If someone got a discussion going, pinpointing what they believed were serious flaws in your service, how would you respond?

Typical reactions to that kind of unrequested, negative feedback, is to either ignore it or attack it.  A less common reaction, is to study the critique with an open mind and look to see if there’s something you can learn from it.

Mark Zuckerberg and the critic

That second, less common reaction is exactly what Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg did recently, when an employee of Google, a major rival of Facebook, critiqued Facebook.  Zuckerberg’s reaction to this public criticism of Facebook, is a lesson in how successful businesspeople deal with feedback.  Not only did ‘Zuck listen to what the critic (Paul Adams) had to say, he took the ideas on board and worked with them, creating what we now know as Facebook Groups.  Yesterday, it was announced that Zuckerberg had hired Adams!

When dealing with negative (or positive) feedback, it’s important to consider the source and the intent.  In the above example, Zuckerberg listened because the critique came from a member of Google’s User Experience team.  In other words, it was informed criticism. It also came with a solution to the problem, suggesting the critic was genuinely trying to contribute, rather than snipe.

Of course, it’s essential to check the source of feedback, before you act on it.  Not all criticism is well informed.  Just as you would not go to your doctor for legal advice or your lawyer for medical advice, you shouldn’t act on criticism from people who don’t know what they are talking about.

In my experience, when we receive criticism from a well informed source, even if we don’t LIKE what they have to say, we are foolish to just ignore it or attack it.  It’s worthy of review at the very least.

PS: You might find this post about how to deal with different types of criticism useful!

Today, I would like to share a wonderful source of marketing information with you:  The AdAge Power 150.

The AdAge Power 150

There are hundreds of thousands, (maybe millions) of sites that cover marketing.  Many are written by people who call themselves experts, yet who have little if any marketing expertise.  It’s simple and inexpensive to create a professional looking site and just as simple to attract thousands of social media followers, using software.  The end result is that for a very small investment, it’s easy to produce fake “social proof”, that someone is a leader in their field.  The AdAge Power 150 was developed, to help people find sources of marketing information they can trust.

Advertising Age, who produce the AdAge Power150 list, is not some new Internet business.  It is an industry respected publication, which was founded in the 1930’s and which I have been a reader of, since entering marketing over 20 years ago!  Their list is an index of the world’s leading marketing blogs, based on a number of metrics, including things like the number of times a marketing blog has been linked to and how many readers it has etc.

The Adage Power 150 List: Who’s on it?

Some of the blogs in the list will be very familiar to you, such as; Seth Godin’s blog, search engine land, copyblogger, problogger, SEOmoz spinsucks and the brand builder.  I’m proud to say that Jim’s marketing blog is now in the AdAge Power 150 too.

I can’t promise that you will like every blog on the list.  Equally, I know there are MANY wonderful blogs NOT listed.  However, I believe that if you want to quickly discover some great new marketing and social media blogs, the AdAge Power 150 is a terrific place to start.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Where do you read this blog?

If you read it directly from jimsmarketingblog.com or a feed reader, like Google Reader, it’s possible you are wondering why I am even asking the question.  You may assume, as many people do, that almost EVERYONE either reads blogs directly from the site of from a feed reader.  If you do, here’s a statistic that you might find interesting.

If you write a blog or are thinking about writing one, what I am about to share with you could be enormously valuable too.

Over 60% of my subscribers now subscribe via email!

How easy do YOU make it, for people to subscribe to your site via email?

Do you have a large, clearly visible email sign-up box, or a tiny email RSS icon hidden away on your blog’s sidebar?  With 62% of my subscribers now reading this blog via email, I could be missing out on thousands of extremely valuable readers, had I not made it super-easy for them to get the blog delivered to their inbox.

One of the most important elements of blogging, is to develop a subscriber list.  Your subscribers are of enormous value to you.  Not only are they your most loyal readers, they are also the people who you will still be able to reach, if Google decides to stop sending you traffic or your other sources of new readers slows down or stops.  The fact that these wonderful people were good enough to subscribe to you, means that if you keep up your side of the deal, by providing great information, they will continue to read your content.  Your email subscribers have the ability to unsubscribe at any time, so it’s not enough just to gain their subscription, you need to look after them too!

Which software to use?

The software I use for delivering my email is called Mailchimp, though there are lots of alternatives. The service is relatively easy to use, though there are lots of videos on YouTube, which show how to set your account up, if you get stuck.  Once you have your account up and running, it’s time to let people know!

Attracting new subscribers

In my experience, the best way to encourage people to subscribe to your blog, is to ask!  Many bloggers use a simple signature file under each blog post, which asks people to subscribe to their blog.  If someone sees that reminder, at the point where they have just read something really useful, it can be a powerful motivator.

If you have never subscribed to a blog via email before, here’s how it works.  It’s extremely simple and takes seconds.  For example, to subscribe to this blog via email, you click this link (it then opens a box) where you enter your email address.  That’s it! Once you reply to the confirmation email, you will get future posts delivered to your inbox, ready for you to read at your leisure.  What I love about this process, is that unsubscribing is just as easy too, so the subscriber is always in total control.  That’s important.

As well as asking people to subscribe to your blog via a signature file added to your posts, I also strongly recommend having a BIG, easy to find email sign-up box on your blog’s sidebar.  This does the same thing as that link I just gave you, but it’s very visible (as you can see from the top right hand side of this blog.)

It’s also extremely important that you let your subscribers know that you respect their privacy (and therefore will never share their details with anyone, for any reason.)

So, if you want to increase your readership based on quality as well as volume, make it as easy as possible for your readers to subscribe to you.  Your subscribers are the most passionate members of your blog’s community and in many cases, they are your future clients and customers too.

In my experience, any time invested in developing your subscriber base is time well spent!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!