The post VPN Usage Has Skyrocketed As Russians Scramble To Find Ways To Reach Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

I’ll disclose up front that I don’t ever eat at KFC because I’m sensitive to MSG and they put it in much of their food. This fact generally puts me in the category of people who think that KFC is unhealthy: if it makes me sick, it must be unhealthy.

But I also live in reality enough to know that there are untold millions of people, including many who live in my low-income neighborhood, who have very few food choices in their lives (we have a dearth of fresh food options in my neighborhood – called a “food desert” – as do many other urban locales, and we do have a KFC nearby, along with a half-dozen other fast food choices). While KFC could never be considered healthy on the whole, they at least seem to be aware that their kids meals need to have some healthful aspects, and they’re taking small steps in that direction. I’d rather see the kids in my neighborhood eat applesauce than mashed potatoes, and baked chicken rather than fried.

And I unconditionally support KFC’s, or any other brands’, ability to choose how they market their products and to and through whom.

Look Who’s On the Playground

Yet, following the KFC event, the blogosphere erupted because a number of bloggers, none of whom were at the event, felt it was inappropriate and perhaps disingenuous for other bloggers to promote KFC, given that the company’s “healthy” choices are not really all that healthy.

A few of those bloggers bullied the bloggers who were present at the event (which was public information once the bloggers in attendance started sharing on social media about it) by attacking their food and brand relationship choices. The bullies also hijacked the hashtag with negative information about the brand, and generally made a mess of this brand’s marketing campaign. (I’m not going to link to the haters to give them any credit for bashing, so you can go search #KFCKidsMeals on Twitter yourself.)

Many of these bullying bloggers did those things while saying “it’s our job to correct misinformation out there.” Which I appreciate – truly I do – because thankfully, in our country, you have the right to protest against whatever you want, in social media or otherwise. But if you’re a “professional” in the blogging space (and by taking money for blogging, you have become a professional), and you’re going to launch a protest, you ought to do so respectfully, professionally and in a classy way.

My friend Robyn Wright did a beautiful job of summing up what I consider to be the right way to protest, in a tweet:

Rather than attacking about food choices, instead use your voice to simply promote what you believe in. #KFCKidsMeals

— Robyn Wright (@RobynsWorld) March 24, 2013

Robyn also wrote an excellent post about how to respectfully dissent, related to this controversy.

The Echo Chamber May Damp it Down

As a marketer first, my instinct here is to feel bad for KFC. As an agency person, I’ve put together my share of blogger programs, and boy would I be upset if my brand or clients were on the receiving end of this kind of vitriol and bullying. KFC is making an effort to improve their nutritional choices (however incrementally), and they invited well-regarded bloggers in to help them promote a product launch. If bloggers weren’t receptive to that message, I would hope that they weren’t in attendance at that event. (That would be disingenuous.)

Many of you who read me regularly know that I don’t have a lot of love for a certain tier of bloggers. I feel like the parenting/lifestyle blogosphere is overly junked up by reviews and giveaways, and a major echo chamber has developed whereby parenting bloggers are mainly writing for and being read by other parenting bloggers. As my friend George G. Smith, Jr. says,

“If you….talk to someone outside the community – they will look at you crazy like when you mention Motrin Moms, Maytag and Dooce, Walmart Moms [ed: previous blogger controversies]….They would just stare at you and you’ll realize – oh yeah. We’re kind of crazy in our own little bubble world.”

So on some level, maybe a bunch of playground bullies won’t really make an impact, and KFC and other brands will continue to work with quality bloggers and create blogger marketing programs even after this negative experience.

But If You Can’t Say Something Nice

You bashing, bullying bloggers: As with most other things, there’s a consequence to your actions. Many of you have had wonderful, and lucrative, brand opportunities come your way as a result of your blogging. Those of you who are fortunate enough to be presented with these opportunities get to choose which brands you work with. You use your own moral compass to decide with whom you partner up and which brands you decline. As do your fellow bloggers.

If you make it treacherous and scary for brands to create blogger marketing programs, they will eventually cease to do it – and you’ll see fewer and fewer paid opportunities available for you and all your friends. And that’s when I feel bad for the brands (certainly not for you), because it’s potentially going to close an interesting and creative marketing channel for them. And if you keep bashing brands you don’t like, even the brands you do like won’t want to work with you – the risk will be too great that you could turn and bash them.

Some of you bloggers have powerful platforms. Use them wisely and well. Be the professionals you become (whether you like it or not) when you accept payments for your work. Because otherwise, your profession (the paid part, that is) may someday go away.

The post Don’t Bite the Brand That Feeds You appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

(Because it actually boils down to a whole lot more)

In this post I’ll explain how to black belt in Google+. I’m no master, yet, but I have realized there are a few strategies out there to judo chop this social network that don’t exist at all on Facebook and Twitter. Let’s take a look.

Side-note: I only did Karate for a couple years and you’re free to judge me.

1) Enter the Dojo with respect

Entering Google+  is free and not as embarrassing as Facebook or Twitter – it’s harder to tell who has zero friends or followers on Google plus. But know this, Google plus users are focused. Your mom signs up for Facebook because it’s Facebook, but G+ users have specific goals and needs. Many of them work part or full-time on things like blogging or freelance consulting and use this space to network and improve.

2) Train wisely before the fight

Get your profile on track before “circling” people. This means at the very least a cover photo, tagline, and introduction with a link to your online work. Anything less and you’ll be laughed at pretty quickly. Have some fun with this step.

3) Learn from the masters

Like a new student at the dojo, find a few masters in your niche to study. In my case (blogging) it’s Brian Clark from CopyBlogger and Michael Martine from Remarkablogger. The flare they possess is uncanny and it gets them +1’s and visits. To find your masters, search a topic, then see who’s making the most noise.

4) Find the right opponent

You’d be crazy to fight a brown belt white stripe as an orange belt, you’d just get clobbered. So make sure when you start circling people, you’re doing it right. It’s a-okay to circle complete strangers as “friends” on Google+, and it’s not creepy like on Facebook. But you can do better. Use the search (again) to find Plusers who’re talking about your interests. Circling them won’t piss them off because everyone loves being added – it’s a great stat for them.

5) Define your Tiger Spirit

In Karate Kid (1984) the Tiger Spirit referred to your reason for fighting, a cause that fuels you. Now Google + is no fight, anyone who uses it knows it’s more of a booze-less office party you still have fun at. But knowing what you’re there to accomplish will make it a lot more fun – it’ll help you meet the right people and say the right things.

6) Challenge more opponents

After once successful interaction, go start a few more. Instead of just circling people frantically, lend your wisdom by commenting on and even +1ing relevant posts. For example, I recently wrote a post on how to upsell. By searching “upsell” in the G+ search I found others writing on that topic, and by posting comments into the search results I made a few new friends that same day.

7) Diversify your efforts

We all have a Facebook box and one of Twitter’s follow options on the blog, but nowadays you can do more. Go grab yourself a Google+ badge then customize it to your blog. You can change its width to get rid of some text if you’d like. This feature not only looks cool to the average user, but lets a reader circle you inline with one click, as opposed to taking two or even three clicks to get the job done. Believe it or not, but this can result in hundreds more (or less) followers.

8) Fight with style

Good copy is necessary to get your Google + posts clicked. If you ramble forever like you’re writing a diary entry you’ll totally lose people. Once your following starts growing, experiment with copy through brief text and attractive images in a few G+ posts, and see who responds. Just like on Facebook and Twitter, you can add your followers to posts, basically to say “hey!”

9) Leave the dojo

Armed with a growing presence on “the third social network”, leave the dojo to explore some other blogs via the age-old guest post technique. Once you land posts on a few decent blogs, make sure your byline includes a link to your Google+ profile in accordance with Authorship Guidelines. This link will drive traffic to your G+ profile and the guest post itself will position you as more of an authority figure.

10) Master the intangibles

Like on any social network, there are many things like personality and tone that may help (or hurt) you. You can do the above 9 things but be a total jerk deep down, and folks might not like you at all. Or, maybe you’re filled with empathy, understanding, and outwardly admirable qualities and you’ll amass a huge following in no time.

Either way, you owe it to yourself and your blogging – or whatever it is you do – to build up a profile on Google+. I’ve yet to hear one person regret it.

Guest Blogger Greg Narayan is the founder of Dear Blogger: The Blogging Answers Community. He loves answering comments each morning and helping folks decide where to start up a blog. For more, chat with Greg on Google+.

The post How to Earn a Black Belt in Google+ appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

If you blog, whether personally or professionally, please take about 10 minutes to participate in this survey which asks some interesting questions not yet posed by other similar efforts. I’ll co-present the results with the Overblog team at BlogWorld & New Media Expo on June 7. You can have the results emailed to you if you choose to share your email address with us. (We won’t abuse that privilege.)

Start Your Survey Here

I just finished taking the survey myself. It’s not necessarily “short” by most survey estimations, but shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. Get a fresh cup of coffee and spare us a few moments, please? The more people who participate the better the data is and the more relevant insights we can share with you at BlogWorld!

And do share with your fellow bloggers! We want the information to be represent all industries, niches and levels of blogging.

And while you’re thinking about it, please enjoy Overblog’s 10% off discount to BlogWorld & New Media Expo in New York! I’ll be speaking along with dozens of other smart folks. We’d love to have you there. Just register for BlogWorld and use the discount code OVBVIP.

For the record, Overblog is a client. I’ll be helping them introduce a new blogging platform to the U.S. market at BlogWorld and beyond. To get in on the early peek beta, register at their invite site.

The post Bloggers: Participate In New Research On Blogging appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

There is an escalating trend for brands to feature bloggers, mainly parenting/lifestyle bloggers (formerly known as mom bloggers – a term you all know I hate), in print and even some television ads. I think this is insanely cool, and not just because I know these people. It’s cool because it values the blogger as an influencer in a way that they haven’t been, up to now. Bloggers are being asked to make appearances on behalf of brands and to appear in advertisements, and that’s just. plain. cool.

You may ask, okay, but are these bloggers getting paid for their appearances and ads? To be honest, I haven’t asked them. I am going to assume that, given that the bloggers I’ve seen featured recently are all smart, savvy businesswomen who are running small media empires, that they have found a way to get compensated for their time and likeness in a manner that suits them: financially or otherwise.

For marketers, this trend is borne out of some actual research. BlogHer’s 2011 Social Media study suggested that consumers preferred marketing messages from bloggers they knew over a celebrity ad, and that 53% of women blog readers have purchased a product based on a blog recommendation. Particularly in the worlds of fashion and beauty, bloggers are wielding power to encourage purchases in a far more direct and measurable way than a celebrity ad or endorsement ever can.

BlogHer’s most recent research, the 2012 Social Media study, goes even further and compares consumer trust in other forms of social media – including Pinterest and Facebook – and found that a sponsored, disclosed review on a bloggers’ site earns more trust than a Facebook friends campaign or a celebrity endorsement. And trust in those blogs drive purchase intent for many product categories.

If bloggers can truly move the needle for brands in the trust and purchase intent departments, why don’t more brands work with bloggers?

The answer, of course, is complicated. I’ve written a lot about the problems that PR departments and agencies have with social media, and that’s certainly part of the problem: that PR departments are not set up to develop advertising or integrated marketing campaigns, which is where this new blogger-brand relationship is headed for some brands. A brand wishing to use bloggers instead of celebrities must either have a creative and clever ad agency, or a very savvy PR department or agency, whose budgets cross borders and who can work together in a really coordinated way.

I think it’s time that bloggers step up to the plate, too. I do know many bloggers who understand their value to brands, but I also know many who dramatically underestimate what they can bring to the table when they work with brands. That’s not to say that every blogger should command $500 for a sponsored post; rather, I think that bloggers should get creative in thinking about the kinds of work they can do with brands, and brands should do the same. Hopefully they’ll come up with interesting projects they can do together, beyond the sponsored post, like hosting events together, creating editorial and resourceful brand content, and yes, having bloggers endorse products in ads.

By the way, those ads above? They feature my friends Ana Flores from Spanglish Baby, Audrey McClelland from MomGenerations, and Esther Crawford.  I’m so proud of each of you and can’t wait to see what you inspire in other bloggers and brands.

The post Are They Bloggers? Or Celebrities? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Lately, though, I’ve been coming home from parenting/lifestyle blogger conferences both inspired and dismayed. There are some really cool ways in which brands are engaging with these bloggers, and some of those efforts come through at blogger conferences. For example, at Blissdom, ConAgra launched their Child Hunger Ends Here campaign, encouraging bloggers to add the hashtag #childhunger to their tweets to donate one meal per tweet sent during the conference. The hashtag was flying and 20,000 meals were donated, with ConAgra matching to get to a total of 40,000 meals. Bloggers for a cause … I love it.

Microsoft Office and Windows worked with a well-known parenting blogger, Janice Croze from 5 Minutes for Mom, as the host of a live webcast from their Blissdom suite on time saving tips with Office products. Janice was exactly the right host for the busy mom audience they were trying to attract, and choosing to broadcast from Blissdom gave those viewers a peek into the conference.

So that’s the good. But there’s some ugly too.

Every time I go to a blogger conference I meet new bloggers, and of course I always ask them what they blog about. Every time, at least a handful of newish bloggers say, “oh, you know, I write about products and do giveaways and stuff.” And I cringe. It’s not that there can’t be good review blogs. Look at Cool Mom Picks, HighTechDad, or DadLabs, blogs which have been around for a long time and have a very clear point-of-view and target audience; they all do reviews really well. It’s the new breed of “review-giveaway bloggers” (at least that’s what I’m calling them) that gets to me.

Over the years, it’s become clear to many people that some bloggers earn some money through their blogs. Advertising is rarely a good source of income for new bloggers, but payments from brands can be, and so a new crop of bloggers has appeared who want to get their slice of the pie. These new bloggers rarely have a well-defined niche or point-of-view. Some are poor writers. Their content is nothing but review after review, giveaway after giveaway. And to top it all off, many of them take payment for reviews – something which is anathema to most legitimate bloggers and, in my opinion (and many others’), should never be offered by a self-respecting PR agency or brand.

You all know these low-quality review-giveaway blogs; I’m not going to name them here. They’re the ones which have “reviews,” “giveaways” and “pr friendly” as their main navigation points on their blogs. They’re also the blogs that are turned on by the “make money fast by blogging” or “blog from home” come-ons in Google or Facebook ad results. And if you’re on the brand or PR agency side, you’ve no doubt encountered these bloggers pitching you – with their hands out, looking for you to pay them to do something with your brand.

I think these review-giveaway bloggers are giving all other bloggers (parenting and otherwise) a bad name. I’ve encountered dozens of clients and potential clients who, when I bring up the possibility of creating blogger integrations for their brands, say, “why would I pay for a review?” – as if that’s all they think bloggers do. It’s very hard to convince them that a creative blogger relationship can be an extension of their marketing efforts and reap rewards for both parties. Sadly, the blogs they find in searches and the blogs that reach out to them are mostly the ones looking to make a quick buck or score some product. Because brands get turned off so quickly, they never have a chance to meet or work with blogs who can bring their audiences to bear in an ethical and holistic way to help build a brand’s profile among their communities. And that’s really a shame. As a social media agency, it’s my job to help them understand that there is a better way – that true marketing partnerships with a small number of quality bloggers can yield great results. I’m working hard to do that.

So how can we stop the proliferation of these kinds of blogs and this “pay-for-play” mentality? I feel the answer lies primarily with the PR firms. As I’ve said before, agencies need to step up their game, and realize that “pitching to bloggers” does not mean paying for reviews, paying for giveaways, or paying for links. Blogger relationships can and should be marketing partnerships: use bloggers as spokespeople, have them write content for you or appear in videos, bring them to headquarters to talk to your staff, have them conduct informal focus groups or product parties in their hometowns. Pay them as marketing consultants and expect professionalism from them. If you don’t get what you expect from your relationship, be sure to give them feedback so they can do better; many of them don’t come from marketing backgrounds, which in no way diminishes their power to connect and deliver their communities to you.

If you’re an agency who uses a “spray-and-pray” pitch approach, sending mass emails out to dozens or hundreds of bloggers at a time, or if you’re ready to hand any blogger $50 to do just about anything – stop. You’re really the ones creating the breeding ground for these poor quality blogs.

The future of blogging, at least in the lifestyle/parenting category, will have to be defined by more and better: more actual content, better content, more focus, better writing, more ethical behavior. It’s always great to see new high-quality blogs, but I’d like to see the the blogosphere grow less rapidly, if it means low-quality blogs will go away as their authors realize that there’s no such thing as easy money.  Agencies, you have the power to help make that change.

The post The Decline of Blogs (and How PR Can Help Avoid It) appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Over the years, he’d perfected his clam chowder recipe – focusing on finding the best ingredients and carefully preparing each bowl by hand – and the locals thanked him with their dollars and their loyalty. Word spread about the famous clam chowder and people would drive dozens of miles out of their way just to get a bowl on a cold winter day.

When it came time for the owner to retire, he had no heir to his culinary throne, so he sold the business to a driven young man who had his sights set on turning the cozy diner and its famous clam chowder into a full-scale franchise. But in order to grow, he had to cut operating costs and maximize revenue.

So he started with the clam chowder. He found cheaper ingredients and made larger batches and thinned out the broth to make it stretch further. And it was a huge success in terms of bottom line profitability. At first.

But as time passed, people stopped ordering the chowder as frequently. In fact, they stopped visiting the diner all together. The place had lost its charm and its identity. As the focus shifted from quantity to quality, the product and user experience suffered.

The lesson from the above story, shamelessly stolen and liberally paraphrased from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (what? I skimmed it!) applies to our world of content marketing.

We know that content beats advertising, and more and more brands are acting as media companies. But in the content marketing gold rush, it’s tempting to act like the ambitious man who took over the diner instead of its original owner. Skimping on quality and diluting content can seem like it is paying off in the short-term as we confuse noise with signal, but in the long run everyone loses.

Before hitting “publish,” apply a healthy-dose of self skepticism and ask:

• Does this content solve a problem or answer a question? Is it satisfying a real need or an imagined need?
• Is this useful or entertaining to my audience? Or is it a copy of a copy of a copy? Are you adding context and commentary the contributes value to the larger conversation?
• Will this piece of content have staying power beyond real-time? Would people Google this? Would they bookmark or save it?
• Is this content worth stealing? Would someone want to shamelessly take this content, throw it in a PowerPoint presentation or an email to their boss and pass it off as their own?
• Is this content worth sharing? Would anyone want to post this to Facebook or Twitter? Does it make a statement that makes the potential sharer look smart or funny or provocative or cool?
• Would you read it? If you’re honest with yourself, and your name wasn’t on the byline, would you still spend more than 30 seconds with it? Would the headline actually earn your click?
• Is it good enough to send to the CEO in an email? Would you be willing to present it at a conference?

If the answer to any of the above is “no,” you might want to head back to the kitchen and check your ingredients and reexamine your preparation method. People have better taste than marketers sometimes give them credit for.

How do you taste-test your content before you serve it?

Related articles

• Think Like a Startup, Act Like a Blogger (socialmediaexp.wpengine.com)
• Everything You Need To Know About Content Marketing (socialmediaexp.wpengine.com)
• 5 Marketing Rules You May Want To Break (socialmediaexp.wpengine.com)

The post Content Dilution (and How to Avoid It) appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

And that’s usually because they are filled with things you know you should do but can’t commit to doing. They’re too aspirational. Too shoot-for-the-moon-y.

Which is why I’ve kept this one bare-bones, tactical, and hopefully useful for you beyond the 4 days it typically takes us to crash and burn through our empty new year promises.

1. Check which pages on your site earned the most inbound links

Any search engine optimizer who knows her SEO clichés will tell you that inbound links count as votes in the eyes of search engines, and having links point to your content will help you rank better in search. It’s a feel-good moment that brings value to your domain. It’s a win-win.

Take a look at which of your posts attracted the most inbound links and see what they have in common. Were the headlines provocative? Were they exhaustive posts on a singular subject? Were they curated round-ups of the industry’s top events?

Figure out what type of content is earning you links (votes) and produce more of it in 2012. Also, look up to see who the human is behind a link. If this person made an editorial decision to link to your stuff they are paying attention to you and think your content is worth sharing. They’re someone you probably want to network with on Twitter if you haven’t started already.

2. Look at search terms that drove visits to your site

It may seem obvious: monitor keywords that lead traffic to your site and celebrate your SEO dominance. While it’s ok to pause and celebrate your search victory, the real opportunity is to find mediocre-performing keywords and exploit them for your purposes.

(It is way less sinister than it sounds.)

Basically, search through your top few thousand keywords and find keywords that your site ranks for somewhere on page one of the SERPs (search engine results pages) but not at the top of the page.

Identify the articles which are ranking for these terms and tweak them to more strongly target the keyphrase. Then, find opportunities in your own relevant content to link to these articles and consider sharing them in social media (if they are still relevant, of course). The idea is to find keywords you are already competitive on and try to turn a #7 ranking into a #3 ranking and earn more share of the clicks for that given search term.

3. Test your page load speed

When is the last time you’ve checked how quickly your website loads? If you’re one of the people taking advantage of Google’s Analytics pageload feature (or Google Page Speed Online, or Pingdom’s website load speed calculator), then you’re probably on top of it. If you’re not, it’s a good thing to start looking at.

Load speed is a huge factor for search engines when they are choosing what content should rank for a given phrase. Knowing what pages or elements on your site that are holding things up is the first step in addressing and fixing any issues.

Give your site a website speed audit  and prioritize fixes based on severity (the tools will tell you what is high, medium, and low importance).

4. Check for page leaks

Make a list of the pages on your site that have the highest bounce rate (i.e. pages with the highest percentage of visitors who leave your site almost immediately after arriving, without clicking through to more content).

Start with the pages that get the highest volume of traffic (and are therefore leaking the most of it away). Examine the page for possible causes:

• Is there a relevant call to action?

• Are there links to related content that users may enjoy?

• Is page load speed extra slow on this page?

• Is there an obvious issue with the layout of this page?

If the answer isn’t immediately obvious, consider setting up an experiment on fivesecondtest.com or a similar service to see how viewers are experiencing the page and try to get insight on how to improve the page’s performance.

5. Look for dead-ends

Similar to page leaks, dead-ends are places on your site where users run into a hurdle (and we all know that most people would rather avoid the hurdle on the web rather than get over it themselves).

Take note of any 404 errors you may have on your site and consider creating a more user-friendly 404 error page. Run Xenu’s Link Sleuth and see if there are broken links from your content that are frustrating users and search engines.

Fixing dead-ends will help you maximize the experience for the traffic you already have.

6. Follow top blogger actions, not advice

Top bloggers don’t always practice what they preach. And conventional wisdom isn’t always the path to success in the world of digital marketing. Best practices may prescribe a course of action that lead you in the wrong direction.

For instance, I once looked at what the top 10 blogs in content marketing were doing (as opposed to saying) and found some interesting results, like, the average blog in AdAge’s Top 10 in the Power 150 write 2.4 posts per day with an average word count of 1,278 every day and have been doing so for nearly 7 years. (Doing this is probably not the answer you’d get from them if you asked them how to be successful online. See what I mean?)

A lot of sites publish a list of “best of” content at the end of the year. Take the top posts and see what they have in common. Check word count, style of post, layout, use of images, etc., and uncover patterns.

Sometimes it’s not what people say, it’s what they do.

7. Get in tune with the right social media channel

Take an honest look at the volume and quality of traffic from popular social media. Where are you getting solid traction? Are you spending time building a presence in the right social media channels?

Ten thousand visits from StumbleUpon could be a mixed blessing if visitors only stay for a quick few seconds. Likewise, if you’re spending an inordinate amount of time hustling your content on Twitter but not seeing a return, it may be time to reevaluate your priorities and focus your efforts on other social media outposts.

Some sites I’ve been working with have had low traffic volume with high engagement from LinkedIn, and vice versa with Twitter. We now know that spending more time earning the good traffic from LinkedIn is well worth our while.

8. Conduct an old-fashioned customer survey

Magazines have been doing reader surveys with great success for years, gleaning valuable data directly from their audience. This simple but often overlooked tactic can provide mountains of business intelligence and hard to get insight, but can also help tell a more compelling story to your advertiser base. The more clearly you can define your audience, the better off you’ll be.

Nothing beats conducting customer surveys and many web services offer the ability to do this at a fraction of what the cost used to be.

9. Consult your real-life network

This is the time of year to shake the holiday lethargy and get socially active in real life. Talk to people you know that operate web sites (regardless of the niche) and attend events in your area where you can meet people also in the content marketing game.

Look through your LinkedIn connections list and find a few people to schedule coffee with in the first month of this new year. Talk to them candidly about what you’re trying to do with your site in 2012 and ask for their honest feedback.

And make sure you offer to pay for the coffee.

10. Read boring industry research

We’re in an environment of quick tips, sound bites, and real-time reactions. And who can blame us? It’s easy to feel productive if we stay on top of industry-leading blogs and skim the points they make. But how much more value could we get if the next 500 pages we read online were part of a research report or a book?

Research reports pack a lot more effort, analysis, and peer-review into what they publish and can be worth their weight in gold (or bytes, at least).

These aren’t the only places to look, but sometimes the less glamorous places have the biggest payoffs when it comes to creating a content marketing strategy for the new year.

Read your fair share of top 10 posts – they do have value – but don’t forget to look in the nooks and crannies of your own operation, too.

Where do you find your business intelligence and inspiration?

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

The post 10 Better Ideas Than Looking at a Top 10 List for Advice appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

At the time the idea didn’t feel right. The technology was getting there or was already there but that didn’t mean everyone was adopting it right away. Fast forward to 2011, and most people will find out about this blog post through someone’s lifestream on Twitter. Our imagination tends to outpace our ability to invent. And something can be invented long before it’s a conventional part of people’s lives.

So we must separate the bells and whistles from the nuts and bolts.

Creating a strategy focused on measurable business goals will help you develop a filter that helps decipher flash-in-the-pan technologies from the sea changes. (How to develop this type of strategy is an entirely different post topic).

But instead of focusing on the technology side of the future, focus on the human side. Human behavior is a more consistent bet than technology. If we prepare our website for the future with human nature in mind, we will put our organization in a good position regardless of how the flood of technology leaves things.

5 Future-proof ideas for websites

If we bet on technology, we can either be really right, or really wrong. But if we bet on human nature, we can count on consistency and know that our website is going to be well-positioned for the future. Besides, there’s no prize for beating your audience to the future (unless you’re the inventor).

The website of the future must be:

1. Simple
2. Portable
3. Fast
4. Human
5. Useful and/or interesting

1. Make it simple

People value simplicity

Every day, more than 100 million pieces of content are shared on Facebook. More than 90 million Tweets are Tweeted. About 50,000 new blogs are created to get stacked on top of the 150 million+ that are already out there. As you read this, some of the 294 billion emails that are sent each day are being written.

We’re in an era of information overload. Our audience members are busy people who are overcommitted *outside* of their Internet lives. It’s a small miracle each time they make it to our sites so we shouldn’t overwhelm them once they get there.

The first step in preparing your website for the future happens offline. Websites are often a reflection of the organization that created them. If our organization is disorganized, silo-ed, and poor at communicating, our website will be, too. Design by committee often results in a battlefield of compromise where your visitor is the casualty. As an organization, we must go through the difficult task of truly answering some basic but powerful questions:

1. What kind of person is my audience member?
2. What’s the one thing they actually want from me?
3. What one action do I want them to take?

There are no Swiss army-knife sites (except for maybe Google). We need to simplify, specialize and stick to our core mission or risk becoming irrelevant.

If the future of the web is simplicity, here’s how you can prepare:

• Boil down your organization’s core offering
• Conduct a 5-second usability test (fivesecondtest.com)
• Conduct a website audit: check for competing initiatives on your own site
• Check your analytics to see where you are losing visitors

2. Make it portable

People value convenience

The world is going mobile in a hurry. You’ve heard the stats. By 2015, 48% of U.S. citizens will browse the mobile web. Nearly 150 million people will own smartphones and mobile traffic will increase 26-fold.

Mobile isn’t a trend. Mobile is the trend.

But the web isn’t just going to mobile devices, it’s going to any screen that can present the internet. Think kiosks, augmented-reality digital signage, screens we haven’t thought of yet. The web is going to be portable: found wherever a digital screen exists.

When you’re creating a mobile version of your website (which should be your priority over running out to create a mobile app just to create one), the simplicity you gained in step 1 (“Make it simple) will help pave the way for you to create a simpler menu that satisfies your audience members desires on your site.

To prepare your site for mobile:

• Start thinking now about how you’d simplify your navigation menu and site content
• Discontinue developing Flash elements into your website, focus on HTML or JavaScript
• Focus on mobile-friendly first, and then app (if it makes sense)

3. Make it fast

People hate waiting

Nobody likes to stand in line. Waiting is tough for people. That’s why 40% of web users have abandoned a page after 3 seconds of loading.

Taking the steps to making sure our sites load quickly will have benefits to user experience and SEO. People are more likely to click through more on quickly-loading sites. And Google has mentioned that they take load speed into consideration in their algorithm.

Remember, simple sites load faster. And this is even more true (and more important) in mobile.

To get your site sped up for the future:

• Check site load speed
• Run Yahoo’s YSlow
• Run Google’s Page Speed Online
• Create a checklist of tweaks to apply to your current (or to be created) site

4. Make it human

People crave human interaction

We’ve heard the statistics on social media. And to be fair, a lot of organizations are at least trying social media. But the humanization of your website shouldn’t be limited to your social media pre-approved channels.

Social media – or the human element – should be a layer across your digital presence, not a channel-based silo. Humanity evokes emotion from people. Showing the human side of your organization can have many benefits.

For instance, during the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund donation drive, an A/B split test was conducted to see which donation form was more effective and generating donations. One form had a photo from Haiti, the other did not. The one with the photo – the human – element – converted 10% better and resulted in $1 million more in donations.

The social side of your organization can come out anywhere you have content. Your email subscription thank you, your administrative copy, your error messages can all incorporate the human element.

For instance, this error message was written in a more human-friendly way and decreased the bounce rate by 66%

If the future of the web is social, here’s how to prepare:

• Take inventory of your social media outposts: are you acting like a logo or a person?
• Investigate where your audience socializes online (Try CubeSocial.com)
• Start monitoring social media to keep tabs on influencers and your audience

5. Be useful or interesting

People love a good story

An article this long has to include the cliché “content is king” at least once so here it is: content is king. In a recent survey, 73% of people said they preferred to learn about organizations through articles as opposed to ads. Content is 61% more likely to drive someone to make a purchase than ads, and content can live forever on your website.

The power of a good story is strong.

And content can pay dividends down the road for your site. A Tweet or Facebook post usually only lasts for hours. A blog post can last for years.

The future of the web is storytelling, so start generating content that captivates your audience because it’s useful or interesting (or both!)

If you want to prepare for the future of the web, focus on human nature. Make it simple, portable, fast, social, useful and interesting you’ll be ahead of the race.

This post was the blog version of “The Future of Websites,” a presentation given by Andrew on September 15th for the Association Media & Publishing “Lunch and Learn” series.

The original presentation:

(Special thanks to Jackie Roy for patient help on this presentation.)

The post The Future of Websites appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

That’s seems wrong. I feel that PR should not be primarily responsible for blogger outreach. And likely not for other types of social media either.

I know, PR people, you disagree. You know how to do relationships, and you believe that social media is about relationships. You are communicators, and social media is communication. You diligently polish and protect brand reputations, and you can do the same in social media. I get all that and I’m not for a minute discounting all the hard work you do in all of the above.

Here’s the problem: Bloggers are not journalists. Blogger outreach programs are, most often, not earned media. Blogger outreach programs are actually paid media (even when no money exchanges hands). And therein lies the rub.

Where does the “paid” come from? Well, first of all, I am certainly not advocating for a blogger to get paid to write a product review. That seems wholly unethical and, as with any type of product review such as that which might appear in a magazine, is payola at its worst (though it does happen). However, with the exception of product reviews, everything else a blogger does to assist a brand in promoting a product or service is a promotional partnership. That’s right, bloggers are promoting, and therefore should be partners. Paid partners. Or fairly compensated in some other way (barter, donations, travel, whatever makes sense to both parties). And not only in product.

[But wait!, you say. Many bloggers are blogging for entirely personal reasons, and they don’t want to nor expect to get paid. You are correct – I know of plenty of bloggers who blog about their kids, their travels, their hobbies or their industry and none of them would ever think to take payment from someone to promote a product.  My question then is why is a PR person pitching them to promote a product (and especially if that product isn’t a 110% perfect fit for their audience) in their personal blog? I’d be pissed if I were such a blogger and was inundated by requests from PR people. And it most certainly does happen, all the time. Pitching bloggers appropriately is another topic I rant about a lot.]

So here’s the disconnect: Marketing budgets put the most money into media. Huge percentages of budgets are devoted to paid media. And PR firms rarely get OOPs (out-of-pocket) budgets beyond events, spokespeople or day-to-day operational costs. So when PR people go to the blogger and ask for them to help promote a product, and the savvy and deserving blogger replies with his or her standard charge for that type of promotional partnership, the PR firm has to say no, because they usually don’t have the budget for it.

That’s right: PR firms (most of them, anyway) do not have the budgets to do effective blogger outreach. They don’t typically know how to budget for it, how to ask for the budgets, and they’re not set up to pay bloggers effectively even if they have the budget. That’s why it’s not working, and why it won’t work, unless there’s a huge mind shift on both the client side and the agency side, and soon.

One tragedy of this dynamic, which has been playing out for a few years now, has led to the perception of bloggers (and particularly “mommy bloggers,” who should henceforth be referred to as parenting/lifestyle bloggers) as always having their hands out. And it’s also led to the recent tsunami of new bloggers who have entered the space just hoping to make money, without necessarily having a true passion for the craft. And when you’re a new blogger with a dozen readers, most of which are your book club, you don’t deserve to be a paid promotional partner for a blog.  Grow your readership, and establish your value, before you stick your hand out. So yes, recently it’s become a bit difficult to listen to all those bloggers who are whining about wanting to get paid, because many of them should not be paid.

But when a blogger becomes the media, when they are publishers who create informative, entertaining, touching or important content that reaches thousands or millions, they have power. And that power can and should be harnessed by brands in a professional way. By professional, I mean paid.

So PR firms, if you haven’t figured this out yet, here’s what you must do: you must convince your clients to give some of their media budget to you. To do that, you have to learn to budget differently, and then you must learn to manage it (because those media-like payments will turn your accounting department on its ear). Then, with those budgets, you must create smart and clever (and measurable – but that’s a topic for another post) promotional partnerships with bloggers. Because if you cannot, you will not be able to effectively play in the field of blogger outreach. And the digital agencies are going to eat your lunch.

(Authors note: Apologies to a few very savvy PR people I know who really, really get this. You know who you are. You guys (well, gals, mostly) are on the cutting edge. From where I sit, at the intersection of bloggers and clients, it seems most of the rest of the industry is not.)

img source: flickr (Amagill)

Related articles

• When did PR firms become digital marketing firms? (hottubcrimemachine.com)
• Five Blogger Reactions to Review & Endorsement Compensation (prbreakfastclub.com)
• The PR Guide To Email Pitching (socialmediaexp.wpengine.com)

The post Bloggers Are Promotional Partners, Which Is Bad For PR appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Marshall and I have been friendly for several years. I even contracted him to teach me the then-mysterious ways of RSS back in my agency days. While we don’t exactly hang out, I love Marshall’s writing and insights. He really is a brilliant guy. His work has helped ReadWriteWeb become one of the top blogs in the technology world. I’ve pitched him a few stories over the years. He’s called me for a few quotes, too.

But it was that passing tidbit in the hall at a hotel in Austin, Texas, that Marshall became a media member rather than a blogger to me. Not to discredit his work to that point! He’s always been a journalist if not labeled as such — and a good one, too. But he broke a story. He scooped the competition. It wasn’t just about providing great content in a new medium and sometimes eschewing the norms of traditional communications anymore. Marshall, and ReadWriteWeb, are playing the media game.

I love the fact Marshall gets jazzed about breaking stories. It’s exciting to have information before others. And when the others include competitive websites that can beat you to the punch and benefit from it, the excitement is palpable. Mind you, it’s not that people will run and read the story on TechCrunch, never to pass RWW’s servers again. But rather that the first web source to the punch often gets the lion’s share of both credit and traffic … search engine benefits and more. When Marshall scoops ReadWriteWeb’s competition, the traditional media notice and link appropriately.

Ironic isn’t it that blogs find themselves competing for inbound links from the old gray ladies of the world, isn’t it?

And if you don’t think the big blogs worry about the competition, try pitching them on a tech story. TechCrunch, Mashable GigaOm, RWW … all believe a valid reason not to write about a start-up or news item is that one of the others, “already covered that.” These blogs, and others in various niches, are as competitive and paranoid as the New York tabloids or competing dailies in big markets.

But playing the media game makes blogs of that ilk not blogs at all. While there’s no solid, black line that a website crosses one day, winning a virtual promotion to the category of “media outlet,” the bigger the audience, the more focused the business goals and the more respected a blog’s outputs become, the less of a blog it really becomes.

Perhaps the labels are unnecessary. Any publishing platform is technically a media outlet. Credibility and consistency seem to be the biggest factors in whether or not that media outlet will have an audience. But even those are variable. Perez Hilton, for instance, doesn’t really have journalistic credibility. But for some good gossip and entertaining tidbits to nosh on, it beats many.

Do we need to distinguish between blogs and media sites? Does the tie to traditional, off-line outlets make a difference anymore? Or is the proof just in the pudding. I trust ReadWriteWeb for tech news as much as I trust Wired, Fast Company or even the Technology section of the New York Times (which, by the way, offers RWW headlines on its website). RWW is a trusted source. Marshall is a trusted journalist … whether he would call himself that or not. (He does, by the way. But many at his competitors still call themselves “bloggers.”)

In 2009, Michael Stelzner at SocialMediaExaminer tried to position his then infant website as an “online magazine.” He specifically wanted to avoid the word “blog.” My guess is because his target audience included people beyond the social media world, many of whom associated “blog” with a publishing platform that is, shall we say, unpolished. Mention the fact you author a blog to many mainstreamers today and you’ll still get an unspoken roll of the eyes. So, perhaps labels are still important.

Regardless of what we call what we do, the fact that these little online journals have evolved to produce mega-profit driven publishing platforms that garner thousands of dollars per month in advertising revenue and are authored by teams of people who have goals like scooping the competition or breaking a big story means there’s a New Establishment. Certain blogs and bloggers are now the gate keepers of information. They are the holders of the public conscious, at least in their spheres of influence. And, as a result, we the public owe it to each other and them to hold them to the same high standards we’ve tried to hold the old guard.

We must question their motives. We must insist they source, credit and fact-check. We must hold accuracy, fairness and balance precious when considering our content selections.

Because if we don’t, then we’ll never be able to distinguish truth from the noise. And when you can’t do that, in the strangest of ironies, you have what now passes for traditional news media.

The post The New Establishment appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Don’t get me wrong; it was fun while it lasted. You were always making me smile with your clever headlines and funny captions. And I’ll never forget all the times you thoughtfully gave me advice.

I thought we were a match made in heaven. I thought we’d be together forever. But you ruined everything. You took advantage of me. You weren’t faithful. You shattered my heart.

And now I have to dump you.

I’m sorry. Just know that I feel terrible doing it like this, so publically, so abruptly, and so callously.

But someone had to. Or else you’d keep on trampling on innocent hearts of other readers.

Not that you probably care, but my therapist said it’d be good to get this off my chest.

Here are the 10 things I hate about you (as a blogger):

1. You neglected me.

We used to interact every day. When I woke up in the morning, I knew I could count on you having something interesting to say. But then you sort of just disappeared. Daily conversations turned into weekly, then monthly, and now you don’t post with any regularity at all.

I’d @mention you on Twitter and bare my soul to you in your comments, but all I got was radio silence.

2. You made it so hard to stay in touch.

You just weren’t available to me – I couldn’t find your RSS feed button, there was no obvious way to sign up for email updates – you didn’t even have an about page. I wanted to reach out to you, but you were never there. And from now on, I won’t be either.

3. You lied to me.

I used to hang on every word you said. Every sentence was an a-ha moment I could take with me to work. But then I started to find out that your intellectual advice didn’t hold up in my practical world. You presented statistics without verifying their accuracy. You broke news that turned out to be rumor.

I trusted you and you made me look like a fool when I presented your best practices to the rest of the people at my job. It was humiliating. And you told me I should just get over it – that it’s only a blog!

4. You started to sound just like everyone else.

You used to be so unique. You had your own voice and you played by your own rules. You didn’t care what the suits had to say – you called it like you saw it. You were a rebel. But all the attention is softening you. The other day you used “leverage synergies” in a headline. It broke my heart to see you go so corporate.

5. You seemed so desperate for attention from other readers.

I can live with the fact that you might have a wandering eye, but you didn’t have to be so obvious about it. You know I’m a loyal reader but you keep asking me to subscribe with long, invasive forms, begging me to Retweet you and insisting that I share your stuff with my friends.

I used to tell them how great you were in my own way, but you wanted me to use that formal template on your website. It felt so … clinical.

6. You were too needy.

First you wanted me to subscribe, and that was fine. But then you jammed the ebook down my throat, wanted to charge me for access to your most intimate thoughts, kept interrupting our dates with pop-up ads, every link I trusted you enough to click on tried to sell me something, and you didn’t give me any warning!

Listen, I’m here to support you, but I’m not in this for charity. I need a relationship that centers on respect.

7. Your attention drifted.

When I met you, you were so focused, but you’ve drifted and now conversations with you feel like I’m flipping through TV channels and I don’t have the remote.

Why are you telling me about the 10K race you just ran and your recent trip to Target? I mean, it’s nice to know those kind of details, but don’t forget that I’m not a captive audience. There are a lot of other bloggers out there who will respect my time and attention.

8. You let yourself go.

I understand that you’re going to go through rough patches – maybe you’re having server issues or you tried something new and it didn’t work out – it happens to everyone.

But it’s just sad to see you with broken plugins, images that don’t load correctly, weird alignment issues with your fonts and ads running amok in your posts.

9. You only ever talk about yourself.

And not only do you only talk about yourself and never ask me about MY day or MY experiences, you just drone on and on and on and on. Our relationship has become a test of endurance.

10. I felt like I was talking to a 7th grader.

It started when you made some gross comments on Twitter. And then it leaked into your blog. And then you stopped caring about punctuation, spelling, and well, grammar.

Listen, I don’t expect you to be a polished as William Strunk Jr., but you do have a high school diploma, why not use it?

So for now, I’m going to see other bloggers. I hope we can stay friends and maybe there’s a future for us. But are you willing to change?

I’d love nothing more than for us to have a happy future together, but you need to be willing to make it work.

The post 10 Things I Hate About You (As a Blogger) appeared first on Social Media Explorer.