Category Archives: Social Media

Test & Fail; Learn & Scale; Digital CMO’s understand this mantra

September 21, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Social Media | Tagged Analytics, Analytics Results, Critical Mass, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategies | Leave a comment

Are you involved in digital marketing? You can’t just read blogs and learn what the experts recommend. Their advice is often very general, and might not apply to you. You need to test different marketing strategies out. See what works on what medium, and why.

Let’s say you find out that Twitter makes it easy to get followers for a particular account, but Facebook doesn’t. In such a case, it might make more sense to scale your efforts, and put more efforts into your Facebook account where you get a better return on your investment.

Another interesting angle, is that certain types of posts do well on certain mediums. If you are digital marketing, the medium most central to your endeavors should be your blog. But, your blog might have many types of articles. So, making a blanket statement of how Facebook is the best medium to promote your blog might not be a very good answer. Posts with lots of amazing pictures might do better on Instagram or Stumbleupon. Posts that have practical marketing pointers might do better on Linked In. Twitter tends to be good for SEO popularity due to the links you tweeted. Facebook tends to have the widest audience and is the social medium I would try first — for any industry just because it has the largest active following.

Generalized analytics results might not be the most helpful for your business. It is good to dig a little better. See what does well on each medium, and why!

After a recent analysis, I realized that the amount of labor and monetary investment that I had put into Twitter, the results were far less than those for our Facebook which we had invested relatively little into. I’ve decided to experiment by putting four times the effort into our Facebook for a month, and toning down my Twitter. Additionally, I learned that my fledgling Linked In accounts are delivering great results, and that I should build those to the point where they have critical mass, so that I can see if they deliver a value that merits the investment that we are putting into them.

It is hard to compare different social media accounts when some are just bigger than the others. If your Facebook has 10,000 members, and your new Linked In account has only 200, it is hard to compare where an hour of your time will go the furthest. Your Facebook will probably get you the most clicks. But, on the other hand, with Linked In, you can post on other people’s communities which might have a larger reach than your Facebook account. You are comparing apples and octopuses here!

If you are comparing the benefit of an hour of work with a large network and small network consider this. The hour you spend on a large network might get you some fruit (perhaps apples & oranges for example) while the effort you put into a smaller network might get you growth which also has a value that you can calculate based on future anticipated fruits once the network has grown to however you define its maturity. If you know how many quality clicks you get from your smaller network, then you can guess how many clicks you’ll get when it has grown to be of a substantial size. You can estimate its value by knowing that click rate.

The bottom line is that you need to try different social media mediums, try different approaches, see what works, why, and how long it takes for something to work. Try to estimate after 18 months of effort, what type of return you’ll get on your work.

The fastest way to grow on Google+ is…

September 20, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Social Media | Tagged Commenting on Social Media, Google+, Keyword Feeds, Social Media | Leave a comment

I just started using Google plus a few weeks ago. Honestly, I am nowhere near being able to call myself an expert. But, I have been doing social media for four years. I write my own blogs, tweets, posts, discussion questions, and I notice what works, with who, and why. I read a lot of materials for Google+ on the internet. The advice was similar wherever I went. You need to follow relevant people, plus other people’s content, join communities, comment on other people’s posts, blah, blah, blah. This advice is not bad advice, but here’s some really good advice.

Advice on commenting
Or should I say, my comments on commenting. As a general rule, commenting on other people’s material is a way to get noticed on social media. Most people write really witless comments that just take up space. When you see a beautiful photo posted on one of those travel sites, the comments are very predictable as well: “Oh, it’s so beautiful, I wish I could be there right now.” Commenting on Google+ will get you noticed, and will get you new followers, but slowly. If I spend an hour commenting, perhaps I’ll get around three followers as a result. I do recommend commenting on content that is very relevant and meaningful to you. Commentary should be done if you can’t stop yourself from doing it. I wouldn’t just comment on content for the sake of commenting as that is not an efficient use of your time.

Plussing
I spent a lot of time plussing one day. I went through feeds for all types of topics that interested me. Most of the feeds were based on business oriented keywords. I plussed the posts that I thought were worth having Google put in the spotlight. Plussing looks easy, but you have to read a lot to figure out what to plus if you want to give honest plusses. And there is no greater minus than a plus that lacks integrity! The day that I spent about an hour plussing only yielded me about three followers.

Posting
Posting is a great way to get seen in keyword feeds. I don’t know how many people bother to read keyword feeds. But, Google+ seems to be set up to be more focused on keyword specific searches rather than just seeing the posts from random followers that you have accumulated over time. Google makes it convoluted to see the posts of your followers. You have to lookup a keyword with a # sign to even get the option. So, it makes sense to post a few articles per day and use different keywords. The point is to show up in all of the keyword feeds that are relevant to your business. So, make a list, and make sure you are always showing up. If that means posting 20 times a day, then maybe you should! Choose your content wisely. I do not have a metric for how many followers I can get in an hour of posting, because I only spend a few minutes per day posting content. The result you get from posting depends on your “reach.” If many people will see the post, then you might get some results. See my section on communities as that is a way to get instant reach (which is a marketing term.)

Feeds
Keyword searches are pretty self explanatory on Google+. But, if you do a search, you might be able to query posts from your followers, specific circles or discovery (fun.) Unfortunately, most of the people I follow post dismal material. I only follow them because they are industry specific. The people I actually like, I put in the VIP circle, and they are in different industries ranging from general business, to photography, to social media, and call centers. The problem with the way Google+ is set up is that you will not see what your followers are posting unless you go out of your way to see it.

Following
There is a daily limit on following people which is about 30-45 people per day. I don’t have an exact count and it might change depending on how much the Google gods like you. Unfortunately, my experience has been that only 10% of relevant people I have followed will follow me back. Twitter’s follow back rate is more like 15-30% on relevant follows, so 10% is very slow by my standards. On the other hand, it is very quick to follow forty people per day, and if four will follow you back, then you have something. You might spend fifteen minutes to get your four members through following. That is a more efficient use of your time than plussing or commenting.

Share Circles
I have read on the internet that there are share circles. You have to repost content that is in these circles, and then others will repost your content as well. You can look up the term “share circle Google+” on the internet to learn more. I don’t like the idea of this system because it will not get you relevant followers. But, this is a way to get followers in a hurry.

Communities
The problem with starting out on Google+ is that nobody knows you and most people don’t want to know you. It’s a bit like being an unpopular kid in Junior High School. I’ve been there. Communities are a fast way to solve this problem in many ways. In my opinion, communities on Google+ are the fastest way to grow your account. I spent 20 minutes posting quality content on a dozen or more communities today, and got six followers as a result. That is a lot faster than commenting, plussing or general posting. The reason is that when you post on a community’s board, your post actually gets seen, and by relevant people!

Strategies for community posting.
(1) Find relevant communities and post content in them once per day in the larger communities and once every several days in the smaller communities. You might need a list of which communities to contact and when. Targeting relevant communities might not be as easy as you think. There are different niches that might be compatible with your general business model. Each different community might need a slightly different type of post. So, you might be advised against posting the same post in all communities.

(2) Finding large communities can be good.
When you post a regular post on Google+, you have the right to make your post public, sent to a particular circle, to all your circles or to your extended community which could include one, several, or all of the communities that you have joined. The beauty of this is that someone with zero followers can post some quality content, and it can be seen by millions of people — if you have joined a few dozen large communities. Unfortunately, Google+ is the new kid on the block as far as successful social media platforms go. Their communities are generally fairly small. There are only about two dozen large communities, and those tend to focus widely on photography, travel, and a few geeky topics. Even if you are in the empanada folding industry, you could post a few beautiful travel photos that you are sharing or retweeting — and you could share those with five million others by being a member of large groups. Just don’t abuse your privilege because you could get banned from these groups if you do.

(3) You won’t really be seen by millions, here’s how it works
I am not an expert at the Google+ search result algorithm. But, if you do a search in your account, you might have the option to search your circles, discover, or on the left there is an “all” link. I’m not sure how many people actually click on that link. But, if five million people are “getting” your post (whatever that means,) they might be able to see it if they click all. The all link, based on my very quick research, displays content from those you follow on top. But, if you dig down ten or more posts, you start seeing content from strangers mixed in. I’m not sure how they determine which stranger’s posts get put down there, or why, but your post might get a chance to be in the all section if you contact your extended community.

To sum up this article, to grow fast on Google+ is to:

FOLLOW — the maximum amount of people per day
COMMUNITIES — Post a lot of content on communities.
POST — I also recommend posting around seven posts on your main page per day. Posts with beautiful photos will do better, and you can also share other people’s posts with breathtaking photography to break the monotony of your industry specific content on empanada folding, the best music to listen to while doing empanada folding, and top empanada folders in California.

You can do a little plussing and commenting on the side to get your name out there and be social. Google also learns about you and what you like when you plus things, so you are sort of compelled to do a few minutes of plussing per day whether you like it or not. But, the top three activities are listed above. One last tip. Just make your hands are clean after folding all of those empanadas, particularly the lamb ones.

Which blog entries do best on which network? Crowdsourcing examined.

September 19, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Analytics, Social Media | Tagged Crowdsourcing | Leave a comment

Optimizing your blog involves a lot more than just adding the right tags and writing popular content. You need to know what types of posts work best with which types of audience. Twitter is a source for only a few hundred clicks a month to my blog, but the SEO value of each quality click that gets me a few pageviews can be astounding. This is why I created a separate category on my blog for posts that did well on Twitter. We have close to 100 such posts on my notary blog. We are going to tweet those particular posts more often on Twitter with different title variations to study which titles do best.

Next, we are going to map out which posts did well on Facebook and republish those periodically on our Facebook account, possibly using pay-per-click to further accentuate the damage.

Linked In, Google+ and others are viable networks for getting lots of traffic. Use them!

Another factor to consider has to do with basic crowdsourcing strategy. Some of our networks have mainly members who are in the industry. Take the notary business for example. Those that get our newsletter are serious service providers. They like technical notary information, stories about notaries and marketing info. However, those on our Twitter network are generally either laypeople who know little about the notary industry or are just people who rarely use their notary stamp.

The key in attracting laypeople to our blog is to write articles that are about the notary profession, but interesting and understandable to a regular person. I just wrote an article about a guy in New York, who runs a notary business from his parked car. It is very interesting, and filled with facts that every a grade school child will easily be able to appreciate and understand. We will be writing more “relevant,” but also layperson attractive type articles in the future to reel in people who are in the business community, but are not necessarily zealous notaries!

Tribal people on Facebook

September 19, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Humor, Social Media | Leave a comment

Sally and Jeff had dreamed of visiting the remote islands of Indonesia. Finally, their dream came true. But, the dream turned into a nightmare as the ship they were on sank, and they had to swim to the nearest island which was not that near. They almost died trying to make it to that island and when they got there, it was not inhabited. Sally and Jeff were suburban American types. They didn’t know how to make rafts or survive on an island. To stay alive they had to learn how to shake coconuts from trees and create shelter from the rain which got out of hand. They stayed on that island for ten years as they didn’t want to risk death and as nobody came to rescue them. But, then they grew restless and wanted to escape their fate. They didn’t want to die alone on this island.

So, they put together a basic raft. They agreed that perhaps they would live and perhaps they would die, but who cares. Their life was so boring anyway. After paddling for a few days, their water and food was almost all used up. They became weak and just lay around all day. During their sleep a tribal group paddling type of a canoe found them. The communication between the tribal people and our American friends was not so graceful as Jeff was not fluent in “Ooga-Booga.”

The tribal people took them to shore, and gave them food and shelter. Sally and Jeff thanked them and made head nodding gestures to show their sincerity. After Sally and Jeff recuperated, it was time for a feast and then for show and tell in Ooga-Booga-nese as usual.

SALLY: Thanks so much for a lovely feast. (rubbing her belly)

TRIBAL GUY: You look… Facu-booga.

SALLY: I have never heard of Facu-booga

Now, keep in mind that Sally and Jeff have been out of circulation for so many years, they have no idea what an i-phone is or what Facebook is. The only Zuckerberg they know is a nice accountant back home.

TRIBAL GUY: Look…. i-phonoo

SALLY: Hmmm (looking inquisitively) I have never seen a device like this. I wonder what it does? She touched a button and there was a sudden flash. Sally jolted back in surprize. The tribal guys all laughed. Then Sally squinted, and sniffed this strange device. Finally one of the tribal guys took a selfie and showed Sally the photo on the screen. Sally said, “wow” and was very impressed.

TRIBAL GUY: You likoo…

JEFF: I’m sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about.

Then, the tribal guy put his finger in the air as if to say “wait!” Another tribal guy showed up. The other tribal people were all wearing tribal looking outfits, and were 80% naked. But, this new guy was dressed in an oxford shirt and had a short haircut. Could it be that he went to school in a nearby Anglo town wherever this place was? They were actually in a tribal part of Papua New Guinea and in fact there was a nearby Anglo town.

YOUNG TRIBAL GUY: Hello mates. What my mates were trying to ask you was if you could like them on Facebook?

JEFF: Sure, but what is Facebook?

YOUNG TRIBAL GUY: You’ve never heard of Facebook? Where have you been for the last ten years?

JEFF: We’ve been stuck on a tropical island with no electricity and with coconuts and fish as our only source of nourishment.

YOUNG TRIBAL GUY: Oh, no wonder mate. Well, I can get you set up on Facebook right away, and we’ll have some Ozzie food liike shrimps on the barbee. Does that appeal to your Sheila?

JEFF: I think of her as more of a Sally than a Sheila, but yes, that sounds great. I would love to eat shrimp and start a Facebook account now that I know I’m not going to die soon.

Quantity vs. Quality in Blogging?

September 18, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Marketing, Social Media | Tagged blogging, Using Facebook PPC | Leave a comment

Is it better to write a bunch of mediocre material, or a handful of really good pieces? If you have a blog, you will notice that you cannot get decent search engine placement unless you have at least 200 articles, and some keyword variations or keyphrases that are getting noticed on Google. You need regular material to tweet on twitter, and lots of material to share on Facebook. So, do you need quality or quantity? Neither! You need articles that match the interests of your readers whether they are well written or not. People would prefer to read a poorly written piece about their favorite restaurant than a professionally written piece about the how the president of Congo lost his keychain.

Critical mass
Once you have attained critical mass and have written enough to populate your blog with one or two pieces per day, then you can think about quality. You could spend extra time on themes that your analytics show that your readers are almost sure to like. Or, you could touch up existing pieces that your readers already liked. If you touch up the top 5% of your material, you can link to those special entries from other entries, creating a chain of reading pleasure!

How long does it take to touch up materials?
I spend anywhere from forty-five minutes to three hours with a professional writer just touching up a single piece. This costs hundreds and is not worth it unless you have a good strategy. Touch up work before you do a major promotion of that work. If you are going to use Facebook PPC, or use it regularly on Twitter, or link to it from many other entries — then a touch up might be worth your money. But, what about articles that nobody likes no matter how well written they are? Let them sit by the side of the road. They are not worth it unless you are a top-notch fancy blog for a huge company where reputation is paramount.

Good luck!

You might also like:

When you don’t blog, you miss it!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/07/21/when-you-dont-blog-you-miss-it/

The art of the blog
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/11/29/the-art-of-the-blog/

Marketing and interaction
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/08/17/marketing-and-interaction/

Case studies in how to spruce up your tweets!

September 18, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Social Media | Tagged Crashing weddings in India, Twitter Strategy, Twitter Tips, Twitter Tutorial | Leave a comment

Ur tweets ain’t got no style kid.
Case studies in how to spruce up your tweets!
#socialmedia #marketing

I am on Twitter every day for at least an hour. I find it very interesting to see what works, what is hot, and what is not. Unfortunately for me, I have no formal writing background. I write for around two hours per day, and am getting better at it. But, writing tweets is a very different kind of writing. I have found it much harder to write successful tweets than to write a popular blog.

I learned that you can be a mediocre writer, yet have a successful blog providing you pick interesting topics that your audience likes and bring up interesting points within the article. However, writing tweets that get systematically retweeted requires a very different skill set which includes a knowledge of tags, ability to create slogan type phrases, and identify what is hot.

Below are some case studies of how I jazzed up my own tweets. I do a lot of trial and error. It is hard to put great information in 140 characters or less, plus fit a link and a tag or two in there as well.

Case #1.
The first line of the tweet should be an intro.
If you have a tweet, it is good to have the tweet on more than one line for best results. The reader’s eye needs to catch the main point. Many people suggest having shorter tweets. However, what I found is that long tweets are better than short ones — just make sure the first line of the tweet is short so the reader’s eye can process the information when they are scanning through thousands of tweets.

The second line should develop the theme.
Normally, when I write tweets, the second line of the tweet gives useful additional information about the article being linked to. You can’t fit all of the main points of the article in the tweet, but you can put some of the more salient features. Sometimes you can put a list of things to do or see on the second line. Putting lists of countries hasn’t worked well for me in the past, but lists of activities works — if they are hot with your audience. Although in Twitter, people tend to use bad grammar and sentence fragments, try to avoid this. If you are going to use a sentence fragment, at least use a complete sentence fragment.

People responded better to my second version of this tweet.
For some reason, people often retweet you more if you put a number in the tweet. 5 ways to improve your business; 6 places to have crab; 7 ways to annoy your boss, etc. I think that “crab or crabcakes” annoyed the reader with a perceived unnecessary variation in terms. Roast crab didn’t entice the readers too much, but the idea of fusion from exotic places like Cuba and Vietnam struck a chord. Getting retweeted is about catching the reader’s attention pushing the their buttons.

Best places to have #Crab or #Crabcakes in #LosAngeles
Roast crab, crab/salmon sashimi on a tortilla, more!
http://blog.meander411.com/2014/06/06/places-to-have-crab-crab-cakes-in-los-angeles/ …
#foodie
(This one got no retweets)

6 places to have #Crabcakes in #LosAngeles
Cuban fusion, Vietnamese fusion, sashimi & traditional
http://blog.meander411.com/2014/06/06/places-to-have-crab-crab-cakes-in-los-angeles/ …
#foodie
(This one got several retweets.)

Case #2
The first version of this tweet about the hills of Los Angeles was boring. People are not so interested in hiking unless you can put a twist on it. Views can be exciting if you can elaborate on what made the view special or show a picture. The second version was hot because it included mingling with the stars which is a very cool concept. In real life, the stars are not going to give you the time of day, but it is exciting to think about passing by them on a hiking trail which really happened to me. Skybar is one of the most bling-bling bars in the entire state of California. Merely mentioning it provokes thoughts of Los Angeles’ most chic people lounging with an amazing view of the metro.

Explore the hills of Los Angeles
Hike at Griffith Park and enjoy ocean views in Malibu
(include link and tags here)

Explore the local hills of #LosAngeles
Mingle w/the stars @Runyan Canyon, then visit Skybar in W Hollywood

http://blog.meander411.com/2013/11/12/have-you-ever-taken-a-hill-tour-of-los-angeles-ca/
#ttot

Case #3
The first version of this tweet has a list of interesting or unusual activities. It accentuated some of the highlights of Thailand which is good, but the tweet in general didn’t catch the audience’s positive response. The second one was more popular because it used some simple basic grammar structures which made it more pleasant to read. Verb-Activity; Verb Noun. Although there was not room for complete sentences, it used acceptable grammar for “headers” which made it easy to read. I put the activities eachon a different line which made it easier to read. Additionally, there was a different verb for each activity which made it comfortable and enjoyable to read — and a bit like a travel commercial aimed at children. We actually experimented with composing tweets in the same style that Disney does which is very what I call, “G Major” and childlike. Childish tweets that are cute and endearing can be very popular with adults and children alike.

Adventuous things to do in Thailand
Coral Diving, kick boxing, eating insects, and more…
(include link and tags here)

Adventurous things to do in #Thailand
Go Coral diving
Try Thai kick-boxing
Eat a silkworm
(include link and tags here)

Case #4
This was a fun one. I like to read other people’s blogs. If the blogs have content that usually pleases me, I will become a regular visitor. The article I tweeted about here was written by a very interesting girl who is an actress and world traveler. the first version was fun and got some response. But, the second version got retweeted, and the retweets got retweeted. It went slightly viral which is exciting. I combined verbiage suitable for a very formal sounding tutorial and combined it with the ridiculous and provocative theme of crashing weddings in India (of all places) and it was an instant hit. Then, I added a little more information about the article about bollywood and cultural advice which further interested the readers. I wish tweets could be longer than 140 characters — it would allow so much more flexibility and options.

Crashing weddings in India
What to do and what not to do
(include link and tags here)

A step by step guide to crashing weddings in India
Bollywood dancing & general cultural advice
(include link and tags here)

I hope you enjoyed reading about sprucing up your tweets. I have never seen an article before with case studies of improving tweets one by one. Normally people write very generic advice about tweeting which isn’t so easy to apply. I hope you learned something and feel free to tweet questions to me.

Not understanding #tags will cost you

September 17, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Social Media | Tagged Hashtags, Outsourcing, Twitter Hashtags | Leave a comment

Not understanding #tags will cost you!

In my experience of internet marketing over the years, tags are a topic matter that eludes me. I use tags daily in my blogs and twitter posts, but which tags to use is not that easy. What matters is knowing which tags will get you found.

Blogging Tags
On my blog, I noticed that tags that were too popular didn’t do me much good, because the search engines wouldn’t pick me up under those tags. So, I started trying to use multi-word tags which worked a bit better. Google is complicated and will pick you up under a combination of a tag and other text in your article making it hard to understand what type of strategy to use. If you use tags on your blog, they will do you good, but how they do you good will change over time and be hard to analyze.

Tweeting your blog tags
On a brighter note, your main tags that you use frequently on your blog should be tweeted at least every 2-4 months on Twitter. I make the mistake of tweeting only links to blog entries, but rarely to tags. Tweeting to tags needs to be something you do on schedule. Work it into your daily or weekly routine! My advice is to create your tweets long ahead of time, put them in a printout, and enter them on Twitter manually one by one. Maybe one tag per day and mix them up with your other tweets.

Twitter Tags
Which tag to use on Twitter is not something that makes “sense.” You use tags that get you retweeted somehow. There are many people that follow the feeds for particular tags and might like your content. If those people see you, they will retweet you. If those individuals happen to prefer one tag over another, you will win if you pick the tag that they like. Once again, there is no logic to what makes one tag better than the other. You have to experiment and find out what tags work in general for your account, and what tags work for particular types of tweets.

In general verses particular tweets.
Obviously a tweet about motivation needs a motivation tag. But, if you tweet regularly about general business topics. a business, management or marketing tag might work well for most of your tweets. I was tweeting about outsourcing which is a specialize business topic. I got an average of less than one retweet per post. The minute I started using tags, I started averaging two or three retweets or favorites per tweet. That is roughly four times as much as I was getting before. The quality of your tweet makes a night and day difference, but your choice of tags is equally important.

Now I get 4x the retweets
Once again, by using tags more innovatively and properly than before, I am getting roughly four times as many retweets as before. I am going to be happy watching my accounts skyrocket now! One already is!

Collaborative Blogging – how does it work?

September 17, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Social Media | Tagged Collaborative Blogging, Title creation, Title Optimization | Leave a comment

Many people do blogging. It is fun! You can express yourself, and get others to enjoy reading what you wrote. You might even have a popular blog that shows up well on Google and have people retweet your blog posts. But, there is more. Sometimes you need different skill sets to write a single blog!

Title creation
When I hire, or try to hire other people to help me blog, I always run into trouble. Most of them do not know how to pick a good blog title. They want to rely on me to pick titles. Picking a good title is 30% of the work. Why do I have to negotiate with you, babysit you, and then pay you for a boring blog when you can’t even pick a good title? So, title creation is a huge part of the blog writing process and could be done by a separate person who specializes in picking titles. I will tell you something funny. My best title idea person is amazing, but he thinks of the same idea every month. He doesn’t keep a log book of which ideas have already been used.

Plot development
I can write a blog in about ten or twenty minutes unless it is a complicated topic that requires research. But, I can’t always develop a plot, or come up with ways to develop my main theme for the blog entry. I like to have my title creation expert come up with some good jokes, and “sub-ideas” for developing the main concepts of the blog. If he gives me four to seven good sentences to work with, I can create a very interesting post combining his ideas with my own. Although we might not be working on the same blog at the same time, we pass the blog along during its formation in a sort of an assembly line system using the internet.

Writing
Any idiot can write a blog. The irony is that you don’t have to be a good writer to be popular as a blogger. I have professionally written content on my blog that is not anywhere near as popular as the “stuff” that I churned out in 20 minutes. If the reader is attracted to the theme of the blog entry and the points you make, you can write in a mediocre way and still be popular. Many social media companies want to charge $80, $100, or more per article, but they can’t even come up with a good title. In my mind this is a rip off.

Tagging & posting
After the blog article is written, it still needs to be posted on my blog. I need to login, post it, create tags which requires time to read the article to see which main terms repeat themselves and which are the most relevant. I need to create links to related content too. Posting the blog is 30% of the work. I can’t pay someone else to do that because I would have to give them my password, and then they would probably make mistakes posting the blog.

Other collaborative methods
Sometimes I will write a blog entry and then hand it off to my professional writer for him to touch it up. In many cases he will completely rewrite the entry so that I can publish both versions. Other times, my writer will come up with a concept for a blog entry, but he will need me for industry specific information to add to the blog. He doesn’t understand the notary industry, so I have to fill in the blanks. Other times, I will think of an idea, and he will think of a few great jokes. I try to incorporate his jokes into the context in an artful way. There are many ways to do collaborative blogging. It is fun, you meet new people, and often come out with winning content.

Overall Quality
Some of the best blog entries I have ever written came from collaborative blogging. When two minds are working in unison, fully focused, miracles can happen!

Suggestions for Google+

September 16, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Social Media | Tagged Favorite accounts | Leave a comment

I like Google+ and consider it to be the most interesting and well thought out social media site out there. The membership count is significantly lower than Twitter, but that could change. Here are some ideas to make it better.

(1) Seeing your feed.
When you login to Twitter, the first thing you see is the posts of your followers. On Google, you put people in your circles, but what difference does it make if your material is not in their face regularly. Even on Twitter where your material is in their face, very few people dig down enough to see your content much if at all. On Twitter the problem is that people follow too many others and your stuff gets lost in the shuffle. When I login to my business Google+ account, I have to dig to see what my followers posted.

(2) Favorite accounts vs. favorite posts
Twitter allows you to favorite a post. Google allows you to circle an account in any circle you want, or in more than one which is great. What I like to do is to have favorite accounts. I find most people boring, so I want to see the accounts that I really like. Google allows me to do this, but they should have a standard and mandatory circle for all accounts called Favorite Profiles. Google could rank accounts not only by how many people circled them, but by how many people favorited their account! Smart!

(3) Multiple repeats
When you retweet or repost something on Google+, the original post still stays on whatever feed(s) it is on. You might see an identical post three or more times on a particular feed. This is a problem and really annoying since I run into this problem several times per day.

My solution to the multiple repeat post syndrome issue is to have posts show up once. If the post gets retweeted, then show the icon of the last retweeter as well as the icon of the original account posting the content on general feeds. When it gets retweeted, it should jump up on the algorithm for where it appears on the feeds, but should appear only once.

(4) Notifications
I don’t like clicking on the bell to get a thin display of critical information that could get lost easily. It is better the way Twitter does it by having a full scroll of interactions. I like the idea that you can delete unwanted interaction information on Google+, but the problem is that content gets deleted by accident the minute you are not paying attention. Perhaps an “are you sure you want to delete this” button would be a good safeguard.

(5) It is hard to get followers
Does it get easier over time to accumulate followers? On Twitter it is a snap to get followers. I can get 20-40 per day without even spending more than 25 minutes per account. But, on Google+ I spend an hour and only get three or four new followers. Couldn’t there be an easier way to get circled?

(6) Take the tour
I feel that if Google+ had their own communities for several dozen popular interests and put amazing content picked by experts, that would be amazing. Then, prospects who are interested in Google+ could take the tour and be impressed out of their mind at how good the content is. Even people who don’t want to join Google+ might change their mind after they saw that the content was superior to any other medium in social media today!

What is the best social media network to test your content?

September 14, 2010 by 123outsource

Categories: Social Media | Tagged Pinterest, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Network, Stumbleupon, Winning Content | Leave a comment

Doing well at social media marketing is all about having great content. Popular content draws in the crowds and increases your interaction rate. Having lots of followers doesn’t benefit you on social media unless they interact, click, share, etc.

The problem is: what does well on one social network doesn’t always do well on other ones. Some social networks are more text oriented such as Twitter while some are more balanced between text and graphics like Google+. Others are much more photo oriented such as Stumbleupon and Pinterest. Putting aside the differences in networks, if you want to do well, you need to publish content that you know ahead of time will be popular. So, what is the trick?

Google+ is a growing network. They don’t have as many “active” members as Facebook or Twitter. My definition of “active” includes people who post several times a month, although Google+ has a high volume of members who visit their account at least once a month which is another metric of “active” that I don’t find useful. Google+ has less overall content on most topics that I am interested in. So, if you post on Google+, you might be a lot better off finding content that you obtained on a different network.

Finding Content
You can find great content anywhere. You can use Guy Kawasaki’s tips and use alltop, or some of the other content networks. I did not personally have good luck with these because their articles were not focused enough for my industry. You can Google article topic keywords. You can look on Twitter. Or you can make a long list of your favorite blogs and post their content and see what happens.

Testing Content
Being good at finding winning content is a very important part of the social media game. And yes, it is a game. Testing your content is the next stage of the game. How and where do you test your content? I recommend making a weekly list of one hundred or so articles that are very relevant or somewhat relevant to your industry or the interests of your followers. The only type of non-relevant content that does well with my networks includes travel articles with stunning pictures as almost everyone likes that. Make your list and then post these articles one by one.

Testing on Google+
I feel that Google+ is a great place to post really good content with stunning vertical photos. Photos that are horizontal, or that are not stunning tend to not add so much to the appeal of the post and don’t get that many more clicks than just publishing a really good article. Additionally, Google+ decides how many people to show your posts to. If you publish too many at once, they will not be seen by that many. You need to spread posts out on Google+, perhaps at least one hour apart for best results, even if you publish your posts on huge communities.

Testing on Twitter
I feel that Twitter is the best place to publish posts. If you publish more than two posts at the same time, you will lose followers quickly as they will be annoyed that you are monopolizing their feed. On the other hand, I had very good luck spreading test posts out every 3-10 minutes on Twitter. I got excellent feedback and did not lose hardly any members. It is not recommended to post more than 25 posts a day on Twitter or else Twitter will slow down how many profiles get introduced to your profile. However, if you did 33 posts a day for 3 days, or 20 posts a day for 5 days, you can test your 100 posts.

Analysis for Test Posts
After you post your posts, you can see which ones got favorited, shared, commented upon, etc. Keep a chart on paper or excel as to which posts got the most retweets, favorites, and comments. Guy Kawasaki puts the greatest value on retweets, while I feel that intelligent comments are more valuable as you can have a great dialogue and develop a much more close following with someone who interacts well. After you tally up the results for your 100 test tweets, pick your top five or ten and put them on Google+, Facebook, and your other networks. Please note that if you had content that performed in the top 20%, but is not on your top 5 list, but has a stunning photo, it will do better on Google+ because of the visual appeal, so you might add that to your Google+ publishing list.

Summary
By publishing only top, tried and true content, you will have a much more popular social media account. Additionally, you will save yourself the time of publishing junk on all of your networks. Yes, it takes time to test out content on Twitter, but once it is tested, you can use it on all your networks and you an use it more than once. Moreover, you can write your own blog articles based on topics that did well (that others wrote) that you published and learned were top performers on your particular network(s). Good luck!

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