“Social” Mediums are Relational

Last week, we looked at how Klout and other online influence measurements work, and how one can quantitatively measure a qualitative question. President Obama has a great deal of influence with a Klout score of 98/100.  According to this -and other online platforms- he has a great deal of influence in social mediums. Is this true? Undoubtedly. Klout has even added “Real-World Influence” into scores, bringing the offline life into greater focus as it pertains to influence.

So what’s the problem then?

The downfall of these applications is that they measure broadcasting, not relating. 

At least that’s what I’ve discovered in my monitoring Klout, specifically. What it tracks on: Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+- likes and 1+’s, comments, shares; Twitter- retweets, and mentions (but not favorites, an important one in my mind); etc. These are all measured attributes about what you receive from information/statuses that you post in your timeline or feed. What the algorithm processes is what your friends interact with that you post. But is that what relationships are about? Is that how influence works?

Do Social Influence Apps Measure “Relationship”?

So what’s missing, you ask? Your likes, comments, shares and engagement on other peoples posts, and the frequency of your activity; whether they like said comments, or maintain a dialogue because of your comments or behavior; any messages that happen between you and others that are social, but may not be public (Facebook messages); anything shared that you influenced, without a direct link to your source; how often your content may be read or consumed but not publicly recognized, etc. Some of this can’t be tracked, others can. And the latter is the point:

The scoring rubric is not social, its consumptive. It’s what “influence” you have by broadcasting, not relating.

The time you spend listening, engaging with others, and practicing a relational stance to others is not part of the scoring. And this is the point of social: it has brought relationship back into the marketplace. Voice is now significant, and equal, between buyer and seller. Listening is an important component, where two parties are interacting with one another.  Barack Obama has a great score because he’s broadcasting a message -in a relational forum, in a relational voice- that is being virally re-broadcast. The President isn’t talking to us, he’s delivering a speech or talk at the coffee table. But he’s not listening or engaging in the same kind of relationship that social mediums exist for. To some degree, his actual social influence via Klout should be 200/100, given all the discussion that goes on about him that he doesn’t start! But in his ability to engage, due largely to the size of his following and constraints of being able to engage, he’s probably about a 20/100.

Klout is Good Enough To Be Dangerous

I’ve been sucked into my Klout score in the past. It’s easy to do; the number is attractive to make it easy to say whether I”m doing “good” or “bad”. But, it only accurately reflects how people are engaged with what I produce. Without measuring how I well I initiate with others on their content, or engage with their initiation, the number is only a small part of what social media is about. Focusing on these numbers, and even gaming the system, only creates a means to an end that serves ourselves.

Our real focus should be not on our Klout score, though that might give us an indication of a certain type of social influence: we can gauge how well we share information that others will engage in. Nor should it be on the relationship, per se. Although we need to be mindful of it, the relationship is not the point. The people are the point.

If you’re an accountant, your job is to help people with their finances. If you’re a doctor, you’re in business to keep people healthy. Making money is a byproduct of that. Somewhere along the line our work became just a way to make a living, and we used our customers to that end. ~Ken Mueller, of Inkling Media.

You are in a business or organization that you hopefully feel/think offers something of great value to others. Your focus is on those others who would benefit from that which you have participated in creating. They want to know that, and why it is you came  up with it: your story.

People relate with other people, not organizations. There’s always someone on the other side of the screen, yes?

The post Does Klout Measure Clout? The Problem With Social Influence (Part 2) appeared first on Smack Smog!.

Trying to gauge one’s success or ability to be active in the online social space has generated quite a bit of business. App’s that grade social influence has for some, become a means for helping identify success or ability in social media. The most familiar one, Klout - ”The Standard for Influence”, has created an algorithm that gauges your online chops.

To their credit, they’ve also tried pulling in descriptive terms from profiles that include in-real-life (IRL) reputation as well. You can connect the big platforms -Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.- as well as some of the smaller or niche ones -Flickr, Foursquare, Bing, Instagram…. Nor are they the only show in town: Kred and PeerIndex also show you how well you’re doing with your digital self and online relationships. In summary, these platforms crawl through your content and pick out key words that were part of your updates and posts. Those statuses and tweets with the most traffic get rated the highest. Terms are then used as identifiers, or categorized into broader labels, to identify those things which you’re influential in. As a stay-at-home-dad, for instance, I tweet and post with the #sahd hashtag. PeerIndex has categorized my influence under parenting. Likewise, my posts about my research in graduate school about Christianity and the institutional church in contemporary culture have fallen under “Religion and Spirituality” on Klout. All of this data is analyzed, and then quantified. It

assigns a number to your activity, based on the mysterious algorithm, and voila: you’ve got your social influence! Or do you?

Social Influence By the Numbers

I worked for an organization for eleven years, where the bulk of our time was in developing relationships. Of our myriad responsibilities, our mission rested on character and spiritual formation with college students. This is a very qualitative goal, and as an organization with both organizational and individual donors, offering benchmarks and success indicators was necessary -among other things- to bolster our income. It became an issue of controversy within the organization: “How can we turn our students into numbers? And what is “success”? Every student is different, does a one-size-fits-all measurement accurately reflect our efforts?”; and so on. You get the point: qualitative work doesn’t easily translate to quantitative measurements.

The same problem in inherent in these platforms. They attempt to provide something with which people can measure their influence, or that or their organizations. (They measure accounts, but not by type; your can sign up your business or nonprofit for these platforms as well.) It can be helpful, yes? It gives us a place to consider our efforts, and to gauge them, and where to grow.

They are also dangerous: if we only know a little about them, they can become reductionistic. That is, we become our number, or our social influence is reduced to an algorithm. Those outside of the familiarity of the technological rubric, then, determine success between 1-100, crafting a resume of sorts. Barack Obama, then, is doing real well at 98; as is Lady Gaga at 92, and Justin Bieber at 93. These 3 celebrities are in the top four for Twitter followers, although the number of “real” or active accounts is much lower than the number we see in their follower stats.

Social Influence by Relationship

But, have you ever had a conversation with any of them online? And if you look at their timelines and content, how often do they mention others? And at what follower diversity, and how often? Although the tenor of the content is quite relational, their ability to actually engage in conversation with their fans and followers is quite low. Understandably so. But for you and I, we don’t have millions of people to respond to, or even engage with. We’re lucky to have a couple of hundred in our circle of online relationships that we connect with, yes? Maybe more for our business. So if Barack Obama is not really engaging with millions, why is his number so high?

The post Does Klout Measure Clout? The Problem With Social Influence (Part 1) appeared first on Smack Smog!.

Trying to learn how to manage your organizational and business social media accounts can be daunting.

“Everyone is on Facebook, so I have to use that. But what about Twitter? And should I be doing something on LinkedIn? And is anyone on Google+? Is it even still ‘here’?” (Yes, it’s still here; and yes, people are still using it. A LOT. As  in, active users come in at a 2nd place finish to Facebook. Details on slide 9, here. But that’s another blog post. Or one of many whole dedicated blogs.)

Even if you start hitting a rhythm, or feel like your “getting it”, it still requires you to learn the tango in the time and resources dance. Since many organizations manage their own Facebook Page, you may find yourself scrambling for content at times. (I do!) It’s 3.45pm, and we realize we haven’t posted anything since the end of last week. “Oh no, I’ve got to put something out there!” What if we told you there are better ways, that you can actually schedule posts for your Facebook Page? “What’s that? I can put together some updates and plan them out all at once?!?” Indeed. You are not the first person to have been pleasantly surprised by this wondrous, yet small, tool.

1) Craft Your Content.

Upload your image, paste the website URL, and craft your status.

Note: If this is the first time you’ve ever tried to schedule posts for your Facebook page, you  will be prompted to set the date for when your organization was started. You won’t be able to schedule other updates until this is done. Don’t create an entire post in the box; you’ll loose all your work when it bounces you to the settings page. Just type gibberish, go to Step 2, and follow the directions to finish your timeline. Than come back to Step 1!

Adding your Facebook update content.

2) Click on the Clock.

Find the clock at the lower left of the status box. (You can also start here, doing this step first.)

Commence Facebook scheduling.

3) Add the Year

The first thing you’ll be prompted to do is add the year. Clicking on the link opens a drop-down box with your options, from the time your organization is created until 6 months after the current month. Because Facebook allows for up to six months of future posting, this may be the following year. Also, you can backdate an update if you want to fill out the story of your past.  Note: Even if you add something from 10 years ago, that status will still be found in your fans timelines the day it goes “live.”

Adding the year.

4) Add the Month, Day, and Time

Once you add the year, a the month day and time links will show up. You can limit the details to anyone of the time markers; if you an event that ran the whole month of September of 2011, there’s no requirement to add the day or time. If you do just choose the year, you’ll have the option to preventing it from going in the news feed. If you use your timeline for sensitive time keeping, or have an event that isn’t relevant to your current business or clients, it will be on your timeline but it will not be seen by your fans once you schedule it.

How detailed would you like the time for the post?

5) Press Schedule

You’ll notice that once you begin with planning the year, the clock at the lower left turns blue. If you change your mind and you won’t to post right away, you’ll have to start over. Also, as minutes are broken down as increments of 10, you’ll have to schedule at least 20 minutes out from the current time.

Time to pull the trigger.

6) Congrats! You Learned How to Schedule Posts for Your Facebook Page!

Once you schedule a post, you will be prompted to visit the Activity Log to view all of your posts. Anything scheduled in the future can be deleted or edited for time, but not content. If you decide to change the wording or find a mistake, it must be recreated.

You’re prompted to see the update in the queue.

7) Viewing the Activity Log

You can view your Activity Log at any time, should you find the need to reschedule your post/s. At the top of the page is the Admin Panel; choose Edit Page, followed by Activity Log in the drop-down menu.

Finding your post in the Activity Log from the Admin Panel.

I hope this has been helpful. It really can save a great deal of time, and allow for you to consolidate your efforts in finding, creating, and scheduling your content.  Remember, when you schedule posts for your Facebook page you should allow for time to monitor your them when they go live. The conversation that follows is part of the relationship that you have with your clients…

The post How To: Schedule Posts for Your Facebook Page appeared first on Smack Smog!.

Earlier this month, this post about Pinterest discussed who was talking about companies, and the effect on branding and identity. Generally speaking. Based on numbers from this Curalate and Digitas study, less than 30% of brand engagement is by the brands’ themselves. According the write up,

The study was created using statistics from over 10 million Pinterest pins, comments, and likes. Digitas and Curalate examined Pinterest data from over 120 brands for the study.

They pinpointed two industries, fashion and automobile, as being unusually silent. It would seem with good cause, yes? This most recent Pew Internet Study that included Pinterest demographics reports that the greatest number of users are white women under 50 with some college education. Fashion and accessories are one of the most common things in the “Everything” feed. And cars are some of the most photogenic objects; our love affair with auto’s has started with Henry Ford, and photography of them not far behind.

“All of your branding belongs to me.”

I think this study reveals a double edged sword, a (silent, at least in the write up) positive attribute as well as a word of caution to brands. The caution, or call-to-attention, is inferred above and explicit in the write up by Search Engine Watch. If J. Crew or Christian Dior are not on Pinterest, they do so at their own loss. Of course, they can’t control their identity nor the manner with which culture will brand them. But not being present at all is a great risk, yes?

However, this is also incredible word of mouth advertising. An organization must be doing something right if they have a population of people who are “talking” about them. “Talking” here being “pinning”. To have created the kind of identity where your product or services go on without you is one of the dreams of commercial company’s, yes? Even non-profits dream for their services to be discussed among their communities with such enthusiasm.

Maintaining A Say in Your Identity

We have a tendency to think in binaries in western culture, and I’ve played that here as well. The binary in this case is the “good/bad” of “you need to drive the conversation/they will drive the conversation”. This is a false dichotomy -with some truth- that doesn’t fully capture the complexity of reality. Even if J. Crew is on Pinterest and contributing to their own identity, they still will not control it. Remember our post last week about transparency? Not only were Amy and Samy transparent, they have lost almost all control of their branding. It is defined by the larger culture, whether those who participate ever patronized the restaurant or not.

It’s a both/and scenario. In our face/face relationships, in all of their complexities, those we live and work with have opinions about us. They all see us in uniquely different though perhaps nuanced ways. Social media forces an organization from a monolithic structure to one that is more revealing (or transparent): a group of people, organized towards a mission. Branding has thus shifted from a position of power to one in dialogue. Participation in Pinterest for the fashion industry, then, allows brands to continue to tell their stories, create dialogue, and allow for their identity to remain malleable. (Rigidity in this new social space is practiced at the demise of the organization.) We want to have the word of mouth that is touched on by the original study, but we want to be part of the conversation. To not be engaged means an even greater loss of identity, one that may eventually take away our very organization. Amy and Samy may provide that evidence all too soon.

The post “Did you see that picture of you on Pinterest?!?”: Shifts in Branding and Identity appeared first on Smack Smog!.

Samy and Amy Bouzaglo, married couple and owners of Amy’s Bakery Company. They also authored a social media train wreck.

Social Media For Organizations: We’re Not In Kansas Anymore

If you’ve missed the latest meltdown on social media, here’s the exhaustive post-by-post  that was found on the BuzzFeed Food page. Here’s a summary, if you don’t want to read the BuzzFeed post (although I highly suggest it!): on Friday, May 10th, Fox’s Kitchen Nightmare’s aired an episode at a Scottsdale, AZ restaurant. Gordon Ramsay spent the episode trying to work with owners Amy and Samy Bouzaglo of Amy’s Baking Company, who at different times: physically assaulted a customer; prevented communication between the front and back of house; fired a server; and withheld tips from their wait staff. On TV! Part 1 is here; and Part 2 is here, where Ramsay walks out of his first restaurant without finishing his work. Unable to take criticism, Amy remains combative to the very end and the celebrity chef realizes that any consultation is futile.

While this makes great TV, it only got more entertaining on their social media platforms. Upon the close of the show, the citizens of the web began to visit them on their Facebook page and Twitter account, raining down criticism upon the couple for their poor business practices. After several days of comments, they struck back via social platforms. (If you haven’t yet read the BuzzFeed, here’s the link again. Seriously, go read it. I’ll wait until you come back…)

Unbelievable, eh? If I hadn’t watched Part 2 with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe what I saw on their Facebook page. After they finally turned off their spewing on Monday night, May 14th, they logged back on two days later to delete their verbal attacks, and post that they had been hacked. I find that highly doubtful, given what was seen on TV. Although we could debate about this authenticity, it brings me to the point of this post: organizational culture and client perception.

The Window of Your Organization

To start us off, this is an extreme case. It’s almost hyberbolic; it’s in the “you can’t make this stuff up” category. But that makes it a case study on how we use social media in our organizations.  Amy’s Baking Company has a caustic organizational culture and dysfunctional leadership. It’s evident from the footage on the TV episode. Whether or not they actually did post it is almost beside the point, because it lines up with what we saw on TV. As an organization we can’t turn off who we are, and that shows up online as well. They lost self-control on their accounts, and responded in the digital space in the same way they do in their brick and mortar space. We’ve all been there in life sometimes, yes? We get stuck in our emotions and can’t get out; we watch ourselves being unreasonable from afar, knowing we are making the situation worse. In their case they don’t see they’re stuck, and it’s an issue of character that drives their now-dying small business.

Social media forces our transparency, whether we willfully participate or not. When we interact with folks in real life (IRL), they get a sense of who we are, how we provide services, care for them as a client, etc. When they interact with us on social mediums, our consistency -or lack thereof- becomes evident very quickly. Remember: social mediums are founded on relational interactions, on relationships themselves. If I’m shady in my business practice but put on a charming persona on my Twitter account, I’m not gonna get a lot of business. People will see it, fast. How well our online presence lines up with our face to face interactions will be proven very quickly. Social media for organizations could make or break a business.

At least Amy’s has one thing going for them: they’re consistent. Too bad their org culture will corrode them from the inside out.

The post Social Media For Organizations: The Window Of Our Culture appeared first on Smack Smog!.

Let me clear some of the mist for you.  Google+ is the best strategic content marketing tool you’re not using.

Google+ Circles

If you have any familiarity with Google+ you know it allows you to organize your contacts into Circles.  Think of them as circles of influence.  Great Aunt Audrey fits in your family circle.  She’s hip to some social media and she’s proud of you for being a business owner.  She wants to see your kids.  She wants to see your vacation pictures.  She doesn’t want her pages clogged with information about your business.

Put Great Aunt Audrey in your Circle dedicated to family. You’ll both be happier.  Those who are interested in your business, your colleagues in other locations, those with similar businesses?  They go in their proper circles, too.  Trust me.  They want to know about professional life not your vacation.

Besides organizing people to pass information  effectively, Google+ has more than a few uses.

Google+ Followers

Did you know that Facebook limits your followers to 5,000? Sounds like a lot? Not when you have to cut people every week in order to help you find just the right customer and clients. As far as I can tell Google doesn’t limit the number of people who follow you. I often run across

Google+ Hangouts

Hangouts are a great feature of this tool. It allows you to conference face to face with colleagues and clients.  If you want to glean from the wisdom of focus group, Hangouts allow this without anyone having to travel.  You can showcase new work with people with internet access anywhere in the world.  The possibilities of using Hangout for a communication tool seem endless.

Google+ Mobile

This is pretty cool. It doesn’t matter if you are on a Android Phone, Tablet or even a iPhone or iPad you can surf your network and you can even video each other doing very goofy things.

Google +1

Giving your +1 to articles, pictures, infographics and anything else interesting across the webiverse allows those in your Circles to see what you’re reading and liking.  The power of the judicious +1 is immense. Use your power wisely, but use it.  People will pay attention to what you approve.

Don’t forget to add the +1 button to your site.  According to HubSpot, websites using the button get 3.5 times more traffic than those that don’t.  That’s significant.

Google+ needs to be part of your social media toolbox.  It’s not what you thought it was.  It’s better.

The post New Tool: Google+ appeared first on Smack Smog!.

I’m so excited that WordPress 3.5 is coming out soon. Many of you know that Smack Smog focuses on our clients own website as being the center of their Social Media strategy. We always use WordPress in the sites that we use and so it’s a big deal to us that a new version of WordPress is scheduled to come out. The most excellent author Aaron Brazell, has written on website  Technosailor.com about the upcoming release of WordPress 3.5! He specualtes that the release will most likely be December 5th. Pretty Cool.

He does a great job in describing whats happening in the new release and it wouldn’t be fair to Mr Brazell to steal his content (that’s a very bad thing to do). However I will mention that that I’m looking forward to seeing the new and improved Media Manager. It’s one of the best over all features in WordPress but it’s often the most muddy and unclear for new users and I always felt like it doesn’t need to be. I can’t wait to try it out.

The New WordPress Media Manager

Also related to the Media Manager is how WordPress is incorporating high definition images into the mix. Go ahead and read Mr Branzell’s review to learn all about it. However as photographers we think it’s awesome!!! You can look at our photography site at our sister site Art Smog. We think you will be as excited as we are.

Mr Branzell writes about 10 things you should know about the upcoming release so be sure to check it out. It’s a good piece. If you have any questions about how to use WordPress and develop a Content Strategy to build your business be sure to drop us a line and let us know. We’re here for you.

The post WordPress 3.5 appeared first on Smack Smog!.

If you’re really going to reap the benefits of strategic content marketing you need more than one tool.  Carpenters have more than a hammer at their disposal to build a house.  You need more than a blog to build your business.  You need a multi-pronged approach.

According to the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs joint report on Content Marketing’s Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends, most companies are using multiple tactics to reach their audience.  The average company uses 12 different tactics.  Twelve.  That’s a lot.  In fact, that’s 4 more than most were using two years ago.

Social media (excluding blogs) is the most popular of all possible tactics.  According to the research, 87% of companies use social media.  If you’re looking for a good place to expand your reach, social media is the place to start.

Like any other tool, strategic content marketing must be used wisely.  Using a circular saw without a little training and coaching could leave you without a limb.  Likewise, get some expert instruction before jumping into social media.  Well executed it should open a new world to you.  Poorly executed it will cut off those already attached to you.

Here are some links to some well known and well documented complete and utter Social Media Fails in the Corporate World.

1. 14 epic social media fails - This deck has some great
2. Social media 101: Social Media Disasters  – I love this quote “Lesson: Spoofing porn is usually a bad idea.”
3. Social Media Fails: The Worst Case Studies of 2012 (So Far) - Rachel Hyun Kim does a great job in discussing some of this years biggest blunders. One of my favorites in this list is how Woody Harrison lit a fire with the Reddit users as that he (or most likely his people) failed to understand the distinctive culture of Reddit users.

That’s why I’m here.  I’ll help you expand your toolbox and learn how to maximize each device for your business.  Join the 87%; you won’t be sorry.

photo courtesy of Lusi on rgbstock.com

The post A Bigger Social Media Toolbox appeared first on Smack Smog!.

The Facebook Marketing Problem

Millions and millions of people use Facebook and as a small business owner it was fantastic. Small business could reach out to their audience and get free and easy access to new perspective customers. It was great!  Social Media Developers like Smack Smog would just tell people to make a fan page on Facebook and we’d watch the numbers to roll in. Facebook Marketing was easy! Everyone suddenly became a Facebook Guru. Everyone was happy. Life was easy. Life on Facebook was good.

Fast forward some time and Facebook goes public and suddenly it has to explain to shareholders how profits are going to increase. So what happens? Facebook Marketing gets tough.

Now if you are a small business you need to pay to promote yourself on Facebook. In fact if you don’t pay Facebook your fans rarely see your posts and messages.   In fact many report to SmackSmog that Facebook is getting boring and that we don’t see our friends in our Facebook Timeline like we used to. Some speculate that their friends are dropping out of Facebook because the “shiny newness” has worn off. A common complaint that I hear about Facebook is that suddenly all Advertisements and pictures of peoples grandchildren.  Suddenly Facebook isn’t as attractive as it use to be.

Social Media Diversity

Much like life, everyone is looking for the next big thing in Social Media. There are many outlets for Social Media. Here are a few of many.

• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Instangram
• Google+
• Twitter
• Pinterest

All of these are incredible Social Media Outlets and I definitely encourage you to explore each of them. They each have a culture of their own and they each can reward you or curse you. Be sure to proceed with caution.  Learn the culture of each of these sites and be respectful. Find a way to have your presence add value to your community. My advice is to find a Social Media Developer with a deep sense of Content Marketing to help you guide through the channels. (Disclosure: this is what we do at Smack Smog, but if you cannot hire me I’d suggest finding an outfit with these qualities).

What is Small Business Owner To Do?

No one at Smack Smog is sure what the next thing is going to be, we are all pretty sure that Facebook is in the decline. We are very intrigued by Google+ for a number of reasons but it’s impossible to say what the next big thing will be. The thing to remember is that before Facebook was MySpace, then before MySpace was Friendster and before Friendster was… Six Degrees and before that? Who knows. The point is that Social Media is fluid. It’s changing. It’s great because it attracts different people for different reasons. For this reason one size doesn’t fit all. It’s important to find the Social Media outlet that fits you and your needs.

Tailor Made Social Media

As social media developers our advice to our clients always begins the same. It goes like this…

Get your own site, with your own domain and make your site the hub of all things. Yes you probably need to be on Facebook for now. maybe Twitter, perhaps Pinterest but at the core of all your social media marketing should be your own site with your own content. The content should be a reflection of your social media strategy and echoed through all the other outlets. Your own website is what you will always have the most control over and will reflect who you are, and what you do. Your other social media endeavors should all point back to your website and your blog. You control the message, you control the medium.

This way when Facebook fades away (and I believe that it will) you will still remain. If you proceed correctly, your fans will as well.

The post Facebook Marketing Is Doomed (and Boring) appeared first on Smack Smog!.

Content Marketing is Pulling Customers Toward You

Last week we talked about the two types of marketing–push and pull.  Content marketing is about pulling customers towards you.  It’s not just about creating demand, it’s about creating informed customers who want what you have. Your blog is a great place to do this. Create the content people want to read.  I know that’s easy to say, but it really is easier to do than you might think. When you introduce yourself to people, one of the first questions people ask is, “What do you do?” For many that’s an easy question to answer. Of course, there are those in the “If I told you, I’d have to kill you” professions, but I doubt they have blogs or are concerned about content marketing.  For those who have a more difficult to define answer that doesn’t include death to the questioner, it takes a little work to come up with a succinct answer.  It’s worth the work.

Here Comes The Important Second Question for Content

There’s almost always a follow up-question to the what do you do.  That’s the question you need to heed. It may be, “Wow.  I’ve never met anyone who does that. Why do you do that?”  Or it could be, “Really?!  What do you think is the best ___ ?(fill in the blank with something specific to your area of expertise)”  Sometimes it’s, “Doesn’t (your competitor) have a corner on that market?  Why would you bother?”

In fact Jeff Haden has a great article over at Inc Magazine about the best way to introduce yourself. It’s not only entertaining to read it’s full of really good stuff. You can read a little bit about Jeff on his bio page. Although I’ve never met Jeff I think he’d be a fun guy to have a beer with. I’d even ask him about how the cycling is going.

Don’t Waste The Oopportunity

Right there you have at least three informative blog posts.  Answer each question.  Be informative. Don’t waste the opportunity! But here’s the catch–you need to be positive.  Don’t slam your competition.  Your readers—those who loyally follow you and are great customers as well as those who have searched their way into your domain and may be customers–don’t want to hear you slam your competition.  They want to know what’s what.  They want to know your products, techniques, services, and information are up-to-date, accurate, and easily understood.  You can compare, but don’t bash. Content marketing can start with the questions you’re asked most often.  It takes work, but it’s worthwhile. So . . . what do you do?

The post The 2nd Question is your Content Marketing appeared first on Smack Smog!.