Social Networking for Job Seekers

I recently had the honor of presenting a seminar to local job seekers in my home town of Tampa Bay. I presented five strategies for social networking that I truly believe can turbo charge a job search. Here’s a summary of the five strategies I presented.

Develop the Mindset of a Triathlete

Triathletes are elite athletes. Most are amateur, which means they juggle work and family while training for triathlons. What makes triathletes so special is their devotion and discipline to their training. The mental side of their sport is as important as their physical game plan. A job seeker would be well served to study the mindset of triathletes and adopt it. Having a documented plan, an accountability coach and a commitment to working on techniques are all part of the mindset of a triathlete.

Social Networking Basics

For many people social networking basics are, well, just that….basics. But, for many some of the basics are surprisingly overlooked. Simple things like having a profile picture in all your social networking accounts…Having your profile in LinkedIn completely filled out, not just partially filled out. Seeking new connections on an ongoing basis (as in everyday). And, following companies of interest and making recommendations of people you’ve worked with in the past. Too many people (surprisingly) think that just having a LinkedIn profile constitutes social networking. I advise job seekers to update their LinkedIn status every day. And, I advise job seekers to develop their professional and social credibility through social networking.

Advanced Social Networking

For those who have their basics covered, I offered several tips to accelerate their job search. First, I urge all job seekers to actively engage with like minded people in LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. I emphasized being active in all three social networking platforms. Overwhelmingly, many job seekers only think of LinkedIn as the social network of choice.  I advised that connecting with like minded people on Twitter and Facebook should also be part of the plan.  Friending people on Facebook who are business colleagues and building lists so you can segment your notes between personal and business relationships is advisable. Following companies of interest on their business (fan) page and engaging with those companies is advisable. Sharing your expertise on Facebook and Twitter is also advisable. And, selectively promoting others across all three social networks to build relationships is advisable. Another tip I offer is to seek out and attempt to connect with influential people in their industry. Then, don’t hit on them. Rather, let your content paint a picture of you. Post intelligent comments about their content. All in all, the concept of building both your professional and social credibility is one that many job seekers have not considered. But based on feedback I received from many seminar attendees, they got it.

Become an Entrepreneur in Your Job Search

For some job seekers, their industry is in decline and demand for their skills are just not enough in comparison to supply. Regardless, all job seekers are advised to become entrepreneurial. In fact, I go a step further and suggest job seekers should become opportunistic. I advise job seekers to pursue an area of interest outside their work history and create a blog, write an e-book, a physical book, produce video or podcast or all of the above. Essentially, I advise job seekers to monetize their passion by becoming content creators and using the availability of affiliate marketing aggregators or Google Adsense to monetize their content. In many cases, this can result in redefining the meaning of a “J O B” for job seekers.

Good Enough Isn’t

For too many people, a habitual routine of a job search plan can create the illusion of a good job search plan. In a tight economy where competition is so fierce, it’s often not good enough. I shared the results of a recent survey from Cross Tab that shows that 84% of U.S. recruiters believe that your online reputation is critical to your job search. I advise job seekers to commit to producing ten pieces of intelligent content per week and sharing it with their network. I advise job seekers to use LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to build both their professional and their social credibility. I advise to set up a dashboard through an RSS reader to get fed relevant content from blogs and research queries. I advise job seekers to “mine” people’s profiles and company profiles in LinkedIn to uncover golden nuggets of insights about people, new connections and job opportunities.

Download a copy of my presentation on Social Networking for Job Seekers.

Personal Branding Advice from Dan Schawbel

Personal Branding Advice from Dan Schawbel

I recently interviewed Dan Schawbel on my podcast show. Dan is the best selling author of Me 2.0 and widely recognized as an expert in personal branding. Dan is also Managing Partner of Millennial Branding.

Me 2.0

In his book, Me 2.0, Dan offers a four step personal branding process: Discover, Create, Communicate, Maintain. Whether developing a brand for a company or individual, it’s all about figuring out who you are and what you represent before you can create your online presence. Dan stresses the importance of setting goals and developing a personal brand plan where you communicate through online media, network and constantly work at maintaining your reputation. You must be involved in relevant conversations. As you grow, your brand must grow along with you.

Social Media Position

Dan worked at EMC for about a year. He met fifteen people over eight months to get his job at EMC. Dan had created a blog on personal branding. Fast Company wrote about him. Google invited Dan to speak at their headquarters. Once he built his personal brand, and EMC created the social media position, Dan was the obvious choice for the position.  Dan’s success from his book and media engagements snowballed his career as a personal branding expert.

Twitter as a Communication Channel

Dan used to use to his Twitter profile as a marketing platform. People would often retweet his content. He noticed that as his followers increased, engagement decreased. He likens Twitter to a public forum where everyone has a level playing field.  But, Twitter allows you to move people to other forms of online relationships such as email, or a phonecall or in person.  Now, Dan uses Twitter it as a communication channel. But, he’s now investing more of his time in Facebook. Dan also has a popular LinkedIn group on personal branding.

Native Strengths of Online Channels

Dan recommends the use of each online channel in relevant ways, and to bring people back to your blog. Depending on your goals, Dan suggests you figure out your marketing funnel. Take people through the online touch points where they can get exposed to your products or services in ways that meet your goals. To emphasize this point, I borrow from Wayne Gretzky; “skate to the where the puck is going.”

Digital Immigrants

Those of us born before 1985 are digital immigrants. The public Internet as we know it was created during our lifetime. On the other hand, digital natives grew up using the Internet. For digital immigrants, we must figure out which tools work best to build our personal brand. We must be willing to experiment over the span of months. It’s a huge process. There is no simple answer. There must be a mindset shift to leverage both the technology and cultural evolution of the Internet for personal branding value.

Personal Brand Example

I asked Dan for a good example of personal branding. He told me the story of Joel Backaler, who is an American fluent in Chinese. He developed a blog called TheChinaObserver.com. His focus on China has earned him recognition from The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BusinessWeek and other prominent media outlets. His career has taken off as a result of his focus and content on China.  Dan makes the point that small opportunities often lead to larger opportunities. But, the hardest thing to do is to get the first hit.

Millennial Branding

Dan’s Millennial Branding consultancy is his attempt to create a personal branding world with four integrated business divisions.  The Media division includes blogs, a magazine, online television and a newsletter. The Consulting division helps individuals and companies build their personal brand.  The Community division is all about building his community by connecting with people online on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. And, the Education division produces books, conferences, webinars, etc. Despite the name of his company, Dan acknowledges that most of his clients are not millennial, but rather people and brands beyond the millennial phase in search of a personal branding strategy.

How do you mix personal and company branding?

My good friend Chuck Palm asked me to ask Dan this question. Dan’s advice is to build your name before your company name if possible. If you already have a company, then build both at the same time by connecting the two together. When people think of you, they can think of your company.  For example, ChuckPalm.com is synonymous with IPN.

Me 2.0 Second Edition

In October Dan is releasing the second edition of Me 2.0. It will contain another chapter called: Social Networking for Job Seekers. It will provide a step by step plan for job seekers to build their personal brand using social networking.  This is a topic which is very near and dear to me, as I am speaking and delivering education on this topic.

My podcast interview with Dan has more on personal branding. Just click the play button above, or listen to it in iTunes.

You can connect to Dan Shawbel and visit him at his various online properties including:  DanShawbel.com and MillenialBranding.com.

What are you doing to build your personal brand? Share your story in the comments below.

Social Media Marketing for Chiropractors

Social Media Marketing for Chiropractors

Dr. Patrick MacNamara is a licensed chiropractor.  In this podcast, Dr. Mac shares how his chiropractic education didn’t prepare him for the business world. Early in his practice, he struggled with marketing.  He learned about Affordable Management Consulting, aka, AMC. He hired them and his practice exploded. Eventually, AMC asked him to join them to help other chiropractors explode their business. Dr. Mac was inspired by a report from Richard Telofski.  It said that less than 1% of chiropractors blogged. And, only one third of them were effectively using their blog to grow their practice.  That’s when Dr. Mac realized that chiropractors needed help with their social media strategy.  He began studying social media by following podcasters and bloggers like me and others. He read my book, Marketing 2.0, and has been a loyal listener of my podcasts since the beginning. He launched his Next Generation Chiropractor blog in April 2009. His blog targets the next generation of chiropractors, comprised of those just coming out of school that will more likely embrace marketing 2.0. Dr. Mac is also active on Twitter.

One-to-Many Effect

Dr. Mac fell in love with the idea of helping the chiropractic profession. Dr. Todd Osborne inspired him when he said that when you treat patients, you can only impact the patients you treat. But, by teaching chiropractors to market themselves more effectively he can impact more patients than he could ever impact in his own practice. It’s a one-to-many, rather than one-to-one effect.

Marketing to the New Generation of Chiropractors

As chiropractors have become more aware of social media, they are finding Dr. Mac through his blog. But, there’s a long way to go. The new generation of chiropractors spend more time online than more established chiropractors.  He’s trying to bridge the gap between the traditional marketing mindset and the new marketing mindset for chiropractors. His blog is the primary bridge for Dr. Mac. He quickly points out that the marketing that worked in the past for chiropractors (Yellow pages, direct mail) doesn’t work as well anymore. Dr. Mac has stepped up to the plate to help other chiropractors make the transition to Marketing 2.0.

Those Who Get It Never Go Back

Dr. Mac shows empathy for his peers in chiropractic care. He views his role as helping them expand the way they think. Once they expand their thinking, they can never go back to the previous way of thinking. The mindset shift for chiropractors is imperative. Dr. Mac does 4 to 6 hour presentations on how to market a chiropractic practice, then provides a webcast version as a follow up resource. He’s also available as a resource to chiropractors to answer questions.  The chiropractors that embrace the new marketing mindset come to understand it takes work and commitment. Many chiropractors have seen other chiropractors succeeding with inbound marketing, which inspires them to keep at it.

Success Stories

Dr. Jon Heins was one of the first that interacted with Dr. Mac on his blog. He developed his blog and within about three months he experienced a 20% increase in his business by sharing his blog content and using his Twitter account to engage with the local community. He followed all of Dr. Mac’s advice including techniques such as using hashtags and creating SEO friendly blog content.  He has moved full speed ahead down the Marketing 2.0 road.

Dr. Todd Sullivan is found online primarily through his blog. He has worked hard at consistently creating content, and being a good listener. He’s a young chiropractor, just five years out of school. So, the Internet is native to him. He also uses video marketing. His organic SEO works well from his online press releases and article marketing. His number one source of patients is referrals from medical doctors. His second highest source of new patients is from his blog, i.e., his inbound marketing strategy. His patients are likely to share his content and spread the word because so many of them are online.

After doing a presentation in 2009, Dr. Mac was approached by a chiropractor who said he didn’t fully understand all the Marketing 2.0 techniques. But, he was slowly implementing a strategy through his Facebook fan page. He had already experienced an influx of college students coming in from Facebook. It turns out his office is located across the street from a college campus. Traditional marketing wasn’t bringing in college students. But, his Facebook fan page brought the college students in the front door.

Dr. Mac’s Advice for Chiropractors

Dr. Mac advises chiropractors to develop a strong presence online. Get out of the 1.0 web world. Become interactive through a content hub starting with a blog. Share your blog content through other channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Identify the demographics you target.  Refine your content to appeal to the niche of your target demographics, e.g., young patients, older patients, etc.

Dr. Mac quotes Steven Covey: “Technology is a wonderful slave, but a horrible master.” Dr. Mac’s purpose at his Next Generation Chiropractor blog is to train chiropractors how to use this wonderful technology available at our fingertips to increase their practice in order to use it to treat more patients.

I hope you’ll listen to the entire podcast recording above. Just click the play button, or subscribe to my podcast in iTunes. Dr. Mac received insights and inspiration in part from my book, Marketing 2.0 and my podcasts. I am very humbled by that. If his story inspires you, let me know in the comments section.

Good Marketing is Southern Hospitality

I recently vacationed in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northern Georgia with my family. We had a wonderful time hiking, exploring, fishing, white water rafting and just being adventurous. As I reflect back on this vacation, it occurred to me that I also experienced parallels between our vacation and successful marketing.

Southern Hospitality
Everywhere we went my family and I were treated with courtesy, respect and warmth. And, I’m not referring to how the employees of business establishments treated us (although they were consistent in their treatment). We found the citizens of the community to be genuine, helpful and giving. More than once, people went out of their way to answer questions or offer assistance with sincerity and a smile, or just greet us with a sincere “hello” and have conversation about anything.

Content Marketing Parallel
In contemporary marketing, we speak of the importance of providing great content to your audience to build trust and relationships online. Our vacation planning was easily facilitated by the ease of access to information about the area. Before we scheduled our vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we did plenty of research. We found an abundance of useful information including things to do and places to stay. I was particularly impressed with the consistency of the information we found online, and the experience we had with human interaction offline. This experience is effective content marketing. It was the total experience that made it effective. It was the integration of an online and offline experience that made it a good one. This total experience is what I am willing to talk about. And, that’s called word-of-mouth, the most valuable kind of marketing.

Social Media Parallel
For years now those of us that have embraced social media in business have been stressing the importance of producing great content that delivers on the 3 Es and building a strong community online comprised of authenticity and transparency. Often these words aren’t understood in a business context because so many people in marketing roles are used to doing marketing differently. Authenticity used to mean being truthful in advertising. Building community used to mean building your mailing list. Trust used to mean having a track record of product quality. And, customer service used to mean being accessible to customers and answering their questions.

But, this experience made me realize that social media is really just a human extension of how people want to behave naturally. I am convinced that “southern hospitality” (as it’s known in the U.S.) is a global human phenomenon.  A business is made up of people. The technology tools at our disposal enable people to build communities online with authentic human interaction to create experiences both online and offline that build trust and authentic engagement resulting in positive experiences. Of course, no one is perfect and negative experiences can occur. But, a strong community can deal with anomalies.

I’ve spoken a lot about the risks of social media. As I continue to ponder these risks it occurs to me that they are really risks of doing marketing wrong. Some of the examples I’ve provided of mistakes made by companies are marketing mistakes, not social media mistakes.  Businesses need to develop a strategy of southern hospitality and carry it through in their online and offline channels. Perhaps most important, the people in the business must have a southern hospitality mindset. The tools used to execute on this mindset may vary, but the consistency of the mindset is what’s most important.

11 Tips for LinkedIn Business Development

LinkedIn has become the defacto standard in business social networking. It has over 70 million members from over 200 countries including the Fortune list of enterprises. Unlike Facebook and Twitter where many use it for personal social networking or business or both, people use LinkedIn exclusively for business social networking.  The general idea behind LinkedIn is to build connections, then nurture them to create opportunities. Many sales and marketing professionals who actively use LinkedIn have produced measurable business development opportunities.

Since there is so much content and education around how to get the most out of Facebook and Twitter, I thought I’d put together a partial list of ways to get the most out of LinkedIn for business social networking.

1. Complete your profile 100%. The LinkedIn meter tells you how far your profile is completed. Many people overlook this simple tip.

2. Add a recent photo to your profile to humanize your profile. Likewise, many people have no photo in their profile.

3. Include links to your company website and new blog in the “my website” and “my blog” section. Note: use keywords like: “My internet marketing website” and “my internet marketing blog” which you can link to each respective site and create SEO value.

4. Build your connections methodically and consistently. You can send invitations to people based on recommendations from LinkedIn, your own professional network and even by uploading your contact email list.

5. Add a short note that personalizes your invitations to connect. The extra touch can make an impression.

6. Visit the LinkedIn application directory (under the More tab) and connect applications of interest to your profile. Applications give others insights into your interests and professional activities. Some applications to consider are:

WordPress application: In the set up, insert the RSS feed URL of your blog if you have one.  Each time you publish a blog post it appears in your LinkedIn profile.

Slideshare application: Likewise, each of the presentations you’ve uploaded to Slideshare will appear in your profile.

Amazon Reading List: Displays the books you choose to display. This allows your network to see your reading list.

Twitter: Displays your Twitter stream and allows you to isolate your LinkedIn network’s Twitter stream. You can also post directly to Twitter from LinkedIn.

There are many other applications to consider that can give people insight into your business interests and activities.

7. Update your status in LinkedIn frequently. It’s advisable to update it daily, but not more than once or twice per day. I wouldn’t use LinkedIn the same as Twitter with frequent updates. People will see your updates in their stream.

8. Visit the Answers section (under More) and search out questions being asked in your industry and contribute with your answers. You can uncover people asking relevant questions. Get involved in those conversations.

9. Join Groups in your industry. Search for groups by keyword and find relevant groups to join. Visit the discussions and get involved with your contribution. Add value to these discussions. Don’t sell.

10. LinkedIn has a “recommendations” feature. People can write recommendations about you and vice versa. Write unsolicited recommendations about people you’ve worked with in the past. It will be appreciated.  Your recommendations will show up in the stream of updates from LinkedIn.

11. Follow companies of interest to get updates from them. Consider following your customers or prospective customers. Just search out companies and click “follow.” You’ll receive updates from LinkedIn about these companies’ activities. And, you can keep track of new hires and former employees.

Above all, consider LinkedIn a professional networking environment. Use common sense. Do NOT be salesey or spammy. Be useful. Offer value to your network. You can find opportunities if you engage with your network and if you mine the data to uncover intelligence about people and companies.  Just be wise about how you use that data.  Consider the parallel common sense rule of offline networking at an event. You wouldn’t approach a group of people and slap your business card at them and give them a sales pitch. LinkedIn is all about making connections and building online relationships through professional credibility. LinkedIn can be a very valuable online tool for business development if you use it wisely regardless if you’re in B2B or B2C.

Do you have a LinkedIn social networking success story to share? Add it in the comments section below.

A Step-by-Step Social Media Business Development Plan

David Carothers, Marketing 2.0 Maven

David Carothers is a risk management advisor at Praxiom, a two year old risk management consulting firm. In this podcast interview, David shares how he developed a step-by-step social media business development plan.

Praxiom helps companies save money and reduce risk through business insurance products. My inbound marketing agency is a Praxiom client. David purchased my book, Marketing 2.0, last summer and got inspired to start his social media business development plan (though originally under the cover of darkness) right away. David used my book as a roadmap for his social media plan. But, he purposely didn’t tell anyone at his firm about it. He knew that social media marketing would be met with skepticism, so he worked his plan until he was able to point to tangible business development results. Once he captured new clients from his social media plan, he unveiled it to his colleagues at Praxiom. David had quickly observed that people who use social media are either very successful if they are committed to it, or not successful if they are half hearted about it. So, David decided to go full speed with a social media marketing strategy using the principles he read in my book. David knew he would be bucking the paradigm of traditional outbound marketing strategies commonly used in the risk management industry, which he characterizes as a lot of “dialing for dollars” to create a wide funnel of leads.

A Step-by-Step Social Media Business Development Plan

In early 2010, David set up a step-by-step social media business development plan for other risk management advisors at Praxiom. His plan starts with the basic mandate that everyone’s LinkedIn profile must be built out 100% following the LinkedIn meter. He points out that it’s important for all relevant content assets to be listed in your LinkedIn profile and up to date. In David’s case, he links his LinkedIn profile to his blog and his Slideshare account.

Professional and Social Credibility

David focused his social media business development plan on building two aspects of a client relationship – professional credibility and social credibility. LinkedIn is the platform to build professional credibility along with his blog. David is not a technology guy. So, when he decided to start blogging, he went to Google and searched “how do I build a blog?” David found Hubpages to build a blog. David finds blogging therapeutic. He enjoys sharing very valuable info with his network through his blog. Some of his content is about insurance and some of his content is about non-industry business topics such as how to do business development through LinkedIn.

David also builds social credibility through Facebook. He connects with clients and friends and shares both personal aspects of his life and business content. He opens up the personal aspect for clients to get to know him. He often hosts after hours networking events just to socialize with people and build personal relationships. He uses the Praxiom Facebook fan page to engage with more content at a business level and with photos to add a human aspect.

Content Sharing Strategy

David produces content that helps him build his professional credibility and his social credibility. He uses his Twitter account as a tool to help him spread his content. He views Twitter as the gasoline that drives the engine. Through Twitter management tools he selectively posts content to all his social media accounts. He also shares content from other blogs and tweets about his client’s industry topics, and about general business topics. He understands that by sharing non-industry business content, he gains confidence from clients about his business acumen. Once in a while he tweets a self promoting piece of content. He measures the click through on the content he tweets to help him understand what content people are responding to.

He’s At it Everyday

David is active in his social media accounts every day, multiple times per day. He has built the infrastructure. Now he’s driving the car. The results have exceeded his expectations. When John Keller joined Praxiom, David put him through the step-by-step social media plan. John would arrive each day at 7:30am to get ready for the day.  Six weeks later he had become very active in LinkedIn, blogging, using Twitter, etc. But, he was very discouraged because he didn’t see any results. David advised him to be patient, promising that good results will happen soon.  The same day David offered that advice, John forwarded an email to David. Someone had emailed John asking him to consult for their business on worker’s compensation based on one of his blog posts. This was proof positive of building professional credibility and winning new business. John flew to Atlanta and landed the account for $2.7M in workers comp premiums which translates to over $100k in revenue to Praxiom. Pretty good ROI!

David’s Advice

David doesn’t mince words. He says “either you’re in or not. Don’t do it half hearted. If you’re not 100% in, you won’t see results. If you are, keep at it and you will see results. Once it kicks in, you’ll see the momentum build and ongoing results as you keep at it.”

While I observe some aspects of David’s social media business development plan he could do differently, in the grand scheme of it all it doesn’t matter. Social media marketing isn’t about being perfect. It’s about doing it 100% with commitment and sincerity. As David says, it’s about “building professional and social credibility.” The results will be there.

I encourage you to listen to the 20 minute podcast interview. Just click the play button above. Be sure to subscribe to my podcasts in iTunes.

If you want to learn how you can build professional and social credibility through Facebook or Twitter consider attending one of my Facebook for Marketers or Twitter for Marketers workshops.

The 3 E’s of Content Marketing

When I wrote Marketing 2.0 in 2009 I set out to write a book for the average marketer. My goal was for marketers, particularly in small and midsize businesses and non-profits, to understand what social media is and how to embrace it productively. I boiled my book down to two core principles: content marketing and relationship building (through your content). In this post, I focus on content marketing because it is so crucial. And, truth be told, I still see many marketers struggle with their content marketing strategy.

Any business, in any industry of any size can (and should) create a compelling content strategy. Regardless of your industry, a content strategy should deliver on the 3 E’s.

Educate   |   Enlighten    |    Entertain

We live in an interactive world. People go online to do research about the products they’re considering, the companies behind them and even the people who make and sell them.  There is no hiding behind a corporate façade any longer. It’s not 1997, nor 2007. Those days are long gone. If a company tries to hide behind a corporate identity, they probably don’t even realize how much damage they’re doing to their brand because their corporate head is buried in the sand.

Businesses who produce great content that attracts people to it win. Period! Let’s look at how the 3 E’s of content marketing allow these three companies to market effectively. BTW, it was hard to pick just three examples.

Educate
SpaShopper sells spa pumps, filters, covers and other parts and accessories for spas and hot tubs. Their blog, Hot Tub and Spa Expert focuses mostly on educating consumers on a variety of relevant topics of interest to hot tub and spa owners. The topics range from how often the water needs to be changed, to how to regulate the temperature, adjusting filter cycles, proper use of chemicals, reducing electrical costs, how to winterize your spa and much more you might never have thought of.  In addition to great articles on these topics, they’ve produced educational video on topics such as replacing your spa pump and motor which shows a young lady dressed in overalls replacing a spa pump and motor. The message in these videos is anyone can do it! And the message is delivered in a believable, educational way.  SpaShopper also has product promotions displayed on their blog, which results in product sales each time a new educational blog post is released. A key driver in product sales is how the blog content is spread in part through their Twitter account and Facebook fan page. In full disclosure, SpaShopper is a client.

Enlighten
Sarasota Memorial Hospital (SMH) enlightens by sharing insights about their hospital, their staff, their capabilities, what they care about and about the local community. For example, “Sarasota Memorial’s licensed mental health professionals are on call 24 hours a day to provide free mental health assessments, referrals and advice.” Or, did you know that May is national stroke awareness month? And, did you know that strokes are (unfortunately) rising among younger adults. And, did you know that the city of Sarasota has moved from #11 to #5 in the top 25 small cities according to American Style Magazine. This kind of content is endless on a daily basis from SMH. Of course, they also provide enlightening content through Twitter and Facebook and through a new construction blog. All this enlightening content helps make SMH a well known hospital system. And, it doesn’t hurt that SMH is ranked one of America’s top 100 hospitals according to U.S. News & World Report.

Entertainment
There are so many good examples of companies that use entertainment as part of their content strategy including HubSpot’s videos and, of course, Blendtec. But, the example I’ll share with you is from Indium Corp. Their story has become pretty well known too. They are outstanding content producers. Indium has more than 70 engineers blogging about solder paste applications in the electronic assembly manufacturing industry. That’s obviously a very narrow niche. If you’re not an engineer in the electronic assembly market, you wouldn’t be a reader of their blogs. But, the engineers who read these blogs, many of whom are PhDs, have a sense of humor.  Rick Short at Indium decided to create some videos designed to make fun of themselves.  As Rick readily admits, Indium is humanizing themselves by poking fun at the importance of solder paste. Let’s face it, while solder paste is very important to electronic assembly manufacturers, it’s not a product linked with romance or cheer on Christmas. Yet, Rick made video parodies about giving a tub of Indium’s solder paste to his wife on Valentine’s day and to a little girl on Christmas day. The result? Rick is effectively humanizing Indium and creating buzz that often creates new opportunities. Rick was once walking the halls of a trade show in China when he was approached by someone who saw his Valentine’s Day video. Rick had to explain that he didn’t really give his wife a tub of solder paste. It was a joke! Indium’s overall content strategy delivers on all 3 E’s including entertainment.

I hope these three examples have provided some inspiration to develop a content strategy that delivers on the 3 E’s. If you’ve only been delivering one of the 3 E’s that’s a good start. Consider what else you can do with your content to expand into the other 2 E’s. Study your competition. Don’t copy what they’re doing (if they’re doing any good content marketing). Rather, look for ways to capitalize on your strengths and differentiators by creating more content that delivers on each of the 3 E’s.

Did you give someone you love a tub of solder paste on Valentine’s Day? If not, now you have an idea for next year…

Top Five Reasons Podcast Content Marketing is Misunderstood

I often wonder why podcast content marketing isn’t more popular than it is. I admit I’m biased since I’m a podcaster. But, I’m also an avid podcast consumer. I was a consumer of podcast content long before I became a podcast content producer. Now, I listen to podcasts in my car more than I listen to the radio or CDs. My iPod is filled with podcasts, rather than music.  iTunes makes it easy for anyone to find and consume content in podcast format.

The Three E’s
In my book, Marketing 2.0, I encourage marketers to produce content that delivers on the three E’s: educate, enlighten, entertain. Podcast content is a terrific medium to deliver on any of the three E’s. But, why isn’t podcast content more popular?

I offer five reasons why podcast content isn’t more popular.

Podcasts Are Not Indexed by Search Engines
Unlike Facebook fan pages and conventional web and blog pages, a podcast is not indexable by search engines. Podcasts are audio files uploaded into a subscribable format such as iTunes or another podcast directory such as Podcast Pickle. You can also subscribe to podcasts from a blog with a link to iTunes. But, to get the most current podcast you must either visit iTunes to synch or visit the producer’s blog to listen to current podcasts.

iTunes is Big But It’s Not YouTube
Apple may enjoy more market share than Google with the iPhone over the Google Nexus One, but when it comes to video content, Google’s YouTube rules. While video podcasts are available, most podcasts are audio. Let’s face it, audio is just not as popular as video. And, with the iPad here, delivering an even more rich media experience, video will remain more popular than audio as the netbook market continues to grow.

Podcasts Are Not Understood by the Masses
I’ve often heard marketers refer to their audio file on their website as a podcast. A podcast is only a podcast when you can subscribe to it and get updates through a feed. The lack of understanding of a podcast as a content delivery medium combined with the high popularity of video contributes to low popularity of podcasts.

Inconsistent Quality of Podcasts
Let’s be honest, some podcast content producers just don’t produce quality audio. I’ve often downloaded podcasts based on the title and description only to listen to just a few minutes before ditching it due to poor audio quality. Worse yet, the audio quality is good but the personalities on the show babble for 10 minutes before getting to the point. Good podcasts get to the content quickly and engage their listeners, creating a loyal audience.

Lack of Consistent Content from Producers
If you want to listen to podcasts on marketing, you have plenty of choices among content producers with a track record. But, there is a high rate of abandonment among podcast producers, due at least in part to the lack of monetization opportunities around most podcast content. Therefore, many podcast shows start and end often within a few weeks or months. Podcast content producers should adopt a content marketing mindset, only starting a podcast series when they can commit to longevity.

The Bright Side of Podcasting
If this blog post was about the good, the bad and the ugly of podcasting, the five reasons above address the bad and ugly. Now, let’s get to the good because there is plenty of good in podcasting.  First, there are in fact many terrific podcast shows produced by terrific peeps. Below I offer you a list of some of my favorite podcasts. Admittedly, these podcasts are all about marketing. If you have other favorites, please add yours to this list in the comments section below.

Find and Convert Podcast
This is my podcast. It’s my favorite because I thoroughly enjoy producing it. I interview ordinary marketers doing extraordinary marketing. I produce two or more podcasts per month, each providing an interview with a guest that has valuable experiences and insights to share about their marketing strategy. My guests are regular marketers just like my listeners. My audience can relate to these guests and gain inspiration from their stories. I deliver mostly on the first 2 of the 3 E’s. On occasion, there may be some light entertainment.

DishyMix
The DishyMix podcast is hosted by podcasting extraordinaire Susan Bratton. Susan interviews digital marketing executives, many of whom are authors, CEOs and entrepreneurs. Susan’s interview style is one of the best. She really does her homework with each guest, and consequently brings out his or her best. Susan Bratton is CEO of podcast empire PersonalLifeMedia, a portal of podcasts ranging across all topics ranging from art, health, news, politics, marketing and many others.  Susan delivers on all three E’s with DishyMix. I am the self appointed #1 fan of DishyMix.

HubSpot TV
HubSpot TV is a weekly video podcast that airs live on Friday’s at 4pm. People tune in live to watch HubSpot.TV every Friday, or download it from iTunes and time shift it as I do. Their format is comprised of hosts Mike Volpe and Karen Rubin running through inbound marketing news from the week, offering tips, advice and their own, sometimes controversial commentary. Their personalities are so different, it makes for an interesting chemistry. Mike and Karen usually have a guest on their show to discuss the guest’s claim to marketing fame. HubSpot TV delivers on all three E’s with a heavy dose of entertainment mostly through Karen’s off the wall humor.

Marketing Over Coffee
Christopher Penn and John Wall record a weekly podcast from a Dunkin Donuts in the Boston area. They cover current news in marketing with a bit of a technical twist. They often provide tips on how to fine tune various aspects of your permission based email or social media plans. I always learn something from Penn and Wall. Therefore, I find their content to deliver on first two of the three E’s.

Six Pixels of Separation
Mitch Joel, CEO of digital media agency TwistImage, author of the book Six Pixels of Separation, and frequent speaker hosts this weekly podcast which comes in two flavors. He usually interviews interesting people in marketing with great conversation around contemporary marketing topics such as the future of  newspapers in a digital society. His conversational tone is always pleasant and interesting.  His other podcast is called Media Hacks and features a group of social media mavens who banter about anything. The unscripted conversation is always colorful and usually interesting. Both of these podcasts deliver on the first of the two E’s.

Podcast Show Notes
When a podcast is linked to a blog post, the show notes can provide a written summary to readers and provide search engine results on the topic of the podcast. I write a blog post for each of my podcasts in part to broaden the exposure of my podcast. But, I also recognize that I may get readers of the blog post who won’t listen to the podcast, and vice versa. So, writing a blog post is an effective way to straddle both lines of blogging and podcasting. The show notes also create SEO value for the podcast content because the post will be indexed in search engines.

Podcasting has been around for less than a decade. It’s been trumped by video in popularity. But, consumers who want to get smarter on a topic of interest should search out podcasts starting with iTunes and subscribe to them. Marketers looking for another content channel should consider producing a podcast series.  If you’re a marketer that has never produced a podcast series, you may want to consider it. But, consider your ability to commit to a show with regular frequency. Even it your frequency is only monthly, as your audience grows they will expect your monthly show. You won’t want to disappoint them once you’ve developed an audience.

I invite you to visit my podcast page. You’ll find my podcast interviews to be about ordinary marketers doing extraordinary marketing across a range of topics including B2B marketing, SEO, social networking, inbound marketing, experiential marketing, small business marketing, measuring results, success stories and others.

If you have favorite podcasts to add to my list, please add them in the comments below.

Inbound Marketing Is All About Leverage

Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Survey

HubSpot recently released a report on the State of Inbound Lead Generation. The report is a result of interviews with more than 1,400 HubSpot customers who are mostly small and mid size businesses. A webinar delivered by Rick Burnes and Sophie Schmitt of HubSpot summarized the findings.

The findings are very interesting and very compelling especially for businesses who are either still sitting on the sidelines or are flat out skeptics of inbound marketing. I find that overwhelmingly those businesses who don’t buy into the inbound marketing mindset haven’t allowed themselves to break out of a decades-old paradigm. But, the earth is shifting and marketers simply can’t ignore the facts especially as more facts become available such as those in this report from HubSpot.

Critics of this research may say that the companies interviewed are users of the HubSpot inbound marketing software. Of course! You wouldn’t survey people sun bathing on a beach about their winter vacation habits and expect that data to be of high integrity.

HubSpot has built a customer base of more than 2,500 customers. While the degree to which each customer is using the full gamut of inbound marketing strategies to include SEO, blogging, social networking and generally a strong content marketing mindset may vary, the common denominator is they buy into the fact inbound marketing can effectively produce leads.

So, here are some of the most compelling findings from this report.

The More Google Indexed Web Pages the More Leads Produced

Businesses with 60 to 120 Google indexed pages produced a median of 7 leads per month. Those with 176 to 310 Google indexed pages produced a median of 22 leads per month. Those with 311 + Google indexed pages produced a median of 74 leads per month. This triple digit growth is achievable through a bonafide, committed, consistent blog strategy.

Business Who Blog Produce More Leads

As stated above businesses with more Google indexed web pages produce more leads. The most practical way to increase indexed page count is by having a blog connected to your website. This chart shows that companies who blog produce more leads.

Blog Size Matters
The survey proved that having a blog alone doesn’t move the needle. The more content the better. The data suggests that fewer than 10 blog posts didn’t make a difference in lead generation. But, more than 20 blog posts demonstrated more leads from those surveyed.

Twitter Matters in B2C
B2C businesses who use Twitter produce twice as many leads as those who don’t use Twitter. Though this research doesn’t account for B2B businesses on Twitter I’m a fan of Twitter due to the reach it can provide and ability to spread your content. For example, in addition to my personal Twitter account, Find and Convert also has a Twitter account.

More Keywords Ranking in Top 100 Produce More Leads

This data point proves two myths wrong. Myth #1 is that many businesses think the only ranking that matters is for a small number of keywords which typically represent their core business. Sometimes it’s just one keyword phrase. Myth #2 is that the only rank that matters is page 1. Of course, we all want to rank #1 on page 1. But, this data shows that businesses who have dozens of keywords ranking in the top 100 rankings get more leads. This translates to having dozens of keywords that rank across the first 10 pages of Google. The way to look at this is like a diversified portfolio of assets. The value is in the total portfolio, not any one asset. Having dozens of relevant longtail keywords that rank in the first 10 pages of Google will produce more leads.  These two myths are shattered in the chart below.

It’s All About Leverage

This webinar concluded with the concept of leverage. Inbound marketing allows a company to leverage content assets online to produce connections with people who have interest in your company’s products. Ignoring this leverage opportunity is very risky in a marketing economy where established competitors can surpass you with inbound marketing strategies quickly. Worse yet, newer nimble and inbound marketing savvy competitors can come out of seemingly nowhere and eat your lunch.

Get on the inbound marketing bandwagon. A good place to start is with my book, Marketing 2.0 . I wrote Marketing 2.0 for executives and their staff looking for a basic understanding of how social media and inbound marketing strategies can bridge the gap between sellers and buyers. Mike Volpe, V.P. Inbound Marketing at HubSpot wrote the foreword of my book. Those who’ve read it say it provides a good primer to get started. Check out the reviews.

Allow me to give a plug for the fact my inbound marketing agency is a certified HubSpot partner. We can help you get started producing more leads through inbound marketing or take it to the next level.

Outbound Marketing Meets Inbound Marketing

When can an avid inbound marketer like me get behind an outbound marketing company? When it involves creative innovation that  allows marketers to cost effectively reach their target market AND create an inbound opportunity which is supported by the marketer’s content.

Enthusem is online system for marketers to send personalized printed messages with an online call to action and tracking to back it up. Here’s how it works.  I run Find and Convert, an inbound marketing agency. Let’s say I have identified a list of 100 companies I would like to target for our inbound marketing services. Rather than waiting for them to find and contact me, I could reach out to them through Enthusem in a very personalized and creative way that may get their attention. I would send an Enthusem card to one or more executives at each of these companies. Each card would be personalized to each individual with an image on the face of the card which is visible through the envelope. For example, let’s say I saw the CEO of a target company speak at a conference and I took his picture. I can put that image on the front of the card. The message inside the card would reference a key point he made during his talk that I found very insightful and I would like to discuss further with him. The call to action would be an invitation to visit a digital piece of content of mine that is consistent with the point he made during his talk.  How unique is that? Can you see how this CEO would likely at least open the card and read it when he sees his picture of him speaking on the front of the card?  Of course, my goal is to get the prospect to become an inbound visitor to my content to attract them to our inbound marketing services.

Below is a screenshot of how I would upload the image of the CEO making that presentation into Enthusem.

When the recipient of my card visits the landing page I’ve uploaded to Enthusem, I will be notified by email. I recognize that since I’m marketing to another business, they may not be ready to buy when they visit my content. So, now that I know they’ve visited my content, I can plan to invite them to another piece of content such as my Facebook fan page or a particular blog article on a topic I think may be of interest. In other words now, I can nurture that lead using the lead nurturing feature in HubSpot.

Enthusem is the only outbound marketing system (that I know about) that truly combines personalized outbound marketing with inbound marketing strategies. The online attachment to a personalized card is the content which marries the outbound touch to the inbound contact. When someone receives my Enthusem card one of two things can happen. They can read the card and toss it. Or, they can read the card and visit the online attachment. In both cases, I’ve created some awareness for my brand. In the latter, I’ve created a lead which I can nurture.

Back to my example of targeting 100 businesses. If I mailed them an Enthusem card once each month, my cost would about $300. That’s not a typo. I didn’t leave off a zero. It’s about $3 per card out the door. I can select the image for the front of the card, create the personalized message, upload my online attachment and schedule to send a card, all for $3. And, I can log into my account from my laptop or from my mobile device.

Steve Tingiris, CEO of Enthusem says it best. “We live in a longtail world. It’s no longer dozens of markets of millions, rather millions of markets of dozens. Enthusem allows you to reach niche markets cost effectively, generate leads and measure them.” Below is a brief interview I did with Steve.

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