I’m constantly marveling at people who grab catchy domain names with the word expert in them to establish their expertise. For myself, I’ve always shied away from referring to myself as an expert in anything. (Well, almost anything. I think I’m a pretty expert Mom.)
Having been on the Web since 1996, I’ll give you some historical perspective about those early folks making their way along the DotCom highway touting themselves as “experts.” Wait, I was going to use links to their sites to show you how far they’ve come and how many people they helped, but alas, all their sites are long gone.
Here’s the deal about social media and it’s very similar to the early days of the dotcom frenzy. The more you learn, the more you need to learn. Having been a technology journalist from the infancy of the Web, I can promise you that each time you think you’ve got it all figured out is just about the time you need to learn a new tool’s update or test out one more beta site.
I don’t know about you but when I see the word “expert” it’s usually a red flag for me to make certain to look at the offerings in-depth.
So here are some ways to determine if the expert or experts are up to snuff:
1. Has their blog or site just been newly created and does it have very little in terms of blogroll, tags, keywords, categories, link love?
2. Are these “experts” regulars on the good ol’ teleseminar rodeo circuit?
3. Does it all seem too good to be true?
4. Do they blog about free tools you can use or more about how to buy their “coaching services?”
5. Is their blog transparent or is it filled with links to affiliated folks and “friends of friends” who also offer you their “insider secrets.”
6. Do they post news articles that underline the need for metrics, measurement and benchmarks in social media?
7. Do they have pictures, bios and client references on their blog or website?
8. When you ask them if they’ve had good success in their campaigns do they respond smirkily “Can monkeys fly?”
Just always keep in mind that social media is ever-evolving and there are lots of people who can help you and lots of free sites including Mashable.com, Problogger.com, DailyBlogTips.com that can empower your own understanding just as much as a social media consultant can.
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As everyone who reads this blog knows, I’m a giant fan of HubSpot’s free tools like websitegrader.com, pressreleasegrader.com and bloggrader.com .
Guess what?
Just in case you’ve not been monitoring their free tools in the past couple months, they’ve also powered up Twittergrader.com.
Should you try it out? Of course. Should you use it as another way to give you guidance on how you’re reach is on the Web and how to improve it? Absolutely.
My grade is 99 out of 100. And my ranking is 34,000 among 5 million plus Twitter accounts. Remember marathon, not sprint with all things social media. No matter what your grade is at the onset, you can always improve it.
Does ranking size really matter? Hmm. Good question. No grading system should be the only thing you rely on to determine how your efforts are progressing, however it’s good to have some base measurements and definitely when these tools are free you should take advantage of them.
To spur you on in your own quest to rule the Web, at the very least put a couple of your competitive Twitter folks in the grader too and see what comes up.
I’m also positive that HubSpot will continue adding more features to Twittergrader so once every six months you should replug in your TwitterID and see what comes back gradewise.
Each time you do, I have no doubt you’ll find more actionable data you can use to help your social platform expand.
For more information on how the grader works, I also encourage you to check out HubSpot’s reference for it here.
Now go and grade!
Just to get this out at the onset, I’m not an affiliate of FiledBy.com. However, what they are doing for authors is really superb and again I must say that it is an ideal way at a very good price point (starting at free) to get your visibility empowered on the Web.
There’s been quite a bit back and forth about how FiledBy.com is just creating another place that authors have to update, yada, yada, yada and woe is we authors who shouldn’t have to help with our own marketing. I have two words to say to that, “Boots on!” which in Texas stands for “Stop whining in the cactus, put your boots on, stop the woeing and start marching to your next big book rodeo!”
Even if you just are going to use the free offerings of FiledBy.com, who would not want to at least do that? Do you want to be on the lone prairie all by your lonesome book self? Or do you want to take advantage of the amazing opportunities in this new publishing rodeo and ride like the wind to your many cheering denizens?
I pick ride like the wind, and I hope that means you will to and at the very least fill out your free profile on FiledBy.com .
Here’s a great example of the homepage today to “spur” you on. It features Seth Godin, John Perkins and a few other authors you just might recognize! If you can’t see it because the image is too small – that’s on purpose – so you’ll have to go to FiledBy.com today and see it there.
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Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It’s literary suicide. (Erma Bombeck)
If you’re ready to be inspired to write and join a fantastic group of people who will encourage you along the way then I highly recommend you register NOW for the Erma Bombeck Writers’s Conference. The registration is ongoing and they sell out usually in a very short time period. Folks like Gail Collins and Bill Scheft will be part of the event and I’ll be presenting on authors and social media there too! I hope you’ll join as well!
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By now we’ve all heard that Oprah is going off the air to found her own Oprah-dom on cable which we know will be amazingly successful.
The announcement has filled me with glee, when I consider that all those Oprah-esque PR insiders who provide you tons of tips, insider secrets, oprah-show advice etc. will also hopefully be cleaned out as well.
If it’s time for Oprah to have a new start, it’s also time for everyone who has ever paid thousands of dollars to consultants just “hoping” they’d get the right Oprah teleseminar-guru-recipe for being on the show to have a new start too.
For those folks, I hope Oprah’s announcement will serve as a wakeup call that you don’t need to rely on PR gurus, or media gurus to get you on the Oprah show. I’ll tell you a secret, the best way to get on the Oprah show is by using your own initiative, being creative and having a unique and interesting story.
I’ll tell you another secret! People have actually been booked as a guest on her show by pitching the show directly through the website form on Oprah.com. People have actually been booked on her show by tweeting out interesting ideas that Oprah’s producers (who are also on Twitter) find and then build a show around.
If you don’t think they’re on Twitter, do a Google search for “Oprah Producer Twitter” and find them yourself. I could give them to you, but it’s time you start doing your own walking! Come on! You can be your own PR guru if you believe in yourself enough.
You too can go back home to Oprah when she starts her new show. The first step is to tap your shoes together three times and say, “There’s no place like Oprah, there’s no place like Oprah, there’s no place like Oprah. ” (Oops, wait, I was channeling a PR guru and what they might tell you.)
Ok, start again. The first step is to come up with what makes you unique and then research Oprah’s website and see if there is already a show they are booking around that topic. Every week they post new calls for guests to pitch themselves.
The second step is to be persistent without stalking! The third step is to be creative about how you want to get on the show. Don’t believe there’s room for creativity? Peeshaw, as my great Aunt Susan would say.) Still not feeling it?
Read this story of how one person got on Oprah by selling tickets to his own show on the sidewalk.
Or how about using a billboard to get on Oprah?
Still not convinced? Read this story about how one woman used the online submission form and kicked ass on Oprah.
Don’t give up. Who knows you might even be featured on the show twice!
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1. Build your personalized Google profile today so you are visible in search.
2. Add Twitter to your LinkedIn.com account – you can do this now and it will help folks see your “mindshare” on LinkedIn.com too.
3. Be committed to sharing your actionable insight on your blog and then go DIGG it as well.
4. Claim a Twitter account if you’ve not yet done so. Twitter is not going away and it will continue to be refined for better usage and accessiblity.
5. Add your URL to Google. I recommend people submit them at least twice a year just to make sure that Google-bot is stopping by your site.
6. Believe in the impossible. Stop thinking that you don’t count on the Web, that you’re not tech-savvy enough to figure all this Web 2.0 stuff out! Use resources like Mashable.com and DailyBlogTips.com to get you on your way.
7. Be yourself on all your platforms and truly be committed to being open and authentic in your content delivery. Don’t think of the bottom line, think of empowering a community.
* Bonus Tips from October’s BlogWorldExpo Blogged by Fast Company’s Gregory Ferenstein
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As a former (decade long) technology journalist I think it’s very important for people to understand that it is important to not put all your social media eggs in one basket.
Always be aware that social media tools are ever-evolving. This is one of the reasons I don’t ever like being called a “social media expert.” No one can really be a social media expert, because even if you live this stuff 24/7 (which sometimes it feels like I do) you’ll still not be ahead of the developers of these tools and the new options or frameworks they are building with them.
While you don’t have to be an expert to benefit from social media, a key thing to remember is, “Your content is not a fad, however, the tool you use to deliver it might at some point be one.”
If you look at MySpace and how its usage has evolved and then significantly dropped – you will also find folks who put all their efforts only into MySpace and are now left holding the proverbial empty MySpace bag. They are trapped by MySpace because they put all of their efforts into that one “next greatest thing since sliced bread” tool.
As Dr. Seuss says, “Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.” (from – “Oh! The Places You’ll Go)
With social media, it’s doubly important to incorporate a good balancing act at this time when all the major players, Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com and Twitter.com are at their highest competitive market and hope to differentiate themselves. This will prevent you from getting trapped holding a less than useful social media basket.
Take things one step at a time. Don’t put all your social media eggs (efforts) into one tool. Don’t push all your fans, partners, customers to one platform and whatever you do, don’t throw out the traditional tools for communication that you use as well.
Don’t shut down your website, if you have a thriving e-newsletter keep it going. The greatest thing you can do for yourself long-term is to consistently produce good content and then use it to empower community both offline and online.
And remember, “Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.” (excerpt fromOh! The Places You’ll Go!)
Great thanks to Jennifer Robenalt too – as we talked about this today and she and I will be talking more about it next week at our panel for the Texas Governor’s Conference For Women. (Follow them on Twitter @TexasWomen) We are very humbled to be a part of such a stellar event.
Go to Bigthink.com and see Sherman Alexie’s take on ebooks, publishing and more. Really must see if you’re an author or in publishing.
“We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves…The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.’ The human spirit is indomitable.”
-Sir Roger Bannister, first runner to run a sub-4 minute mile
Here are 7 questions to ask yourself about how you are running your blog marathon and how well you are utilizing this long blog-race to get your message out.
Answer them to see if you really are blogging purposefully and at the best possible level of empowering a community with your insight.
1. Do I wait until the last possible moment to blog about something or do I treat my blog as if it really can change the world and make certain I blog the change I want to see in the world?
2. Do I blog with envy or do I blog with abundance? Do I understand it’s a marathon not a sprint and I’m not a viral marketer of ideas, I’m an idea-marathoner?
3. Do I celebrate other bloggers’ successes and insights by featuring links to them on my site and my blog?
4. Do I encourage my community to run the marathon with me by blogging questions openly and know that each commenter can contribute to a greater discussion?
5. Is my blog a “have to” or a “can’t but not” blog? Do I view it as a terrible task to get through or do I see it as an immense conduit for expression and empowerment of my community?
6. Do I have a mission statement for my blog? Do I know what I want to engender with my blog content?
7. Do I understand that I’m not blogging just to gain attention, but rather to educate, inform and elevate?
Just finished reading David Henderson’s “Making News in the Digital Era” and I wanted to post the five reasons to read his book!
Five Reasons to Read: Making News in the Digital Era
1. Chapter Seven: Twitter Dispatches in 140 Characters
2. Chapter Twenty-Five: Be Clever and Be Bold – love this chapter!
3. Chapter Twenty-Three: The Price of a Forgettable Slogan
4. Chapter Twenty-Two: Mission Statements Are Useless – this is a key chapter filled with ton of good insight.
5. Chapter Sixteen: A Good Story Has Great Legs – quote “A great story has legs that in today’s world can travel many miles per hour.”
Friends (or Faux Foes)
Abundantly
Captivatingly
Expressing
Buoyant
Opinions
Online
Keenly
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjMUfIKktWU[/youtube] My friend Mark Levy (Twitter – @levyinnovation), has provided me an endless tool for laughter when I’m having a particularly lousy day, because he mentioned to me that every time he sees the Geico pothole commercial he thinks it sounds just like me and it makes him laugh.
(I’ve included the commercial YouTube at the top of this blog post.)
On bad days, I watch it to make myself laugh. While I don’t think I sound all that Southern, the voice in the Geico commercial does tend to grow on you.
It also reminds me how powerful humor is and why it’s so important to use in our lives and in our social media presence. Laughter is the great equalizer for us all.
My great Aunt Florence used to say, “If you can’t say something funny, don’t bother to say anything at all.” At her funeral this was particularly hard on all of us because what’s funny about a funeral?
In a small cemetery, in Mobile, Alabama we all stood in the rain, led by a minister, who was all of 30, and he used humor to ease our grief.
The minister related how on the last Sunday of Aunt Florence’s life she had managed (at 90 years old) to go to church that morning, have him over for fried chicken and turnip greens at noon, and prior to that mowed the front lawn on her riding mower, in her favorite purple flowered floppy hat.
In fact, she was a little bit peeved at the minister because he came a bit earlier than noon and caught her, all dressed in white on the mower clipping the very last bit of the front lawn. She was a staunch advocate of good Southern manners and you never arrive early for supper in the South.
But caught her he did and despite her chiding, they had a great supper and later that night she went to sleep and passed away. When he finished the story, our tears turned to laughter because his story had so perfectly captured our Aunt Florence and her great love for supper, mowing the lawn and her church.
I suppose today I’m feeling particularly Southern and proud because the Texas Book Festival is this weekend and my client Bill Scheft is here among all the other amazing authors that always make me laugh.
So your “Minding Your Southern Social Media Manners” is really about remembering that laughter is good medicine online and offline.
1. Don’t waste time being snarky.
2. Don’t Twitter twerrible twthings.
3. Don’t Facebook-fatigue folks.
4. Don’t blog bad mojo
5. Don’t ever lose sight that life is best lived offline and online with humor and grace.
DM me on Twitter if you’re at the Fest, would love to see you. Twitter @nettiehartsock .
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