Twitter follower numbers mean a great deal to a lot of people. However, it seems that as Twitter matures as a service, the number of followers someone has, has very little to do with their influence. For those of you like myself, who use Twitter as part of your marketing mix, ...
One of the great things about being in business today, is that we can get an idea, write it down, click a mouse button and get it in front of thousands of people in seconds. Better still, we can reach all these people for little more than the cost of our time. However, instant communications ...
How well do you handle criticism? If you use blogging, newsletters and/or social media sites as a way to market your services, you will receive varying levels of criticism. Paradoxically, the more successful you become, the more criticism you will receive, because ...
I just fell back in love with Twitter! As some of you might remember, I was once one of the world's top 40 most followed people on Twitter. Then, in January 2009, after being swamped daily with hundreds ...
How many Internet users have the same name as you? For most of us, the answer will be in the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or more. Right now, this represents a challenge for a growing number of consultants, entrepreneurs, trainers and authors etc, who trade or work in their own names. That's because ...
I have already had several books sent to me this year for review, written by social media experts or gurus. One thing all of them have in common, is that they contain a version of the following advice, which is, in my opinion totally incorrect: Build a following and market to that following.
Here’s what I have found to be better advice: Don’t build a following. Build a community instead!
FOLLOWERS are like the audience at a rock concert. They are set apart from the rock star on stage. They see the rock star as distant. They are part of the event, but a very small part. The rock star might get the crowd to sing the occasional verse, but we all know they are REALLY just broadcasting THEIR VOICE to the crowd! I really don’t see a lot of value in positioning yourself as a rock star, if you actually want to get involved with people. Ironically, the people I see using this approach all the time, are social media experts!
COMMUNITY members are like…
I wrote recently about copycat marketing. That’s where someone copies the marketing of someone else, hoping that it will work.
After writing that post, I received a lot of email and comments, from people who had personal experience of copycat marketing going wrong.
Here’s one email, which I would like to share with you and hear your thoughts on….
Is your marketing shouting at people?
If you go into Starbucks today and start shouting at the people around you, you will definitely grab their attention. However, it’s not the kind of attention you want to attract. Many small businesses use a very similar approach with their marketing. In an effort to capture attention, they act in a way that gets them noticed, but for all the wrong reasons.
They not only fail to generate new business; they can permanently damage the reputation of their business too.
Some examples of how companies shout at people with their sales and marketing:
* Adding people to their newsletter list, without permission. It’s spam.
* Spamming people on Twitter.
* Meeting people at networking events and using that transparent crap; “tell me about your business and how I can help you.” Wake up, it’s not 1985 any more!
* Asking people to join their Linkedin network, claiming they worked with them (when both parties know it’s a lie.)
* Unwanted telemarketing calls to people’s homes at 8pm. Just what you need when getting a young child to sleep or relaxing after a hard day….
Someone studying marketing at university, recently asked me what I thought a social media expert was. I told her that I see social media experts as people, who understand how to make social media platforms deliver results for organizations and individuals. However, she had a better ...
As Stephen Fry demonstrated on Twitter a few days ago, it's easy to allow a vocal critic to screw things up for you. In Stephen Fry's case, one of his followers told him that his tweets were boring. Fry then threatened to quit Twitter and sever his ties with the million people ...
So, can social media really help you market or promote something? Oh yes! Earlier today, I launched a brand new blog. Now, usually when you launch a new blog, the first day sees very little traction; after all, no one knows it's there. However, thanks exclusively to the use of a few social media tools, the blog ...
I'm sure you have heard it said many times before; "people think in pictures." In written marketing, the words we use have a massive impact on the kind of mental pictures we paint in the minds of ...
Whilst it's relatively simple (if time consuming), to develop a large social network, many business owners tell me they find it difficult to successfully market their products or services via social networks. Here's why I believe this happens & how to fix it! People talk in terms of "increased brand awareness" and "being part of ...
Did you start using Twitter in order to waste a stack of time attracting "followers"- Or to generate more sales, leads and business connections? Did you invest in those expensive brochures in order to watch them slowly go out of date - Or to increase the effectiveness of your marketing? Did you ...
I'm a marketing man, not a social media expert. However, because some social media tools are excellent for helping small businesses market their services, I've spent years studying the marketing potential of social media. Here's an important observation I would like to share with you. Don't copy your social media guru It's all about why ...
This post is all about how to safeguard and grow your online network. How frustrated do you feel, when you've just washed your car, you take it out for a spin and a massive truck goes buy and covers it in dirt? What about when you've been working on a document for 20 ...
The Twitter unfollow trend happened in February! That's right, around 6 months ago, three well-known Twitter users unfollowed all their followers; two within a day of each other. The big names back then were; Jason Calacanis (mahalo.com founder), Natali Del Conte (Cnet) and Loic Le Muer (Seesmic founder.) Here's ...
Here are 2 things I didn't know yesterday, which I wanted to share with you. If you have anything you want to add, please do so - it's always great to get feedback. Twitter unfollowing trend is set to continue Since blogging about Robert Scoble unfollowing his Twitter followers, I have had a lot ...
My FriendFeed buddy Robert Scoble announced last night, that he was going to unfollow around 105,000 people on Twitter. He has his reasons for doing this, most of which are valid in my opinion. Robert also publicly said (very generously) that he now realises he was wrong, when he said that I ...
I have a question for you. "Why does one person's recommendation carry a lot of weight, when another person can give the same recommendation, yet few people take any notice?" The answer, of course, is influence. The recommendation of an influential person is powerful and in business it has a huge commercial value too. It's why a ...
