Where Can Content Come From?

Looking for ways to generate interesting, relevant, useful, valuable, searchable, remarkable content? Consider using the following to help get your content generation juices flowing:

• You could describe your product/service
• You can teach people how to use your product/service
• You can inform customers about news and relevant information to their needs beyond your product/service
• You can tell stories how others use your product/service
• You can let your customers tell the stories and describe what’s most meaningful to them
• You can help your customers help other customers use your products/services
• You could just listen…what are they saying about you, your company, your products/services, your competitors, your industry and more
• You could also do nothing at all

Sometimes generating content can be as easy as asking someone to have a conversation.

Where do you get great content from? I'd like to know.

~Keep the learning going, pass it on!

You could describe your product/service

You can teach people how to use your product/service

You can inform customers about news and relevant information to their needs beyond your product/service

You can tell stories how others use your product/service

You can let your customers tell the stories and describe what’s most meaningful to them

You can help your customers help other customers use your products/services

You could just listen…what are they saying about you, your company, your products/services, your competitors, your industry and more

You could also do nothing at all

5 Social Media Lifestyes

The 5 Social Media Lifestyles can outline 5 tactical uses of social media you could employ in your business and for your customers. These aren’t in an order of progression that you have to go through, they are lifestyles. Ways you can choose to involve yourself and take part in interaction with these new tools…or not.

1. Participate or not: You don’t have to use social media. No one is forcing you. You have the choice. Since our major focus on social media is for business purposes, ask one question, “Does my current customer use social media?” Ask one more question, “Will my future customer use social media?” The choice you make here will shape your future. You’ve committed to this presentation. As a result, you will know more than some about social media and how you could use it for your business. That won’t last forever and knowing is only half of it. Trying it is a whole different ride! Choose to participate and you’ll start to grow a new set of skills to make you more valuable.
2. Look and Listen: This is the basic starting point of social media, also known as the “lurker.” There is nothing wrong with tuning in to a social media channel and seeing and hearing what’s going on. You could review the Facebook News Feed of Your Friends, you could follow a conversation about collections on a LinkedIn user group, you could even watch a YouTube video about digital printing and packaging. You chose to join and show up. You can learn a lot by observing, but what if you decided to participate?
3. Engage and interact: Engaging and interacting are what make social media “social.” Two or more people sharing ideas, content, music, video. Growing our knowledge exponentially through people we are connected to. You decide to comment on a blog post and the author asks for your help on a project he’s working on. You send a direct message to someone you follow on Twitter. You decide to write your own blog and your first post is about making the move from lurking to participating. Now there’s no turning back. Watching your time and knowing what you want to get from engaging and interacting are important to reaching your business goals.
4. Develop and Implement: Now you are making decisions to use social media to reach your goals. You decide to create a blog and link it to the website and optimize the tags so people find you in a search on “custom photo books + kindergarten.” This aligns with a new market you are targeting and a new product that will appeal to parents who are sending their children to school for the first time. You decide to write on the blog about how easy it is to use the web to build a scrapbook and appeal to parents, teachers and administrators. You produce a two pronged YouTube series on the How-To Create and the Business Value of Offering Scrapbooks to your students. Your Facebook page and Twitter feed align with these approaches and support a common message and theme of “capturing the first steps of lifelong learning.” You get the idea.
5. Provide as a Service: It’s in this stage you make the decision to help others start the journey you’ve been making using social media as part of your marketing plan to grow your business. It’s a busy market out there. Marketing services have been around a long time. Social media provides new channels to reach goals. The channel alone doesn’t make a company successful. It’s the alignment of the goals and objectives to the needs of the customer and the use of channels appropriate to make it all happen.

 Which lifestyle is for you? Is there another lifestyle I haven't considered? Let me know.

~Keep the learning going, pass it on!

The 5 Social Media Lifestyles can outline 5 tactical uses of social media you could employ in your business and for your customers. These aren’t in an order of progression that you have to go through, they are lifestyles. Ways you can choose to involve yourself and take part in interaction with these new tools…or not.

1.Participate or not: You don’t have to use social media. No one is forcing you. You have the choice. Since our major focus on social media is for business purposes, ask one question, “Does my current customer use social media?” Ask one more question, “Will my future customer use social media?” The choice you make here will shape your future. You’ve committed to this presentation. As a result, you will know more than some about social media and how you could use it for your business. That won’t last forever and knowing is only half of it. Trying it is a whole different ride! Choose to participate and you’ll start to grow a new set of skills to make you more valuable.

2.Look and Listen: This is the basic starting point of social media, also known as the “lurker.” There is nothing wrong with tuning in to a social media channel and seeing and hearing what’s going on. You could review the Facebook News Feed of Your Friends, you could follow a conversation about collections on a LinkedIn user group, you could even watch a YouTube video about digital printing and packaging. You chose to join and show up. You can learn a lot by observing, but what if you decided to participate?

3.Engage and interact: Engaging and interacting are what make social media “social.” Two or more people sharing ideas, content, music, video. Growing our knowledge exponentially through people we are connected to. You decide to comment on a blog post and the author asks for your help on a project he’s working on. You send a direct message to someone you follow on Twitter. You decide to write your own blog and your first post is about making the move from lurking to participating. Now there’s no turning back. Watching your time and knowing what you want to get from engaging and interacting are important to reaching your business goals.

4.Develop and Implement: Now you are making decisions to use social media to reach your goals. You decide to create a blog and link it to the website and optimize the tags so people find you in a search on “custom photo books + kindergarten.” This aligns with a new market you are targeting and a new product that will appeal to parents who are sending their children to school for the first time. You decide to write on the blog about how easy it is to use the web to build a scrapbook and appeal to parents, teachers and administrators. You produce a two pronged YouTube series on the How-To Create and the Business Value of Offering Scrapbooks to your students. Your Facebook page and Twitter feed align with these approaches and support a common message and theme of “capturing the first steps of lifelong learning.” You get the idea.

5.Provide as a Service: It’s in this stage you make the decision to help others start the journey you’ve been making using social media as part of your marketing plan to grow your business. It’s a busy market out there. Marketing services have been around a long time. Social media provides new channels to reach goals. The channel alone doesn’t make a company successful. It’s the alignment of the goals and objectives to the needs of the customer and the use of channels appropriate to make it all happen.



Where Do You Find Your Inspiration?

To look at something differently, to recognize something you’ve never seen before, to feel for something in a different way, to realize something could be done that was never done before—all of these things can be the result of being inspired. Here are just a few ways people experience being inspired: a sound, a smell, an article, a picture, a lecture, a meal, a sculpture, a piece of wood, a stack of $100 bills, a child being given a glass of water, a cancer victim crossing a finish line, a smile on someone’s face after experiencing you or your business. Being inspired can lead to innovation and action.

When I’m inspired I can describe a problem in a new way, develop new material, create a new service or product, connect with a prospect I never could connect with before, reconnect with old customers to discuss something new. Finding inspiration helps me and those I work with to be fresh, interesting, motivating, engaging and worth other people’s time. Being inspired can be inspiring to others.

I find inspiration in blogs that I follow, websites I watch, people I keep up with in the industries that they influence. Inspiration comes from articles, programs, lectures, books, pictures and the world around me. There’s inspiration everywhere. When I stay focused on one project or task and I don’t take the time to look around in my business, in my customer’s business, in my industry or the industries of my customer’s customer then I find myself falling short on inspiration.

Here are just a few of the many places I turn to for inspiration: Wall Street Journal, www.wsj.com, Chris Brogan: www.chrisbrogan.com, Tech Crunch: www.techcrunch.com, AdWeek: www.adweek.com, American Marketing Association: www.marketingpower.com, Social Media Today: www.socialmediatoday.com, International Erosion Control Association: www.ieca.org, travel to new cities and countries, my local museum and parks, talking to my existing customers regularly and reaching out to new customers and learning about their business and industry.

Where do you find your inspiration? What have you done to inspire others? Two great questions you can explore as you grow your business and your customer’s business too!

Let me know where you find your inspiration and how you may have inspired others by posting a comment here.

~Keep the learning going...pass it on!

Finding Your Breath in Business

How far can you swim? In 2010 I learned to distance swim (sure I could swim, but not very far) and completed two Sprint Triathlons, one Olympic Triathlon and one Half Iron Man Triathlon. Before you start thinking it’s no big deal for someone who does this all the time I want you to know I had never participated in a triathlon before. I had also never swum more than a couple of laps. I realized early on that the mechanics of the stroke are easy to observe and harder to practice but it’s the breathing that made all the difference for me. When I relaxed and focused on my breathing I found myself able to learn more, practice more and do more.

After a few months off I got into the pool today and was surprised that even after a shaky two laps at the start; much of what I had learned came back to me and I proceeded to have a great workout. The first few workouts I had in 2010, as I learned to distance swim, were not so smooth. Not being able to swim more than a few laps because of fatigue, swallowing water, hitting my head, water up my nose, rushed strokes and so many more struggles was frustrating to me. I remember back to other activities in my life that caused similar frustration: golf, snowboarding, public speaking and teaching just to name a few. As the year went on it wasn’t so new anymore and I worked on perfecting how I performed. Time and time again I came back to my breathing. The intake of energy and the exhale of waste whether in the pool, on the bike or pounding the pavement drove me, powered me, centered me and allowed me to do more than I ever thought I was capable of doing. No, I wasn’t first…or even in the top 25% of finishers in most of my races, but at least I was conditioned to do things most people only dream of doing.

2011 is off to a fast start and I find myself struggling to find my breath in my business. Calls and e-mails to return, blog posts to get done, social networking updates to be made, new services to develop and sell, marketing to research, billing…and oh taxes too! I know I’m not the only one; I’ve spoken to others and heard similar woes. Today I sat and reminded myself I know how to run my business. There are new things I want to do too and I can add them once I prioritize what needs to be done. I realized I need to take time to breathe and look at our strategy of where we are and where we want to go. Breathe and look at what it will take to get there. Breathe and engage the resources we have or bring in others to get it done. Breathe and measure the effort to show it’s worth the return. Breathe and consider my customers can use our help to do the same for their business.

What can you do to help your customers find their breath? What can you do to help your customer to be successful, sell more, win new customers and show the customers they have why they should keep doing business? You can help your customers grow their business and you can grow your business too. That’s what business development is all about. Finding your breath and helping others do the same.

Share your thoughts on finding your breath or helping others do the same by posting a comment.

~Keep the learning going...pass it on.

Top 8 Risks of Social Media

1. Something gets posted you don’t want others to see.
   • Is it a corporate secret, comments of a disgruntled employee or an upset customer because of a lack of customer service? If you don’t already have one, a brief internal social media policy should cover what can and can’t be said along with how it could be said by those inside the organization. It should be flexible enough to encourage passion for customers and the brand but should also make sure the brand remains an asset. If the comments are from outside the organization they should be quickly judged to determine constructive criticism or inappropriate behavior and appropriate steps should be taken to deal with them in a timely manner.
2. You create a social presence but no one is participating.
   • Social media should start with a strategy and part of the strategy should include audience, content and appropriate channel(s). It takes time to grow a community. You may think you’re talking to yourself but really you can be honing your message to your customer while you also spend time listening to what is important to them and include it in your community content. The time you take working at establishing your social media standing can also be used as an ongoing case study to discuss what you’ve learned with your customers.
3. You’re trying to be social but the topic gets sidetracked or even hijacked.
   • Simply ask, “Why?” Perhaps there is something else more important you could or should be covering. One of the first rules of social media is that it’s not about you. Or perhaps you can suggest covering the new topic in next week’s discussions where you can research it further and get more input on it. The point of social media is that you don’t have direct control of the message but the more involved you are in social media and are aware of your business and customers, your ability to influence the message increases.
4. Some people don’t tolerate change.
   • As your social media community grows and expands its reach there is a possibility of alienating your core followers. You need to consider your core first before diluting your approach to please the masses you’re not currently connected to. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but if you include the core in your growth and choices for growth it’s often easier for them to deal with change. Also remember, there are some people who just don’t want to change. If they are your target audience, what about creating a core group just for them? Consider the impact on you resources and the benefits of keeping them happy while still addressing a larger potential community.
5. Social media channels and content can open up breaches of security.
   • Viruses, malware, identity and brand theft can all occur with or without the use of social media. You should consider good IT practices to avoid the possibility of software and hardware security breaches. Some recommend being vague with content to avoid brand or identity theft. You need to consider the level of information you share and the possibility that information can be used against you. But if you participate in social media and all you do is listen without giving there is a high probability your community will wonder if it’s worth participating in your network.
6. Social media strategies that don’t include the whole organization.
   • In a small organization the worry is not enough resources to establish a social media strategy and be able to execute while in a larger organization it may mean a fight to control or influence the approach, the theme, the content, the budget and other resources. Not everyone needs to be directly involved but all should be aware of the social media benefits as part of the marketing and sales strategies of the organization.
7. Too much power wielded by an individual.
   • There is a risk if the social media “face” of the company is a particular individual and what if that individual leaves the organization or takes another role within the company? Their social media currency could leave with them. Consider the impact of an individual and consider spreading the currency around to include others. Not only will it help to balance the power, but it can also help balance the responsibility to create great content and manage the social media strategy.
8. Not having the ability to localize your message to a particular audience.
   
   • What happens if your social media presence expands to another country or a customer base outside your typical one? Monitoring your social media strategy and reviewing the needs of a particular audience can help you plan for the needs of your existing and future audiences. As you look to expand into a new audience you should evaluate tactics to localize your message to the audience. This could include translation services or evaluating the needs of a new layer of employees.

Keep the learning going...pass it on!