Guest Posts

5 Ways To Stay Productive Amidst Social Media Buzz

This is a guest post by Leo Widrich.

At the moment that I am writing this post the App I am working on is featured simultaneously on Social Media Examiner, ProBlogger and LaughingSquid, three massive Social Media sites that made the buzz go crazy.

It is fantastic.

Yet, as you are growing as a blogger, startup or other form of business I learnt that it is key for many reasons not to get carried away by these temporary viral successes.

What I found is that you drop all you are working on and start refreshing your site for more retweets, check Google Analytics for more hits or wait for more comments coming in. In fact you feel super busy doing all this. The only problem is, you don?t get anything done.

Now don?t get me wrong. I believe that celebrating and enjoying these moments is important.

Since these phases often pump me full with energy I think they are also a great point to get a big junk of work done. Here are my 5 top ways to keep your head down working, even though the buzz is going on. I also found that they make me very productive if there is no buzz happening.

1.) Tools

A straight forward way to keep yourself on the productive side when the online buzz increases is to use a few helpful tools. One I found to be very efficient is a fairly well known App called RescueTime. It allows you to set a timer, blocking certain website or internet usage overall.

If you want to consider a lighter option to stop yourself from refreshing Facebook or Twitter or any other sites for a few hours, I believe that Chrome Nanny or the Firefox equivalent Leech Block are awesome helpers in getting you focused.

2.) Pen & Paper

As we have all these great tweets about us being posted, I decided to simply switch back to pen and paper to brainstorm a few more blog posts.

It is a great way to get away from everything. As you are pumped and fully motivated in these moments, but don?t have the chance to stay focused online, just move it offline.

A few things which work very well for me are mindmapping, jotting down headlines and making lists of to do?s and ideas. In either option I found that simply shutting down my laptop helps me greatly to focus and use this energy productively.

3.) Time Batching

Another technique that worked very well for me in these situations is to batch times and tie them in with certain tasks.

Assign the time necessary to catch up with tweets, comments and emails to one point in time. I then go and have larger chunks of time where I focus on various tasks all lasting about 45 minutes. For the rest of the hour, I do all the tweeting and commenting. I clearly write the structure of these tasks down so I am not fooling myself.

Working in batches has increased my focus significantly as I am not paralysed by all the different things going on.

4.) Pulling The Plug

In case you can?t swap to pen and paper for various reasons, there is something else that helps me greatly. If the tools? mentioned in 1# don?t really keep you from uselessly observing the buzz, maybe pulling the plug helps.

Here I would literally pull the plug to my wireless router so there was absolutely no way I could get internet access. It left me with only my laptop and Word docs and I could finally start writing and focusing without switching back to emails or tweets.

5.) Single Service/Page Browsing

One last thing I tried many times successfully is to close all open browser tabs and only have a single window open.

Often I am too paralyzed and don?t know what to do with all the different places where I could get involved. By opening only one site at a time, it is much easier to focus on getting all tasks done that need to be done on that site. And then move on to the next one.

Over to you now. How do you manage yourself when there is buzz going on around your work? Do you believe that in the long run focusing on being productive is key? I would love your views on this below.

About the author: Leo Widrich is the co-founder of Buffer, an app that allows you to schedule and customize your tweets throughout the day. You can read more on the Buffer blog, or follow Leo on Twitter at @LeoWid.

Why I’m Hesitant About Triberr

This is a guest post by Neicole Crepeau.

Triberr is taking the blogging world by storm. And my hat is off to its creators, Dino Dogan and Daniel Cristo for trying to help smaller bloggers like myself get exposure.

I can definitely understand the appeal of Triberr, Twitterfeed, and other RSS auto-post systems. I find myself hesitant to use them, though. As a content curator, they don?t meet my needs?and?I?m worried they?re just adding to the noise.

Triberr, Twitterfeed, and Similar Tools

Triberr offers a quid-pro-quo arrangement with other bloggers. You become part of up to four tribes. They tweet your blog posts (the timing handled by Triberr), and you tweet their?s. By default, this just happens automatically without you having to think about it.

(Note that Triberr recently did add a feature that allows you to change your settings so that you can choose which content to tweet. It was built for and optimized for auto-tweeting, though, and that?s the scenario I?m discussing.)

Triberr makes the quid-pro-quo arrangement explicit?and fun. These kinds of arrangements have been taking place informally for a long time. ?Most of us active in content creation also share other people?s content on a regular basis, and we naturally end up with a specific set of bloggers or sources whose content we tend to read and share.

Reaching a Larger Audience

Of course, we all want our content to reach a larger audience.?It?s one of the key reasons we participate in social media. It?s one of the reasons that we share other bloggers? content.

Triberr touts the increased reach that bloggers get by joining tribes. Its tagline is ?The Reach Multiplier!?. So,?ultimately, like an advertising network, it?s about getting views and clicks. I have no doubt that using Triberr, or any quid-pro-quo system, will get my links in front of more people. The problem is two-fold:

Are my links getting in front of the right audience?
Am I short-changing my audience to do it?

Content Curation versus Content Inundation

As I said, I consider myself a content curator. I am selective about the posts that I share. ?I take pride in reading each one before sharing it. ?I share content that I think my particular audience, or the audience I?m trying to build, will find of value. I know they are flooded with content. I like to think they trust that what I share is going to be worth clicking on.

There are bloggers whose content I routinely share. Even with those bloggers, though, I don?t share every post. Even for the blogs I helped start (SMB Collective)?or am a regular contributor to (Mark Schaefer?s?Grow blog), I don?t share every post. I share those that are?relevant to my audience and?of high quality.

If a person auto-tweets every post from my blog, then they aren?t being selective. They aren?t choosing the posts relevant to their audience. I bet they don?t have a quality bar, either. Yes, I want my content to be shared. But?what I really want is for my content to be shared by someone whose judgement his or her followers trust, and whose audience is the target audience I?m trying to reach.

We are inundated with information, links, content. The problem is just getting worse. When people auto-share every post from everyone in their network, they just add to the problem, inundating people with more links.

The Value of the Curator

That?s why I personally think that?true curators are going to become more valuable. As we try to filter out all the junk and focus our time on consuming really good content, we will rely on selected tools and selected individuals.

Some websites and applications are trying to help surface the best content to those who are seeking it. There will be a role for these tools: Flipboard, Zite, Alltop, and the like. They will be locations for people to go to when they are in the consumption mode, actively looking for information on a topic or ready to sit down and do their daily reading.

More and more, though,?people get their content primarily in small snippets, through friends and their online networks. They receive it in small chunks: a post on Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Twitter. They click because a particular headline grabs them.

There is evidence to suggest that we are?becoming more selective about the pages we Like. Similarly, as content marketing and the content volume grows,?we?ll become more selective about the people we follow. As a blogger or curator trying to build an audience, it will become even more important to pick your niche and create and share quality content about your selected topic. People will choose to follow and to really pay attention to the content shared by curators who have proved themselves trustworthy.

For that reason, and just my own personal integrity, I?m not willing to auto-tweet. I don?t want to be part of the problem, and I want to maintain my own reputation?because I think?having a reputation as a good content curator is going to become more and more valuable.

What about you? Can automated syndication work, or does manual curation seem the better approach?

About the author: Neicole Crepeau is a speaker, blogger, columnist at {grow}, and co-founder of SMB Collective. She works at Coherent Interactive on social media, website design, mobile apps, & marketing. Connect with Neicole on Twitter at @neicolec.

How To Guarantee ROI On Your Biggest Business Investment

This is a guest post from Leon Noone.

How valuable is your biggest single business investment? What return are you getting on that investment? You need to know. Return on investment ? ROI ? is a perfectly reasonable management expectation. That includes investment in people.

ROI And Your Laptop

Let’s say you want to buy a new laptop: top of the range. You’re prepared to spend up to $1500. At that price wouldn’t you make sure it had all the bells and whistles you wanted and expected before you parted with your hard-earned? After all, $1500 is a significant figure. You’d expect a clear return on your investment.

ROI and New Investment

What would you say to a manager who said, “Boss, I want to spend $50,000 a year on a new machine. And I want you to commit a further $50,000 a year in maintenance costs to keep the machine running. Incidentally, I can’t guarantee that we’ll get any ROI, or even break even. Even if the new machine works very well, we’ll still need that $50,000 a year to keep it going.” Well: what would you say?

The Other Machine

A laptop is a machine. It’s a resource you need for better business results. We also have a special name for the $50,000 a year machine that the manager’s asking for. We call it “employee”. And it often costs much more than $50,000 a year to maintain.

The ROI Contradiction

It’s interesting. We spend a one-off $1500 on a laptop and expect it to perform admirably without further investment. We spend $50,000 annually merely to keep an employee. What ROI do we expect from that investment?

ROI And the Employee Resource

Permit me to make position clear. Work is not a “love-in”. Every resource you use, whether a machine or something else, should make a measurable contribution to business success.? Employees are a resource. Therefore ?.ROI is essential for what you invest in employees. But the “machine” resource and the “employee” resource aren’t quite the same.

Machine Expectations

Your new machine is inert. It wants nothing from you. Install it properly. Look after it well. It’ll do what you expect ?. perhaps a little more with careful attention and care. And you expect a good ROI from it.

Employee Expectations

The employee resource is different. It has emotions, opinions, expectations, ambitions, values. It has responsibilities outside of the workplace. It’s easily distracted. You can’t just plug it in, switch it on, let it run and wipe it down if it looks a bit tired. That’s not enough.

But it’s still one of the most expensive investments you’ll ever make. All up, total employee costs are one of the biggest ? if not the biggest ? single expense in your business. It’s essential that you get your ROI.

Some Tips For Employee ROI

Decide exactly what results you expect from each employee.
Tell each employee exactly what you expect.
Decide, together with the employee, how you’ll measure whether the employee has achieved the expected results.
Set performance standards so that employees can tell, daily ? yes daily ? “how they’re going”.
Put systems in place to enable employees to implement the performance standards perfectly.
Provide resources to enable employees to operate the systems.
Reward successful employees as well as you possibly can.
Let them get on with? giving you what you want.
Once they achieve the results and meet the standards, give them the autonomy and independence necessary to continue to do so.

Why Bother?

Employing people is a huge investment. You owe it to everyone involved to get a good return. But there’s another, equally good reason.

Employees need to know that they’re making a positive and effective contribution to business success. They also need you to acknowledge that contribution. Finally, they need to be satisfied that their contribution is well rewarded.

The Major ROI Benefit

The real benefit is that it enhances employee self esteem and professional competence. It provides great, to use an old expression, “job satisfaction”. It enables employees solid opportunities for genuine self development. These are positive consequences of this ROI approach.

The Major Payoff

Bear this in mind. If, like most managers, you’re always looking for more time to “manage the business”, you’ll only get it when you develop “perfect employees”. That’s what this ROI approach will give you. You, the manager, are a major beneficiary.

Conclusion

It sounds simple. It can be demanding. But it’s much less complicated than some of the gurus would have you believe.

About the Author: Leon Noone helps managers in small-medium business to improve on-job staff performance without training courses. His ideas are quite unconventional. Read his free Special Report “49 Practical Tips for Removing Employee Apathy, Aggravation And Resistance In Your Business”. Simply visit?www.staffperformancesecrets.com/ and download your free copy now.

NOTE: Sadly, Leon passed away on December 26, 2014. I will miss his voice and insights greatly. Here’s to you, Leon.

F***ing and Punching: The Moody Side of Business

This is a guest post by Dino Dogan.

Californication is a Showtime series starring David Duchovny, aka Fox Mulder, of the X Files fame. And I?m a huge fan.

One of the major plots revolves around David?s character, Hank Moody, inadvertently copulating with a very mature looking 17 year old daughter of Hank?s former wife?s boyfriend. Wow that sounds complicated. Anyways?

During the act, right at the climax, the young lady takes it upon her self to punch Hank, closed fist, right in his nose.

?So you wont forget me? she answered, when he screamed out a befuddled ?What the fuck!??

No matter. Hank got some much-needed inspiration thanks to his nose-to-fist encounter and managed to finish his sophomoric writing effort. The title of which is? Fucking and Punching. Little on the nose, if you ask me.

Pun?intended?

In Hank?s defense, the publisher and the young lady chose that title, but I?m getting ahead of the story.

You see? Hank Moody is a troubled but talented author who was having a hard time following up on his hugely successful writing debut. You know the type.

While Hank was asleep in post-coital bliss, the young lady managed to get a hold of Hank?s script and decided to steal it. This resulted in a book deal for her along with accolades reserved only for talented new arrivals.

What was Hank to do?

Nothing. What could he do? He was stuck between a gorgeous Lady Devil and the deep blue sea. Between a rock and a hard place. Between a pickle and a jar. Between a? let me stop with the similes, I?m not the writer here, Hank is.

How many times does this happen in business?

How many times does someone have an idea, as well as the execution, only to have someone else come in and punch them in the nose?

A lot!

First there was Coke, then came Pepsi. And let?s face it. It?s basically the same drink.
First there was Vark.com, and then 3 years later came Quora. But because Mark Zuckenburg is behind Quora, everyone is jumping on that bandwagon. What a shitty service that Quora is btw.
First there was Klout, then came PeerIndex, and then came Empire Avenue.
First there was Friendster, then came myspace, and then came Facebook.

First there was Triberr, then came??

Triberr was an idea that came to me in a dream-like haze while trying to fall asleep. Once it clicked, I couldn?t bat an eye. I stayed up all night developing the concept in my head. The very next day I got in touch with Dan Cristo.

I met Dan when he commented on one of my posts for Social Media Examiner. Then we did a few podcasts together on SEO and the future of search, Facebook and all manner of other nonsense. Good times.

So I knew Dan and I got along really well. And I knew Dan has a good handle on coding. After all, he developed several very cool sites, like Fluttrs and Ressimo.

So the idea came to me on a Wednesday night, and the following Saturday, Dan and I were sitting at a coffee shop sketching out what Triberr would look like.

Speed Daemon of Implementation

I don?t know how Dan does it. That very night Dan had already put together a rudimentary version of what is today Triberr.

Of course, it was only the wires and the supporting walls -we were still at the early stages- but the lay out was all there and not that different from the way Triberr looks today. About one week later, we were testing the core functionality.

When we saw -for the first time- that my blog posts were going out of Dan?s Twitter account and vice versa, we couldn?t believe we pulled it off.

Two weeks later, we opened doors to pre-beta testers and allowed up to 7 bloggers per tribe.

I have to pause the story here and thank the early adopters. Without them, Triberr wouldn?t be the service it is today.

Extraordinaire Expatriataire, Mr. John Falchetto. Triberr user ID 12
The Buff Buffer guy, Mr Leo Widrich. Triberr user ID 13
PR Hostess with the Mostess, Mrs. Gini Dietrich. Triberr user ID 16
Downtown Danny Brown, Triberr user ID 17
Beez Neez who always aims to please, Ingrid Abboud. Triberr user ID 23
Mr. Wow, Srinivas Rao. Triberr user ID 33
Mr. Twitter himself, Aaron Lee. Triberr user ID 37

With the core group like that, Triberr has received the kind of credibility and social proof that can?t be bought with money. And so to all early adopters and new arrivals, I thank you.

Big Fat Copy Cat

It?s only a matter of time before someone comes along and rips off the idea of Triberr.

Now don?t get me wrong; I?m not saying that the idea of tribes is original. Tribes have existed from the dawn of our species.

And I?m not saying that the idea of retweet clubs is all that original either.

But! The idea that a band of bloggers would trust one another to automagically post to each other?s Twitter stream is entirely new and unique to Triberr. And not as a one-time deal, but as the basis for something long-term, meaningful and mutually beneficial for everyone involved (including followers.)

So, who will step in and be the next one to deploy a copycat service?
Will they be successful?
What would they have to do in order to be the real competition to Triberr?

How is Triberr protecting itself against the big fat pussy?

SONY created the first portable music delivery system. They called it the Walkman. They did it without spending money on market research, product testing or Return on Investment analysis.

The day before the launch of Walkman, there was no market for portable music players. The day after, the entire world couldn?t live without a Walkman.

Sure, nowadays, we use our iPods, but SONY was first to the market. First to the market, yet replaced.

Will the same thing happen to Triberr?

I hope not. And here is how we?re making sure it doesn?t happen:

One:

From the very first piece of code, every single feature has had to answer one question. How will this help a blogger? If the answer is not convincing, it doesn?t get implemented.

This alone creates an obstacle for someone else to enter the market because in order to effectively compete, they would have to focus on that as well, rather than on ?how do we make money with this??

My personal commitment and promise is that Triberr will ALWAYS put the needs of bloggers above all.

Two:

We are first to the market. The copycat will have to live with that knowledge and stigma attached with the knowing that you ain?t nothing but a sloppy second.

This is an important distinction for people in the know. But it?s a vast world out there and I don?t know that too many would be able to tell ?or care to tell- the difference.

It?s a small obstacle to entry I?ll grant you, but an obstacle nonetheless.

Three:

When you are invited to Triberr, you?re not signing up for a soulless, faceless web app. You are getting a direct access line to the founders and coders of the platform.

So the previous obstacle wasn?t a mountain to overcome, but coupled with this one, I think it creates a strong wind of resistance. Why?

Copycats know they are copycats. They would have to put their face in front of their product to compete effectively. I say this under the assumption that most people want to deal with people. And most money-driven, soul sucking, rip-offs, aren?t looking to put their credibility and reputation on the line under the circumstances.

Four:

We are sooo fast. Dan is a speed daemon when it comes to answering the development needs of Triberr community. And they request new features on daily basis.

For example. Danny Brown had decided to implement “many small tribes” strategy and expressed his desire to leave the very first (and very large) tribe he himself created. So what does Dan do?

That SAME day, Dan had built a feature that allows Chiefs to transfer the control of their tribe onto another member of the tribe. How fucking cool is that?

So any competition would have to be extremely responsive, approachable and would have to deliver in a big way. And lemme tell you folks?there are easier ways to make money.

Five:

Dan is the guts, I am the brain. Dan and I feel that it is our unique backgrounds that enabled us to create Triberr. He is an amazingly fast and resourceful developer, and I have the deep insight into what bloggers need because I am a blogger. Sure, there is overlap, but we make for a pretty perfect Venn Diagram.

Six:

We have a secret Ace up our sleeve. Well?I?m not gonna tell you what it is, but we got one. Good luck, copy pussies.

Triberr Community

I?ve said it before, and I?ll say it again. Companies pay good money for the type of feedback that we get. I LOVE The Triberr community.

The initial coverage of Triberr was nothing short of amazing. We had received so much press and so fast, its makes us grateful and humbled by the attention.

Here is a short list of early supporters:

But that doesn?t mean all the press we got was good.

We loved getting the bad press almost as much as good. As a direct result of the issues raised in these articles, we?ve implemented a Manual Mode, Explicit Content setting, ability to remove tweets from the Cue, etc.

The Moody Side of Business

Hank eventually ended up in court winning the rights to his book. He also ended up in court for statutory rape.

The same fate happened to Vinklevoss brothers as they settled their lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg for a lofty sum of $65 million in 2008, only to feel like they got raped (statutorily?) when the judge refused to re-open the case of Vinklevoss Vs. Facebook.

Will similar fate befall Triberr? Will the Lady Devil come along and steal our idea? Will we get Vinklevossed?

Has something similar ever happened to you?
What did you learn from it?
How are you making sure it doesn?t happen again?

About the Author: Dino Dogan is the founder of?Triberr. Lousy Mixed Martial Artist and a recovering Network Engineer. Pretty good singer/songwriter, trainer of dogs, and a blogger of biz. Fun at parties and a global force for badassery. Follow on Twitter at @dino_dogan.

image: Glamhag

Building an Audience with Commenting Communities: Smart, or Sleazy?

This is a guest post by Danny Iny.

Have you heard of comment trading communities?

It?s a new fad that seems to be sweeping the blogosphere (or at least a few corners of it). Basically, the idea is that a bunch of people get together and agree to comment on all of each others? posts.

Some bloggers are experimenting with the idea, some love it, and others hate it.

I?ve been thinking about this a lot lately. A short while ago, I emailed a successful blogger whose audience I thought would be interested in a post I had written, asking for a link (this wasn?t out of the blue ? I?ve corresponded with this blogger on a few occasions).

The blogger responded that I could go ahead and post the link in the comment community ? everyone else would take a look and comment, just so long as I did the same for them.

I thanked the blogger and said that I would head on over, but I didn?t ? and I probably never will.

Okay, before we go any further, it?s time for full disclosure: I had participated in one round of this blogging community, which means that I commented on nine blog posts, and nine other people commented on one of mine.

It wasn?t a great experience, for two reasons:

A few of the blogs really stunk. Most were pretty decent, and some were great, but I felt very uncomfortable being committed to leave a comment on a blog that I was completely unimpressed with.
A few of the blogs were about things in which I have no interest. They were good blogs, near as I can tell, but they were about subjects that I neither know anything about nor have any interest in exploring. And yet, I was committed to leave a comment.

So what did I do? Well, I had made a commitment, and I take commitments seriously ? on the good blogs that interested me I left solid comments, and on the others I left comments that were friendly and encouraging, but vague and non-specific.

I feel like I?ve littered on the blogosphere.

Contrived, but reasonable?

My experience was mixed, but I?m not ready to make blanket condemnations. I discovered some really great blogs through it, and sparked a couple of great online relationships. And I?m not the only one.

The most commonly heard argument against these communities is that if people have to leave a comment, then that comment isn?t really worth anything, but I?m not sure that I agree.

I mean, sure, if people leave crappy, fluffy comments, then there?s no value to them, but if the comments are well thought-out, and insightful, then what?s the problem? Bloggers want others to read and interact with their stuff, and at the same time they?re looking for blogs for whom they can do the same. Isn?t this just a way of formalizing and adding some structure to what they want to be doing anyway?

In other words, some might see it as contrived, and I agree ? it?s a contrived solution to a very specific problem, but maybe it works?

My hesitation from doing it again is that I?m not comfortable having to comment on blog posts that I don?t like, or have no interest in.

Maybe this is a solvable problem?

Niche-specific, approval-required communities?

What if a blog commenting community were created that met the following two criteria, to address the main issues that I had with my comment community experience:

Each community is around a specific niche, so that everyone is ? at least in principle ? likely to be interested in everybody else?s writing.
Each community is moderated, and blogs are reviewed before being admitted into the group. This will make sure that terrible blogs never make it in.

If these two criteria were in place, I would give it another shot, and my guess that a good number of other bloggers would do the same. But I may be wrong?

Now I?ll turn the conversation over to you ? I had a feeling that this post would spark a lot of debate, which is why it?s being published here, where the microphone is a little bigger than over at Mirasee.

What do you think? Do you think this middle ground solution makes sense? Do you think blog commenting communities are a false economy, or the best thing since sliced bread?

Let?s get the debate going!

About the author: Danny Iny is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, and proud co-founder of Mirasee, the definitive marketing training program for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and non-marketers. Visit his site today for a free cheat sheet about Why Guru Strategies for Blog Growth DON?T WORK? and What Does!, or follow him on Twitter @DannyIny.