, Joe works at Professional Intern

Show 369 of The Engaging Brand business and marketing podcast is here talking about social media, leadership and marketing and sponsored today by MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup - for special offer try today!

Andrea Kates joins Anna Farmery to discuss how to discover and exploit your business genome. Andrea is the founder of the Business Genome® project and author of the bestselling business innovation book, Find Your Next. (You can take a diagnostic test here)

• Why you should be finding your next...rather than looking at the past, in business
• What is the business genome?
• Is there one business genome or a collective genome based on the leadership.
• Why you should take a fresh look rather purely rely on the data.
• How to look outside your industry for new ideas
• 4 steps of developing the business genome - sort, match, hybridise, adapt and thrive
• Why you should use your hunches rather than always data.
• How do you ensure that you match what your business genome should be rather than what you want it to be?
• Are there a risks from new thinking as well as opportunities?
• Is the secret sauce relevant across products rather than the product itself?
• What are the elements of your business genome?
• Take the diagnostic test online to find your next?
• How you turn from looking back to looking forward - trendability is the most important factor!

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter, leave a message at The Engaging Brand Fan Page or join me on to discuss it on Google+

Don't forget to try Mozy Pro backup and keep your data safe!

How you can listen to The Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following RSS Feed

Social media has helped me so much as a person and also my business. I was thinking today how it has helped me explore much more than I have ever done in the past. It is a catalyst for thinking, thinking not about the core offer but what is beyond.

Our core work is critical to today. It is supplying the money to allow us to try new ideas. However, sometimes I think that we get the balance wrong

• Some people concentrate on their core customers without thinking of who is at the edge of their circle and how you could use that to develop innovation and a new core for the future.
• Some people concentrate that much on the edge or innovation, that they forget about their core.

Social media is a great way of looking at the outliers. Looking across industries, looking across the world for who or what could be your future. 

When I am not on the web - I am actioning. I am taking action on my core business and also 25% of my time is developing the future by taking the inspiration from social media and translating it into my business world or offer.

When I am looking at Google Reader, twitter, Google + etc, I am not consuming but actively reading.....almost like a treasure hunt for ideas.

I note them down in my moleskine and then at the end of each week, I look for themes. People say why a moleskine....not the web. For me it is important to take the ideas out of the context that I found them....by putting them on paper, I am seeing them in a different way.

At the end of each month, I decide upon

• Which themes need me to explore further
• Which actions have I taken during the month which has lead to a concrete idea
• Which actions have I taken during the month which has lead to discounting that as a future revenue stream
• Then I schedule next weeks 25%

Social media is a lot of things, but never forget the power of inspiration. To achieve that you need to actively read, synthesise ideas...and then of course plot a course in the real world.

How much time do you take on social media to explore the 'black swans'...the 'outliers'...the ideas that will translate to your sector?

I was talking today with someone who spent more time looking at the competition than their own business. We talked about competition and they used phrases such "they are making us do this or they are forcing me to do that".

It was an interesting coaching session because we worked on how they could change their mindset. It reminded me of this quote from Bruce Jenner at the Olympic games.

What a wonderful way of looking at competition - whether internal or external.

Competitors are not to be feared, they are to be embraced as your motivation to keep growing, keep learning.

Competition can be used as fuel for your motivation, a fuel for your next targets, a fuel for your career and talent.

Imagine how boring it would be without competition!

See I think competitors should be termed inspiration or a source of inspiration at least. They are the fuel to keep taking yourself and your business forward.

How do you view other businesses - competition or inspiration?

This weeks guest post is from Mariana Ashley!

If you have a special talent or product that you would like to bring to the public eye, there are so many ways to go about it online that the process can seem a little daunting. Should you start a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account? Or just promote your products or services on a platform like Ebay?

The first thing to do is define exactly what you are trying to sell and to whom. After you understand that, you can create a step-by-step process to target your desired audience and create a place for yourself online. In order sell anything online, especially if you use social media to help you do so, it is helpful to consider the fundamental journalistic questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how… Answer them successfully, and you will be well on your way to defining your unique sales window. 

1. WHO is looking for your product?

Who is your customer? This is probably the most important question to ask yourself when you start to define where you fit online. Who is your product for? If you are selling your own image as a brand, who is searching for you? 

2. WHAT do they want?

What is it that your customers are searching for when they are looking for your product? Why do they want it? What does it provide them? Is it something tangible, like a specific product that can be bought and sold, or is it information or, possibly, inspiration? 

3. WHEN do they need you?

What time of day are your users searching for your product? Or what part of the year do you expect the most traffic, and why? Defining this will help you get more of a birds’ eye view as far as when to launch new products or start particular campaigns.

4. WHERE are they looking?

Where are your users hanging out online? Are they using Google to search for you? Are they more likely to stumble upon your product through a related site, rather than through a search inquiry? These are important things to think about so you don’t go through the trouble of building a path to your sales window from an area of the web where your users don’t even congregate. 

5. WHY do they need this product?

If you are having trouble figuring out where your customers may be browsing, think about why they would be attracted to your product in the first place, and think about areas online associated with that need.

6. HOW can they best use/access your product?

Once you define who your customers are, what they want, and where they are looking, you can figure out how your users can best access your product. Try to create a space online that will seamlessly integrate with the things your customers are already doing online. For example, if you are a photographer, link to Facebook pages and create an easy way to submit payments or book shoots online through a secured website.

This is a guest post and thanks to Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031 @gmail.com.

It strikes me as weird when people say you can succeed with social media as long as you put the effort in....because no matter what you look at, true genius is when it seems effortless.

Think of such diverse people like Judi Dence, John McEnroe, Oprah Winfrey, The Beatles....the beauty all lies in their effortless approach to what they choose to do!

So for me the effort needs to go into making it effortless....so how can you make it effortless?

• Only use social media if you have a passion in what you do...
• Only use social media if you want to connect with people
• Only use social media if you know why, what and how - (helps you measure success)
• Only use social media if you like to explore, test, try....
• Only use social media if you are willing to practice, fail, review, practice, try etc
• Only use social media if you want to be authentic
• Only use social media if you are a social media consumer

Otherwise I would argue that social media becomes an effort and people can sense that effort. 

Sure you need effort to understand, to learn, to create that time in the diary but that is the result I would argue of the above points?

Is social media an effort to you or effortless?