Social media marketing Archives - Page 17 of 60

How to get people to market your business for free

By Jim Connolly | July 6, 2016

You will be pleased to know that the title of this post is not a play on words. It’s true. I’m going to show you how to motivate people to sell your products or services for you… for free. It starts with a look at expectations.

Allow me to explain.

Spreading the word

When we exceed expectations, something amazing happens. Our product or service starts to market itself.

Here’s an example of what I mean. It’s what happened a few years ago, when I bought a MacBook Air. Apple’s marketing promised users “up to 12 hours” battery life. I actually got over 13 hours from it. In fact, everything about the machine was better than I expected. Apple made the machine sound great, but that was nothing compared to what they delivered.

I was so impressed that I recommended the MacBook Air to my friends and clients. I also mentioned it in a couple of blog posts and shared my story on social networking sites.

That’s what we do when a product or service exceeds our expectations. We talk about it. We share it. And these independent, 3rd party recommendations are extremely powerful.

A small improvement can be exceptional

Interestingly, the gap between meeting expectations and exceeding them is relatively small. It’s tiny, in relation to the huge positive impact it creates. It just takes a little extra effort. That’s all.

Here are a couple of quick tips, to help you get it right.

Think about what your prospective customers expect from providers in your industry. Then look for ways to exceed these expectations. I did this with my 1 Year Marketing Service. It gives small business owners the support, clarity and accountability they’d always needed, but never had before. So, my clients tell their friends, which generates regular referrals.
Consider the products or services that have exceeded your expectations. What can you learn from them, which you can adapt into your own business? This can be a great source of exceptional ideas.

Get this right and you’ll soon have an army of passionate advocates, marketing your business for you… for free.

IMPORTANT – If you missed yesterday’s HUGE announcement, you can read it here.

How to turn your blog into a Customer Magnet!

By Jim Connolly | June 24, 2016

This is a very important post. If you want to get more business, feedback and recognition from your blog, this could be exactly what you need to know.

The post was inspired by an email I received from Shannon. She kindly gave me permission to share part of it with you. Here’s the core challenge she wanted help with, along with my answer and lots of tips and examples to help you build a successful business blog.

Here’s what Shannon wanted to know:

“I’ve been blogging for close to three years now. It’s been frustrating to say the least! […] I have no idea what I’m doing wrong and I’ve followed the advice from [she mentioned a very well known blogging site] totally. I’m just about ready to quit. Can you take a look at my blog and tell me what I’m missing?”

I did take a quick look at her blog and it’s exactly the same as countless other business blogs, following the same, general blogging advice.

Here’s what the challenge is and how to resolve it!

Blogging is exceptionally effective

I’ve worked in marketing since 1987 and nothing I have used, studied or witnessed, comes close to the marketing power of an effective blog. Period.

So, why has Shannon and the vast majority of business owners, seen such poor results?

Without doubt, the main reason is that blogging is often touted, incorrectly, as the written equivalent of painting by numbers. In other words, you follow a set of rules and success will follow. This myth persists because it’s repeated by well known bloggers, selling generic courses and programs on how to grow a successful business blog.

The polar opposite is actually true: The CLOSER you follow the same general format, rules and techniques as everyone else, the LESS likely you are to achieve anything worthwhile from your blog.

Here’s how I created one of the world’s most popular marketing blogs, using a more individual approach.

I didn’t SEO my posts

I decided to write for my readers, not Google. This gave me the freedom to express my thoughts, rather than SEO my thoughts.

Shannon’s blog posts are written using SEO software. This means they are often too long, just so she can reach her minimum SEO word count and keyword density. Posts that should be information rich and 250 words long, are filled with fluff to make them more SEO friendly. It has totally robbed her of her voice and individuality.

Google likes it. However, it reads like crap. As a result, Shannon attracts drive-by traffic, rather than client enquiries.

Tip: Read this – Stop writing for Google. Really. Stop it!

I didn’t guest blog

I focused on building my readership, by producing the most useful content I could and then made it extremely easy for people to share it.

This approach works even better today than when I started in 2008, thanks to the popularity of social networking sites.

Many bloggers waste their best material on other people’s blogs, because their blog guru convinced them it’s a great idea. Guest blogging is one way to build your readership, but certainly not the best. [Or the second best.] Shannon told me that she has guest blogged a lot, with nothing to show for it.

She’s not alone. People tell me similar stories all the time. And it’s heartbreaking.

The solution is to build your own platform. Put your best stuff on your own turf. If your content is useful enough, 1 reader will get you 1 more. Those 2 readers will do the same. Before you know it, by turning up regularly with useful information, you will have built your own community of engaged readers. A subset of them will go on to become clients.

Just don’t sell yourself short. Don’t be someone else’s unpaid content provider!

I removed comments

It was almost exactly 3 years ago, in summer 2013, when I removed the commenting feature from my blog. Blog commenting is a vestige from the days before social networks. It was also a huge time suck for me, as I often got 2500 spam comments a day.

It was still a tough decision though. The only other person I knew who’d done it was Seth Godin, and he had a very different reason. But it was the right thing to do. So I did it.

Back then, I was attacked. Social media gurus said you HAD TO have comments on your blog or it wasn’t a blog.

Today, the mood is changing.

Since I removed comments, other popular blogs including; Chris Brogan and Michael Hyatt, have followed suit. Top news sites have done the same, including CNN, Reuters and ReCode. And they’re absolutely right.

My point is that you need to question perceived wisdom. Then if you believe something needs to change, do it your way. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you. Be prepared to lead. We need more leaders.

Shannon has comments enabled and she gets very little feedback. Many comments are from people trying to get backlinks or score free advice from her. This lack of so-called social proof, does nothing to enhance Shannon’s reputation. It also makes her blog look like a ghost town, when prospective clients check her out.

I didn’t pump my posts with buzzwords

Disrupt, ruckus, growth hacking, big data, intersection… buzzwords like those fail twice.

Firstly, they make informed people cringe.
Secondly, they confuse the uninformed. That’s a bad idea if you want people to understand your message!

Shannon’s blog uses lots of content marketing buzz words. This, combined with the keyword loading she does for her SEO, means readers have no personality to connect with.

I made 1 rule and stuck with it

I made a rule, which I have stuck to since 2008. It’s simply this:

I will only publish a post when I have something useful to share and I’ll make sure I find something useful, often.

This means I often write when it’s easier not to. I also update older posts daily, to keep the information relevant. Blogging is a primary business activity for me, rather than something I fit in. As a result, I write when I’m extremely busy, when I am tired and even when I’m not feeling great.

Your rules

The Internet is packed with sites that offer largely the same, general advice on how to build a successful blog.

You should avoid it.

Their advice seems to make sense, until you consider that by following it, you become invisible – lost in an ocean of millions of other bloggers using the same, general advice.

If you’re following what they say, you will be able to identify with Shannon’s situation.

In short: Your blog needs to be as individual as you are. Otherwise, you’re invisible.

Tip: This post asks an important question: Bloggers: Are you 1 question away from 10,000 daily readers?

Social Networking Tip: Stop chasing the wrong numbers

By Jim Connolly | April 29, 2016

The internet often feels like a huge popularity contest. Social networks, for example, display our follower, fan and “like” counts for the world to see. As a result, many business owners look for ways to boost these numbers.

This approach is seriously flawed on 2 levels. In fact, it can have a toxic effect on your business. Allow me to explain.

1: The numbers are almost meaningless today

Initially, the number of followers, fans or likes you had, was a useful social proof tool. For example, you’d see someone on Twitter claiming to be an expert at something, notice they had a huge following and assume they were a big deal. Today, these numbers have little real-world influence.

Why?

People are now increasingly aware that anyone can fake any of these popularity numbers. They know that anyone with a credit card can buy 100,000 Twitter followers or Facebook fans. You can also buy retweets, Facebook “likes” and more.

Prospective clients and customers are aware of this. As a result, fewer and fewer of them are influenced by artificially inflated numbers.

2. It causes you to focus on the wrong things

Most importantly of all, by chasing popularity numbers, you’re focusing on the wrong things. Only a minority of people buy followers, fans and likes.

The majority of those chasing the numbers use simple tricks [or automation software] to increase their counts. And it causes them to make mistakes!

As you’d expect, these tricks don’t attract the right people. They’re designed to attract the most gullible or least experienced social network users. They won’t help you build meaningful connections. In a nutshell, they add nothing of value to your business.

A more effective approach is to decide what you want your social networking to achieve. Then, focus on making that happen. This might include:

Connecting with the right people.
Sharing information and ideas, which your marketplace will find useful.
Looking for people in your marketplace who have questions, which you can answer.
And listening. Listening to your prospective clients so that you gain a deeper understanding of their needs and wants.

Your social networking goals will vary depending on your specific goals or targets. The key thing is to aim for quality and meaning, not empty numbers.

P.S. This will help you: Are you building a tribe or writing drive-by content?

Why your search traffic just dropped

By Jim Connolly | February 26, 2016

Have you noticed a recent fall in traffic from Google?

Earlier this week, Google made a change to the Search Engine Results Page [SERP]. There will now be up to 4 paid ads at the top of the search results. The biggest losers here, are those who rely on SEO.

Here’s why: Even if you are the number 1 organic [free] search result, you could be as low as the 5th search result on Google. [Read more on Search Engine Land]

Of course, Google is always altering things. It has to. It’s the world’s leading search engine and wants to stay that way. The challenge here, is that many business owners rely heavily on Google and other 3rd parties for their sales leads.

Rather than take full control of the lifeblood of their business, they hand it over to Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. This means at any point, without warning and without you having any control, the pipeline that feeds your business can be crushed.

We need to be smarter than that

It reminds me of a guy who contacted me several years ago, with a huge problem. Jack [not his real name] built his marketing around SEO. His product was a commodity and he chose to keep it that way. So, he sold a very average product at a very low profit. For years, his website was the number one organic search result on Google, if you searched for a cheap provider of his products. And for years, he made a good living.

The sun was shining, so he never thought about fixing the roof. He was unaware that his low profit, high volume, search based marketing was extremely risky. And he’s not alone.

Then overnight, Google changed things

Overnight, he went from being the number 1 result on page 1, to number 7 on page 2. Sales dropped by over 80%. To make matters worse, because he sold at wafer thin profits, he couldn’t afford to use Adwords. He was left with an uninspiring commodity product and no margin for advertising. Of course, the cost of Adwords increases regularly too. After investing another $90000 on SEO, trying to get back to the top of page 1, he filed for bankruptcy.

This kind of thing happens all the time.

Facebook’s great bait-and-switch

Remember when Facebook decided to block Facebook Page owners from around 98% of their fans, unless they paid to “boost” their Facebook Page updates? Tens, [maybe hundreds of thousands] of business owners invested in “find us on Facebook” campaigns.

In essence, they’d paid to attract potential customers to a free social network… only to find Facebook was now charging them to access these potential customers. It was called out as a bait-and-switch move by many.

Here’s what we see again and again: What we rely on as a profitable stream of client enquiries today, may not be financially viable tomorrow.

We have to be smarter than that

At best, it’s extremely risky to place the lead acquisition of a business in the hands of a 3rd party service. It leaves us horribly exposed. It makes it impossible to plan ahead with any degree of confidence. Decisions can be made, which will, without warning, destroy our pipeline.

The paid route is slightly less precarious

We have somewhat more control if we use a paid 3rd party service. So long as the numbers stack up, we can buy our way to the top of Google. However, with Adwords / PPC [pay per click] prices increasing, this will only be a viable option for those selling highly profitable services or products.

Equally, paid ads on Facebook can be effective at the moment. However, this is far from a fixed cost and Facebook has a horrible track record of changing things, just as you begin to rely on them.

Taking it from the mega corporations to the people

If Google or Facebook ceased trading tomorrow, it would have very little impact on a growing number of business owners. These are the business owners, like my clients and myself, who have no reliance on Facebook, Google or any other huge corporation.

Instead, we rely on people. We offer a valuable product or service. Then, we get it in front of the right people; people who the product or service is ideal for.

The first person tells 5 people about it.
Each of those 5 people tell some of their friends too.
Their friends do the same.
Repeat.

When you know what to do, it works. It works predictably and beautifully.

In contrast, it’s increasingly difficult to compete based on being the cheapest. This is especially the case if you are a small or medium sized business, who lacks the buying power of the big guys.

If you rely heavily on search engines or social networks for your sales leads, now might be an excellent time to take stock. Review what the current and future changes could mean for your profitability.

If you don’t like what you see, it could be time for you to use a better approach. One that you have full control over. One that lets you plan ahead with confidence.