The stories are important, but not any more than Simple himself.  He is the story, breaking through everyday life’s roadblocks with that particular brand of common sense that makes the rest of us say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Simple could teach marketers a lot.  A message that appeals to the “well, of course” reaction in us all.  Something simple- that’s what’s called for.  Here are 5 reasons why that works.

1)  Simple messages are easy to understand. If it requires explanation, we’re lost.  A clean page sends a powerful message.  Get to the point already.

2) Simple messages are easy to read.  This is the difference between you average local law office spot and a Nike ad.  Everyone knows what both are; who is leveraging that knowledge.

3) Simple messages are clever. People hate change, but they really appreciate something different.  You can say a lot with a little, but you have to choose your words wisely.

4) Simple messages introduce complex ideas. Go back to the google example I linked to.  The algorithm they use might be one of the most complex pieces of code ever engineered.  How did they present it?  With their name, and a search box.

5) Simple messages are sticky. I recently read Made To Stick again (pick it up- it’s required reading on this subject).  As the Heath brothers put it, simplicity isn’t about dumbing down- it’s about getting to the core of your message.  People are more apt to remember you if you can simply convey who you are.

If you have to explain everything about what you do, your message is lost. People can’t remember everything about you.  Make it simple.

What are your ideas about simplicity?  Share your best example with us- I’m definitely interested in hearing about simplicity in all its forms…

But don’t feel bad.  I was right there with you for a while.  Not in thinking that you couldn’t participate; just that it wouldn’t be worthwhile.

But I have three examples to share from today.  Between them, they prove that any business -any business- can participate in social media and make it work for them.  Meaning, they can generate and participate in conversations that people are having about them.

The first comes from an interesting meme on Twitter.  When graphic designer Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, he began to deal with it by trying to make fun of what is a very serious situation: he started to blame his cancer for everything that went wrong.  Ever.

Lost keys?  Blame Drew’s cancer.  Toast a little too dark?  Blame Drew’s cancer.  Long story short- He and some friends started to spread it around and it took off.  Soon they partnered with the Livestrong Foundation, and they’re hoping to raise money by having others repeat the message.

So, I sent my (unfortunately snarky) tweet out to the world with the tag #blamedrewscancer, and I blamed Precious Moments on Drew’s cancer.

I have a dry-bordering-on-dark sense of humor.  Recognizing that, @preciousmoment responded to me that she would take the blame, since it was for a good cause.

I was (kind of) shocked.  The graceful way that they accepted someone (me) making a little bit of fun at their expense is social media at it’s finest.  Their response was the textbook example of how to enter the conversation.

They found out what I was talking about.  They talked to me in lighthearted way about it.  They left it there.  And I always thought they were evil.  Apparently not true.

The second example is from Chris Brogan’s blog post about Glynne Beer-Flavored Soap.  Here’s a product that lots of folks might feel has no story to tell.  Not true.

Glynne’s has a blog, a facebook fanpage, and a twitter account, all acting as different tools to talk to other people.  Are they hard selling their soap over facebook?  No.  So what’s in it for them?

Community.  People are talking about that they’re doing, who they are, what kind of people might like their products, how their soaps are made, health and hygene, and on and on.  Why wouldn’t you, as a business, get involved in that?

Plus, they’re from Monkey Junction, NC.  That’s worth starting a company just to say that you’re from there.

Finally, I saw (and participated in) a contest on Twitter today to win an Amazon Kindle from Shurguard Self Storage. This company rents storage space, and yet they successfully used social media to get people to talk about who they are.

Not that they’re boring.  Or that they shouldn’t be using social media.  Just the opposite.  They have a story, too, and they’re just using new tools and techniques (combined with old ones- a contest) to tell it.

My point is that social media is not some huge, complex, confusing tech beast.  It’s a collection of really great, mostly simple tools that you can use to have conversations with people.

That’s it.  What conversations are you having?

What really struck me was this:  the format has remained exactly the same.  Not the sketches.  Not the jokes.  Not the music.  The format.

I broke the show down into parts, and found that the show’s structure can substitute for a plan on how to write your blog.  Here’s what I picked up on:

Start with strong, topical information.  This bit is usually ripped from the headlines.  The whole audience can identify with it.  The show gives their take on a widely understood event or idea.

This is right where your blog starts. These posts establish who you are, what you’re writing about, and why people should tune in.  Your “A Material” goes here.

Introduce someone that’s well known.  This person is instantly recognizable to the audience.  The audience trusts that they’re going to have something good to say.

This is the equivalent of hosting a guest blogger who’s an authority on your subject.  Or, it could be a post from you about someone who’s an authority on your subject.  Or it’s an interview.  You’re bringing in another opinion, one that’s recognized and respected.

Compelling material goes here.  It’s the bulk of the show, and they mix longer sketches with short takes and riffs.

You’ve already established who you are.  Now you can expand upon it.  The structure stays generally the same, and is recognized by your audience.  These posts keep people coming back.

Music.  I love the music part of SNL.  Not every band is for everyone, but it will appeal to some people out there, and it’s introducing a lot of the audience to something new, or something they’re really fans of.

These posts would contain info that’s a bit more esoteric.  Niche subjects fit here, or highlights for the hardcore audience.  Also a place to revisit old favorites.

News.  And not just news- opinions about the news (always my favorite, BTW).  Every blog should have some.  It’s worth discussing to remind readers that you not only know what you’re talking about, but you know what’s coming up.

Experimental material that usually fails.  Remember the sketch about the cats from mars that were allergic to barbecue?  Of course not.  Nobody does.  But SNL has always allowed room (OK, sometimes too much) to fail, and so should you.

Not every post is going to be the strongest thing you’ve ever written, and sometimes, your audience will disagree with you.  That’s fine.  You have to experiment and fail to learn and grow.

Thank yous.  Always, at the end of every show, you get thanked.  It’s a nice gesture, and it’s an important part of the production.

Your blog isn’t any different.  Be sure to thank your readers regularly for coming, and thank your commenters for commenting.

Saxophone music is optional.

What do you think?  Do you see the parallels, or is it all in my head?

On the other hand, you’ve turned love into work.  And there are going to be times when the love just isn’t there.

In my former life as a guide, I got to spend long days out in the world, exploring beautiful places with interesting people.  But in reality, not every day was paradise.  Sometimes the weather was terrible, or the people were boring, or I was mad at my dog for getting in the trash.

Things would go bad for a while.  Not “terrible” bad- it’s a relative term.  What I mean is, they just didn’t go as well as they could have.  I always felt as if, on those days, people weren’t getting their time’s worth.  On vacation.  And I can’t think of much that’s more valuable than that.

But there was an obligation to be amazing.  I was doing what I loved.  Living the dream.  In a way, my guests were there to be a part of that as much as they were to see an incredible place.

I had a strategy for days like that.  And I can honestly say that, every time, using just a few well thought out tips saved the day, for me and my guests.  Here’s what I did…

Plan

Just saying the word “strategy” insinuates that there was a plan.  I never knew for sure which days were going to be bad.  And they were very few and far between.  But when they came, I was ready.

A plan involves having some go-to material.  For me, these were stories that I had crafted relentlessly, over years.  I could tell them, convincingly, in my sleep.   What got you involved in the field, your product’s functions, the  greatest act of customer service you can think of, and on and on.

Think about what connects those examples:  they’re superlative.  They are (or should be) things that really matter to you.  The reason they matter is because they have a universal action within them.  Risk.  Excitement.  Humor.  There needs to be something in the story that everyone can relate to.

Get three ideas you like, and get to work.

Practice

You’ll never be able to tell a great story without practice.  I think the best way to do that is experience.  Your story needs some miles.  You can get miles by creating a presentation, writing the story out, or telling it to your 6 month old ad infinitum.

A lot of times at conferences, I take notes knowing I will never look at them again.  Just the act of recording something helps me to remember the important parts.  I’ve practiced that act, so I know what parts I’ll take away.  Would you be able to remember, without looking, the notes you took from the last presenter you watched?  What about the story from E.T.?

Think about how much practice it took to finally tell the story of E.T. (almost 30 years ago!)  I believe it when people say that they’re not natural storytellers.  It’s learned.

Commit

Even when your day is lousy, be ready to commit to your three stories.  No matter what happens with your day, leave it with those stories.  Tell them to a group.  Write them in a blog.  Send a memo.  Commit to telling them.

What you’re doing is leaving your “A material”.  It doesn’t mean you’re not being genuine.  On the contrary,  you’re caring enough about the person you’re talking to, or the group you’re presenting to, to give them this story of yours.

If you commit to the story, there’s no way you fail.  Here’s why:

We know from planning that our story has universal actions.  If you’re committed, you’ll experience those actions as you tell the story.  So you are excited, inspired, etc. as you tell your story.

We know from practice that we can tell the story convincingly.  If you’re committed, you can “go there” anytime, no matter what kind of day you’re having, and, through your story, give something back.

Commitment invests a resource into your story: you.  The people that are listening to you deserve a good story.  What’s yours?

The tools we use to communicate and interact with each other have been in a perpetual state of evolution since the use of hieroglyphs more than 5,000 years ago.  Those tools are now, just as they were then, shaped by the societal needs and resources.

While needs are much more loosely defined now than then (information on life-sustaining crops vs. text messages), the  state of communication and interaction has been -and will continue to be- shaped by the needs and resources of society.

Today’s Needs and Resources

The resources:  (1) vast amounts of data and locations in which to interact,  (2) powerful communication tools (one form being mobile devices), and (3) a quickly expanding grid that connects these networks.

The needs:  (1) the insatiable need to be continually connected to work, friends, social groups, and (2) sharing data (images, videos, status updates, etc).

I think the rapid growth of social media and the ubiquity of mobile devices are impossible to separate.  As more individuals become connected, interaction with social media increases, which fuels the development of tools to facilitate quicker and easier connections.

It’s symbiosis.

Where This (Recently) Came From
Social media is not new.  In fact, digital social interaction predates the modern internet as we know it.  Usenet groups, message boards, and more paved the way for the tools which are perceived as the embodiment of social media (Twitter, Facebook and the like).

Mobile devices, which started as simple, humongous cellular phones, have a history dating to the early 1950’s.  Text messaging, which can be dated to the early 1990’s, realized a very slow rate of adoption, steady growth, and then an incredible explosion.

It’s reasonable (and logical) to expect that these elements will continue to morph.  Also, it’s difficult (at this time) to imagine that they will disappear.  They’ll be different, for sure.  But they’re not going away.

Mobile Coverage and Reach

According to Netpop Research mobile internet access has increased by 36% in the last year.  And here’s a Guardian article that discusses global mobile use.  This part sums it up:

“With 100,000 phone masts erected each year, the number of places with “no signal” is dwindling fast.  “More than 90% of the global population now has access,” said Gabriel Solomon of mobile trade body GSMA.

The graph below represents predictions for cellular subscriptions from by SNL Kagan.

SNL Kagan Mobile Data

Text and Multimedia Mobile Messages

Here are some stats and references to back up the point:

USA Today – Exploding growth in mobile messaging – 1/12/2005
• 14 billion text mobile messages were sent domestically in 2003, with industry reports showing that mobile messaging reached 25 billion by the end of 2004.

Cellsigns Mobile Marketing Blog
• More than 1 Trillion text messages sent/received in 2008. That is almost triple the messages compared to 2007 (363 Billion).
• Average of more than 3.5 billion SMS messages per day.
• 15 Billion MMS messages reported in 2008 – up from 6 Billion in 2007.

The numbers offer a poignant look at mobile, from where it started to where it’s going.  For in an in depth look, dig into this report from Cita – Wireless Association.  The text is on the wall.

The Emergence of Social Networks
Can you think of a day recently when you haven’t heard or read something about Twitter or Facebook?  Think about how you obtained breaking news, or kept up with friends and family five years ago.  Three years ago.  It’s changed a lot.

The share of adult internet users who have a profile on a social networking site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now.

Pew Research Center

Growth of Online Social Networks

As the number of people who are on social networks grows, the number of people accessing those networks regularly grows right along with it.

Social media has become a part of our culture.  We keep up with friends, we keep up with news, we keep up with competitors and our customers literally around the clock.  Enjoy breaking news?  Friendfeed and Twitter were/are in many cases the sole method of communication for those involved in the unrest in Iran.  These are just a few examples of the ways in which social media has permeated our daily lives.

Connection
It’s easy to see the similarity in growth between mobile and social.  I think the two are connected; they’re depending on one another to grow.  It’s a symbiotic relationship.

What do you think.  Is there a direct connection between the two? Or just coincidence?

Apparently, a lot of folks want SEO to die.  Or perhaps they simply enjoy sounding off on its demise.  Or maybe they’re mistaking “death” for “change”.

Die? No.  Change? Yes
For any SEO that has been around for more than a few years, change in search is nothing new.  Some changes have more impact than others, but change is a constant.

Those that claim SEO is dead should  brush up on the history of SEO.   What exactly has brought us to this point in the evolution of data retrieval (a.k.a. “search”)?  Don’t get me wrong- I don’t feel that experience is essential to being a good SEO.  But it sure as hell doesn’t hurt.  If you’re going to give a eulogy, you’ve got to know about the life that’s been lived.

Ask your SEO about “Florida”. If they say, “yeah, I have family in Orlando!”, they haven’t studied the changes of SEO.  You say “Florida” to an experienced SEO and you will likely see a hand go to the forehead, a “bitter beer” face and couple curse words.

Google’s Florida update was change.  Big change.

Did SEO die? Nope.

The Theoretical Goal of Search
The idea is to take your query (what you searched for) and return the best possible results. Simple right?

Complicated mathematical algorithms retrieve information, run a series of tests on the data entered, and then organize, order, and format the results for you to choose from (and give you SERPS = Search Engine Result Pages). The ordering is based on a number of factors, most of which are often debated.

What is not debated is that those factors can, do, and will change.

A Quick Look at Change

In the past (when I started in 1997) the King of the Hill was Alta Vista. You could stuff your page titles, page copy, and meta tags  with keywords and see strong results. It was a terrible end-user experience, but it was universal, and expectations where low.

Then, engines began to weed out keyword stuffing, began to discount meta tags in the algorithms.  The SERPS started to re-order.  Google incorporated links as a primary ranking factor.  They filtered and weighted those links.  They slapped you if you had the wrong kinds of links, or links from the wrong places.  They changed the way they interpreted the links, or passed “link equity” from link to link.

Those were huge changes.  And many, many other changes have occurred.  Several recent developments have brought about even more change and, yup, you guessed it, more claims that SEO is dead.

Decision Engines

Microsoft’s Bing, which is a search engine with which touts itself as a “decision engine”, displays a list of results based upon the query, and a list of “related searches” which you can check out.  I’m not anti-Microsoft, but Bing as a decision engine leaves a lot to be desired.  Shouldn’t a decision engine answer questions?  Try asking Bing a question, and see what you get.  Be careful- you’re probably going to confuse it.  What kind of decision engine is that?  None, really.

Hunch, however, is a decision engine. Apparently, they opted to not call it such after Microsoft’s Bing marketing campaign roll-out.  It is, however, definitely a decision engine- you don’t search, you ask a question.  Some argue that these types of engines will kill SEO, replacing “traditional search”.  Enter query keywords, decipher results.

I think this is just another change in the landscape.  And it’s one that I honestly don’t see having a big impact for some time.  Want to see what I mean?  Try Hunch.  It’s cool.  But it wouldn’t be my first choice for locating information (yet).

Algorithmic Change

Algorithmic changes happen all the time. If you monitor results closely you can almost see the search engineers turning the knobs.  However, a recent change, an example of algorithmic change, has some significant impact.

Some SEOs used certain tactics to influence the filtration of link equity through a website, making some links much more valuable than others.  By eliminating link equity from passing to some less important pages, you could, in theory, boost link equity to the more important pages.  Some call it “Page Rank Sculpting” others “Siloing” and still others “Pure Hogwash”.

One of the tools helping achieve this kind of link equity is called the “no-follow” tag. You can add a teeny bit of code to a link to prevent Google from passing link equity to that particular page.  Mike McDonald from WebProNews describes it as:

PageRank sculpting is the practice whereby you add no-follow attributes to less important links in order to emphasize links you deem more important. We used an analogy of a bucket withe holes in it. The holes represented your outbound links. Your website’s PageRank (link juice) flowed thru the holes. The fewer holes you had, higher the percentage of your link juice went thru the remaining holes (links). That’s PageRank Sculpting in a nutshell. Dividing your link authority by a smaller number of links in order to maximize the authority you pass on.

Google recently created a bit of buzz by stating the way in which Google dealt with no-follow had changed.  I don’t mean to get into a technical debate about no-follow, page rank, or siloing.  I want to re-enforce the idea that change is always an issue in search.  Lee Odden of Top Rank Blog has a great quote:

“if it can be searched, it can be optimized”

And check this out:  A recent SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization) Study found that spend on search marketing will grow to more than $26.1 billion by 2013.  That doesn’t sound like a death rattle to me.

When you read or hear statements of “SEO is dead” look at who is saying it and why.  The fact is SEO is not dead. It’s changing. 

How do you see SEO changing and moving forward?

People get fixated on shiny objects (”ooooo another place to advertise!”).  That mindset need not apply.  And yet they do, over and over again.

Here are three reasons why that will fail…

Misunderstanding the Purpose
Yes, Dell is selling their product, primarily through Twitter, to the tune of more than $3million since 2007.  A lot of money right?

Did you know that Dell realized 12.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenue for the first quarter of 2009?  Dell Outlet, Woot!, and others are “successful” in using social media, particularly Twitter, to sell – examine their business models and it starts to make sense.

They make money through social media – albeit a fraction of their total gross.

Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motor Company, stated recently at Blog Potomac, “I am not online to sell”.

Take a lesson from this: Educate, build trust, and the sales will come.  But you can’t be there just to sell.  It doesn’t work that way.

Unwillingness to Participate
So you would like to incorporate social media, but you don’t want to participate? Seriously?

Implementing a social media component is not a “set it up and let it work” strategy. It takes time. It takes effort (this is an operative word). It requires participation.

Are you actively monitoring the social landscape? How does it relate to your company, products, services and competitors?  Are you inviting input, asking open-ended questions, engaging (yes, cliche. I know) those that are discussing relevant topics?  That’s participating.

Unrealistic Expected Outcome
If you’re expecting social media to create a tidal wave of business, you are mistaken.  It should be a part of your marketing plan, not a replacement.

• Social media is not a panacea.
• Social media is not going to fix the economy.
• Social media is not going to make up for poor unique value proposition, poor customer service, or sub-par products.

Business owners that complain when social “isn’t working” likely don’t care about how it works to begin with.  What they’re trying to accomplish is something different from social engagement.  Unfortunately, they’re probably not willing to figure it out.

Social media is a powerful tool, yet clearly is not for everyone. If it’s not for you, the sooner you realize it, the better.

But it’s true.  Very rarely is an Aha moment due to seeing something for the first time.  Much more often, it’s because the information finally broke through.  It was presented in a way that was different.  Something about the message finally made sense.

When I hear people rail against recycled content on twitter, I think they’ve missed the point.  New ideas and methods are important, but they’re built upon foundations and principles that deserve constant reinterpretation.

Why?  To connect.  New ideas are exciting and they connect people in very specific and highly specialized ways.   But they’re built on concepts that everyone can imagine or identify with.

Having an understanding of those concepts allows us all to connect in the arena of new ideas.  So what if you’re saying the same thing over?  Are you making it sound new?  Are you using a new metaphor to describe it?

Another reason why recycling content is important is because teaching makes us better learners.  It might be enough to say that, yes, social media is about having conversations, or that good web content follows certain structural guidelines.  But does anyone get anything out of that?

If online communication is about sharing ideas, how can you know too much about the common ground?  I don’t think that you can.  People spend their lives studying the bible, the torah, or the koran- those are the same principles, revisited over and over.

Also, recycling content is the language of inclusion.  A lot of message boards become stagnant when the old pros don’t want to discuss what’s on the mind of the young bucks.  They’re not willing to recycle content, and the tribe ends up suffering for it.

If you come to this blog regularly, you’ll read about plenty of new information.  But you’ll see a lot of the same themes running through it.

Do you think that it matters?

Microformats - Mmm, Mmm... Good

Microformats are simple codes that you can use to identify specific kinds of data, like people or events, in webpages.  They make pages more descriptive to the computers that read, distribute, and extract information from them.

My interest was piqued about 3 years ago when I first heard about the concept.   Bots would someday be extracting contact information, calendar dates, reviews, and more for plain old web pages.  I began studying and trying to find examples in the wild.

As fate would have it, soon after reading Brian Suda’s “Microformats” book, I had an opportunity to listen to renowned designer/developer Dan Cederholm. He shared a story of his implementation of micoformats with the well known wine site, cork’d.

I was sold.

We’ve incorporated microformats in almost every project undertaken in the course of the past two and a half years.  We use them primarily with calendar listings, business contact details, and special case uses for geo-encoded data and reviews.

The reasons are threefold:

1. To build in forward compatible code
2. To make site content accessible and available for extraction by outside sources
3. For inclusion/consideration by search algorithms

Developers dedicated to their craft should be well aware of microformats and their uses. However, I must admit that I’m disheartened by the number of “developers” that haven’t heard of microformats.

It’s an example of how dead-weight developers are holding back the development of flexible web technologies.  They justify not using microformats by saying that there aren’t any applications supporting them.

That was never entirely true.  A number of Firefox toolbars and Yahoo! Search Monkey were parsing microformats.  Sure, not everything was looking at them, but hey, it has to start somewhere, right?  You have to plant the seeds to reap the harvest.

My SEO and Microformats Roller Coaster Ride
While at SMX in San Jose a year and a half ago, I was fortunate to have a brief opportunity to speak with Google’s Matt Cutts and ask if Google had any plans to factor in microformats.

Matt indicated testing was being done. Matt’s comment, coupled with the roll-out of Yahoo! Search Monkey left me very encouraged, and left it at that.  Awesome.

That encouragement was short lived.  Several months after, Matt responded to Twitter question about the testing by saying, “It hasn’t proven useful to users”.

Ouch.  It didn’t make sense.  Me and a lot of other people kept using them anyway.

On May 12th, the game changed. Google started to display parsed data from microformats (beginning with contact information and reviews).  And digital high-fives ensued!  This is a significant development, and should usher in the widespread adoption of using microformats.

Three Simple Things You Can Do With Microformats

1. You can use them in a hcalendar with your event listings.  They’re easy to export to icalendar, Google calendar, and more.
2. Use hcard to display your business contact information.
3. Further leverage your testimonials by using hreview.

Implementation

When starting any new development project, ask that microformats implementation be included. It’s simple to do, so don’t worry about blowing your project budget.For existing sites, talk to your developer about beginning with your company address and hcard.

If you’re an online retailer, microformats stand to have a pretty big impact on you. I think ecommerce sites can really capitalize on microformats by collecting product reviews, and displaying them using the hreview format.

Microformats Stickers

With Google and Yahoo! Search Monkey both making some use of microformats, we’ve got to assume that more and more services will follow.

I’m very interested to hear about others’ methods and reasoning for implementing microformats. If you are too, leave a comment and tell us about how you’re using them.

Not only will you get to geek out with me, but I’ll gladly send you a couple sheets of our recently printed Moo microformats stickers!

Well, I’m here in Falls Church VA for a lovely day and a great conference- the 2nd annual Blog Potomac.  Lots of friendly folks and interesting speakers.  And… and… the talking heads on sound system right now (I’m a fan).

Everything I’ve heard so far has been worthwhile, even if it’s covered some familiar ground.  Here are a couple of the take-aways as I digest my (delicious) lunch from dccenntralkitchen.  You can find all of these folks at the Blog Potomac website.

-Sphere Of Influence (SOI) is great, but you better connect it to ROI.  -Shel Holtz

-You can make up your own #hashtags on Twitter to make your point.  -Shireen Mitchell

-Ford has 200,000 employees, and one social media guy (who happens to be Scott Monty).

-If you want to be a leader in social media, don’t start with people; start with relationships.  -Liz Strauss

-Social media is dead.  -Geoff Livingston, who hosted the conference.

What are your thoughts on these thoughts?  Have you heard it before, or does this sound new to you?