social media

Are You a Shadow or a Beacon?

Take a minute to ask yourself a question ? are you a shadow or a beacon?

Are you merely following the crowd and what they think is right, or are you following your own path and leading the way?

If the answer to the question is the former, then you?re a social shadow ? always following, never questioning.

You need to change this now if you want to be more than just a shadow.

Like so many others, you?re trying to get to grips with social media, social networking, social marketing ? in fact, you?re probably all socialed out.

Everyone telling you which social tool you should use to expand your brand ? Digg this, Stumble that, and don?t forget to Twitter while you?re at it. While it?s true that you need to Socialize to make these applications work for you, it?s only true if you?re using them effectively.

Social shadows, always reacting to the social media/network scene as opposed to being pro-active, aren?t using this online social scene effectively. The result? You and/or your business is always the perennial ?almost man? ? you know, the movie co-star that never gets the girl or the audience?s love.

Yes, you?ll get the sympathy vote ? but who wants that? Wouldn?t you rather have the leading love interest in your arms?

Now take that and transfer it to your business. Your love interest is your customer ? your co-star vying for their love is your competitor. Just like you need to have the best scenes in a movie to be the star, so you need the best impressions of your company to be the star of your field. You know that social media can help you here ? but only if you?re the leading man, and not standing in the shadows of the supporting cast.

Light Up Your Shadow

Use social media and networking properly to promote your brand and business. This doesn?t mean adding hundreds of people just to try and be noticed ? instead, offer worthy participation. Leave comments on blogs with tips on solutions to a question, or recommend sites other than yours for knowledge bases. Once people see you?re not out for yourself they?ll look to you for advice every time ? guess what? That?s a new follower/customer you have.

Be an innovator. Come up with new ways to position yourself as the business to come to for your product. Grow your brand using social media as the tool instead of social media using you. Use a blog to offer your own personal and radical views that may or may not appeal to the mainstream ? initially, at least. Instead of writing what you think people want to hear, write what you want to read.

Don?t worry about interest being small at first ? after all, true pioneers are the ones that forge ahead offering real value and knowledge; all they need is time for everyone to catch up. And they will ? contrary to popular belief last generation, this public loves change.

Ready to light up your beacon and lead the way?

photo credit: Xavier Fargas

Hungover Radio ? A Social Media Success Story by Marcus Edwardes

January 16th? 2010, I?m at a party with a few friends.

We were bragging to each other about the usual things. Girls, sport, gadgets, movies. I make a remark that would change my life.

?I?m gonna launch my own Radio Show!?

The idea has been swirling around in my head for years but I?ve never vocalized it. Not even to my wife ? she just knows that I am a big Talk Radio fan. By the way, I own a Video Games recruitment company. I?m British.

?Right, of course you are Marcus. Want another beer?? Sure. Get me shot too.

Over the next week I dedicate myself to the task of setting up the show. It?s not easy.

Sunday Jan 24th. I broadcast my first internet radio show. Hungover Radio is born. People love it. Raw, full of potential. I?m loving every minute of it.

I hire a sound engineer and turn my garage into a Radio studio over the next week. A proper studio. Mics, mixing desks, computers, cables.? The show is real.

The next few weeks fly by ? largely to good reviews by my small but growing audience.

I invent a game called The Domain Name Game and pretend that it?s sponsored by GoDaddy. I send them the tape.

A week later GoDaddy call me back. ?We want to sponsor you.? What?

GoDaddy want to sponsor Hungover Radio after 6 shows. We are off to the races.

I?m on a roll. I send a tape to Rick Dees Entertainment. I?m looking for some constructive feedback. They call back. ?We want to meet you?.

I go to the Rick Dees studios in Burbank. Rick Dees extends his hand to shake mine. ?Marcus ? consider this your second home?. What?

I go to lunch with Producer Dave Lipson from Rick Dees Entertainment. ?We?d like to develop a daily radio show with you as the host?.? Get the fuck out of here.

Week 8. Hasn?t happened yet. But I?m feeling lucky. Bring it on.

About the author: Marcus Edwardes has spent his career in technology and video game recruiting. Earlier this year he started Hungover Radio, which he describes as “roast lamb for the ears”. You can listen to Hungover Radio at HungoverRadio.com, or follow Marcus on Twitter @hungoverradio.

Six Steps to Running a Successful Blogger Outreach by Monica O?Brien

But… but… blogger outreach doesn’t work anymore, right?

Actually, like most things in life, it depends on how you do it. The landscape for social media and blogging is constantly changing, and due to the popularity of blogger outreach tactics, most bloggers have received a mass email or press release that was completely off topic.

It doesn’t have to be that way though. Here’s the six step process I use for blogger outreach that gives me astronomically higher success than the outreaches that most PR firms will run for you. You can get great blogger outreach results (I’ll share mine at the end) in 3 months or less using these steps:

Step 1 – Planning Your Targets and Criteria (12 weeks out)

Before you start a blogger outreach, you want to plan what bloggers you will target based on a set of success criteria. For example, if you sell college recruiting web software to high school students, you may want to target any blogs that talk about:

college recruiting
college sports
web software
teen athletes (from a parenting perspective)
youth coaches

and you may only want to consider blogs that:

have 1000 or more subscribers
have 1000 or more Twitter followers
receive 10 or more comments per post on average (I like engaging bloggers)

The types of bloggers you target and the criteria you come up with can be more or less detailed than this example, based on your business and your goals. For example, if you want to find 100 blogs that cover college sports recruiting, you should probably aim lower on your subscriber and comment numbers.

It’s also useful to consider different keywords that people who write the aforementioned blogs might use in their blog posts. You can create a short list for each blog category using the visual search engine?Quintura; for example, when I type in “college recruiting” I see that “recruiting process” and “college coaches” are two highly associated keyword phrases.

Step 2 – Find blogs that match your criteria (12 weeks out)

This is the data part, so get out your spreadsheets! Label the columns with important information, like blog topic, main contact, main contact’s email address, blog address, subscriber count, twitter handle, etc. Include any information that you think you will need throughout the process (trust me, you don’t want to go back to flush out an extra column later). As you find blogs that would make good targets, add them to your spreadsheet.

To find blogs, input the blog categories and the keyword phrases that you found in Step 1 with the following resources:

WeFollow
Twitter Lists
Alltop
Google Blog Search
Technorati
Ning Networks
Facebook Pages and Groups
Blog Aggregator Networks, like DivineCaroline or The Huffington Post

You’ll have to vet each blog you find against the criteria you laid out in Step 1. The process of finding 100 blogs using steps 1 & 2 takes about a week.

Step 3 – Get your foot in the door (11 weeks out)

The first thing I do is add all these blogs to a feed reader like Bloglines. I have separate accounts for each brand I work with. You’ll want to process your feed reader at least once a day for 7-8 weeks. (Note: That may seem like a long time, but it’s soooo worth it. It only takes 20-30 minutes a day, so it is not as large a commitment as you think!)

Any blog posts that you think are relevant to your own audience should be tweeted (include the handle of the writer of the blog post so you get their attention), pushed out through the Facebook fan page (add their page to your favorites also), or linked to in a blog post from your own site. You can also create an account for your brand on StumbleUpon and submit the post there.

If you can think of something interesting to say about the post, make sure you leave a comment with a link back to your site! Many bloggers notice comments over most other forms of communication.

You can also add the blog feeds to a custom Google search engine. Offer the search engine as a resource to your community and search the engine for interesting posts. You can schedule the posts as tweets using an automated tool like HootSuite or SocialOomph.

Ex: “Browsing the archives of @collegerec and found this awesome article about making the soccer team http://a.link.here”

Finally, try to connect with the blogger on other platforms – a Facebook fan page or group, LinkedIn, and more. The first thing someone does when they get a message from you is to Google you, so it helps to have several connections to the person beforehand!

One last tip: when getting your foot in the door, make sure you have one contact with a name and a photo (not your company logo) connecting with the blogger on these various platforms. People want to see a face, not a company mask. Relationships are key, so think long term for success!

Step 4 – Reach out to bloggers (3-4 weeks out)

Hopefully the bloggers you are targeting have noticed and replied to your efforts to reach out to them via social media. Now that you’ve spent nearly two months networking with specific bloggers in your niche, you’re ready to reach out to them via email.

Your first email doesn’t need to be long; simply send a nice note reminding the person you are a fan of theirs and complimenting their work. Then tell them about your product and why it’s relevant and interesting to them.

Now comes the tricky part – you must offer the person a sweet deal they can’t say no to. For example, Alice.com gives new customers a $10 gift card towards household products just for signing up and placing a first order. Make sure your offer is compelling – you’ve worked so hard to network with bloggers and it would be a shame to mess this portion up.

Make it clear that you are making the offer to them so they can write about it on their blog, but that a review is not necessary unless they find the product or service compelling. Also, it’s important to stress that a positive review is not a requirement either. Finally, thank them for their consideration!

The entire message need not be more than 5 sentences long. No, I’m serious! If you need more room than that to pitch your product, include a link to your blog where they can find more details about the promotion if they are interested. But really, 5 sentences is plenty. In fact, it’s kind of fun to see if you can do it in that short of an email. Watch:

Stephanie,

I’ve really enjoyed your recent work on your blog, especially the post about why high school athletes should utilize their school counselors to land interviews with college coaches! I’m writing because we are launching a new web software tool called CRecruit and we are looking for bloggers who want to break the news on May 5, 2010.

We’re willing to offer 50 free sign-up codes (valued at $27 each) to your readers during the week of our launch. We’d like to offer you a sneak peek so you can see how the product helps high school athletes and decide if you’re interested in helping us get the word out.

Thank you for your consideration; we look forward to your reply!

Best,

Monica O’Brien, CRecruit CEO

See, wasn’t that fun?

Step 5 – Fulfill and follow-up (2-3 weeks out)

If the blogger agrees, congratulations! Make sure you respond quickly and give them all the materials they need to trial your product or service. You may want to put together a press package on your website beforehand where they can download canned information about your product and images or screenshots that will make writing a blog post easier.

Follow-up with any bloggers who did not respond, but with whom you have a strong relationship. Life gets in the way of blogging, and it’s possible that the blogger missed or forgot about your message. Don’t take it personally!

Step 6 – Remind bloggers (3-5 days out)

Right before your big launch, you want to remind bloggers to write a review your product or service on their blog. Tell them you will be doing a round-up of all reviews for your blog and your newsletter to provide extra incentive to post on the day of your launch.

Follow up with any reviews you receive by commenting and sharing the link on your various social networking accounts as well!

By planning a little in advance and building relationships before the pitch, you can get a 60%+ response rate and built lasting relationships that will continue to benefit the brand long after the PR push is over.

If you don’t do it this way, you’ll probably get about a 5% response rate. Which will you choose?

About the author: Monica O’Brien is the author of Social Pollination: Escape the Hype of Social Media and Join the Companies Winning At It. She also serves as the Director of Digital at Fizz, a word of mouth marketing agency. You can also read Monica’s blog, Social Pollination and follow her on Twitter @MonicaOBrien.

photo credit: D.Munoz-Santos