Status updates don't equal quality for SMEs

I’ve talked about my take on Twitter before. My biggest complaint/knock is that there are millions of people Tweeting but far less people listening. Bottom line: too much noise and not enough value compared to other ways to invest time and money in Internet Marketing.

That being said, I’m not totally against Twitter. I’ll agree that there are some ways to put Twitter to use effectively (more on this in a second), but just a very small percentage of Twitterers use the tool effectively.

Up to this point in time, one of the best uses of Twitter is to establish or enhance a brand’s perception by playing the role of a subject matter expert (SME). For example, a real estate broker in a crowded marketplace could differentiate him or herself by avoiding the temptation of tweeting endlessly about their own listings and instead offering helpful content to homebuyers and sellers. Twitter users in that marketplace who subscribe to the broker develop a sense of trust about the broker, making them more likely to be clients. That should result in more business for the broker (a nice ROI).

The benefits of being an SME depend on the specifics of the industry, but the universal benefit is differentiation. And differentiation usually equals more business. For example, it could mean more leads or the ability to charge a higher hourly rate for consulting, speaking, or training.

There are plenty of great examples of  SMEs out there in the Twitterverse, but the one that defines how to be an SME on Twitter is Darren Rovell (Klout score of 75). Darren’s area of expertise is the business of sports. The subject doesn’t really matter, so don’t stop reading because you hate sports. It’s the way Darren uses Twitter to compliment everything else he does (like blogging, for example) that makes him the expert in his field. That’s something we can all learn from.

Here are the keys to becoming an SME on Twitter:
NOTE: Remember, I’m talking only about subject matter experts here. I’m not talking about social media geeks like Robert Scoble (who I like reading and following), celebrities (pick any one of thousands on Twitter) or other personal uses of Twitter.

An original, high-quality tweet from SME Darren Rovell.

1. Stay focused on building credibility.
If you’re goal is to be an SME, then you have to be ultra-focused. That means facing a reality that’s hard for a lot of people to swallow: little-to-no status updates. Listen to me carefully: no one cares what you’re doing or what you just did unless it has something to do with your area of expertise.

For example, let’s say my goal is to be an SME in financial planning. That means I shouldn’t be Tweeting about the tough workout I just had at the gym. Reason number one, no one really cares. Second, that doesn’t do anything to help position me as an SME. It tells people I take care of myself, but it doesn’t make me a better authority on financial planning. The alternative is tweeting tips for people so they can afford a monthly gym membership, or how staying in shape is a way of being fiscally responsible because it cuts down on future health costs.

Back to Darren. If he’s at an event that’s huge in sports business, like the Super Bowl for example, he’ll mention it because he’s probably meeting with a huge sponsor. But you’ll never read Tweets about the great meal he had or how mad he is because his flight is delayed. As a result, his body of work in Twitter has a very high usefulness ratio (meaning a low percentage of his Tweets are useless info like status updates).

2. Be original.
SMEs tweet original content. Period. That means limited retweets.

Why? Because at the end of the day at retweet is an acknowledgment that someone else had something valuable to say. If I am trying to be an SME in social media and 75% of my content are retweets from Mashable, then I’m not very original. And therefore I’m not an SME, I’m just a news channel. There’s a huge difference.

Contributing original content is where Darren is particularly effective. Here are some examples from his Twitter feed that illustrate how to be original:

Original thoughts:
In case you couldn’t figure this one out: original thoughts are your own observations about your subject matter. Being proactive is key, as opposed to always reacting to what someone else in the industry tweeted or wrote in an article. The more original, the more potential value they contain because interested followers are more likely to be engaged in a conversation – critical for Twitter success. To the right is an example of original content from Darren. He observed a professional football player that is holding out for a better contract has been so quiet that he hasn’t even tweeted in a long time. Granted, that might not get you excited. But someone who is really into the subject matter of business and sports would read that and think that’s an interesting observation. And it’s powerful because it didn’t come from anywhere else. Darren thought of it himself and posted it.

Authoritative Opinions
Followers will look to SMEs to chime in with their opinions on things happening in that niche. An SME can’t be afraid to take a stand and stir the waters a bit. In the tweet to the right, Darren has sounded off about a recent trend in college football where teams have decided to ban their players from being able to use social media tools like Twitter during the season (mostly out of a fear that the players will say something that the other team will take offense to, thus additionally motivating the other team). No doubt this was a popular topic in his industry. Darren found a way to take a stand on the topic while trying to get reactions from readers. Again, increased engagement only makes him look better.

3. Plug your stuff, but don’t be a cheesy salesman. The whole point of being an SME is to build up credibility in the marketplace. The more credibility and the more the perceived level of expertise, the better it is for the brand.

In Darren’s case, he’s known as the guy to talk to in situations where sports and business collide. For example, when the whole Tiger Woods drama went down at the end of last year. Darren was the person every network wanted to talk to about how Tiger’s indiscretions were affecting his portfolio of high-paying sponsors. For Darren, the more her makes appearances and the more his opinion is in demand, the more he’s worth. All of that will really pay off the next time he’s up for a contract negotiation.

Back to my point…one of the keys to being an SME is to plug your other content (for example, your blog) without being a cheesy salesman. I never want to click a link when someone teases it with, “Read my blog post” or any other obvious line like that. I’m not saying you should be deceitful to try and get people to read your stuff, I’m just saying you don’t need to go so heavy on the plugging. If your content is good, people will read it. Darren does a good job in the example above.

What are some of the ways you effectively position yourself as an SME? Who are some of the SMEs you think do the best job using Twitter? Let’s discuss in the comment section below.

I love chatting about search engine marketing and social media with people. It’s one of the more fun parts of my job. In almost every conversation I have with clients or potential clients, I get asked for my take on one thing or another. I realized that people that I talk to are asking these questions, then people I don’t talk to directly (but they look at my website) probably have the same questions. I put up a page with my up-to-the-minute Internet Marketing philosophies on the most sought after areas in Internet Marketing (at least they are the areas that I get asked about the most).

My opinions on these things change from time-to-time (for example, my opinion on Foursquare changes every few days), so I’m going to do my best to keep updating this.

Of course I have more to say about each area, but it’s designed to be used as my high-level thoughts on each topic. Let me know if you have other areas you’d like me to address.

I’m 50-plus checkins deep into my Foursquare career and I’ve realized my future as a mayor in the geo-location app is limited. Even though I’m relatively brand new to the game, it’s clear already that there’s only so many mayoral crowns that are within my reach.

The reason? My home office.

Yep. My choice to run a lean internet marketing consulting operation and work at home stifles my ability to become a prolific Foursquare mayor. No Super Mayor badge for me. Bummer.
A quick look at what constitutes a normal week for me backs up my theory:

• A bunch of hours at work (more later why I’m not going to checkin for work)
• Tons of phone calls / virtual meetings (can’t checkin to those) instead of heavy travel
• Lunch meetings (but most days I eat at the office)
• Face-to-face client meetings
• Admin-related trips: places I need to go to for the business. For example, my mailbox, bank, etc.
• Stuff for fun: running, eating out, going to the beach, playing golf

So if you look at my schedule, the only places I realistically have a chance to be mayor are the destinations for my admin trips because I visit each one a few times per week. In fact, right now those are the only places I’m mayor or have been mayor.

Why not my the mayor of my home office? I’m not ready to be that guy who adds his home office as a venue. That seems kind of weird to me. First, I wouldn’t want anyone else checking in – like a random neighbor. Second, isn’t that a cheap mayorship?

Moving down the list, fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t eat lunch outside the office at the same place enough to get a crown. And my face-to-face meetings are usually at coffee shops. There’s no way I’ll be mayor at any of those. Foursquare users flock to those places every day (if not more than once per day). The fact that I go for runs and not to the gym is another limitation. I wish I golfed enough to be mayor at a local course!

So I am announcing now to all of my current and future Foursquare friends: I have no intentions of becoming the Super Mayor I thought I could be. Don’t blame me. Blame my comfy desk in my office.

What are your thoughts? Why do you use Foursquare? Is it for the mayorships or the badges?

Qualified traffic.

Small business owners and startups who rely heavily on their website for sales all stress over how to get more of it. Oh, and they want it cheap. Quite the conundrum!

There are lots of ways to get more traffic. All involve some level of investment (either time or money). None involve some level of magic (unfortunately, because that would be kind of cool).

Success acquiring qualified traffic starts with getting the basics right first. And the basics don’t always involve hiring a super-expensive SEO firm that claims they are going to make you millions in 3 months (by the way if anyone tells you that, just hang up).

If your website can do all of the following, you’ll see more qualified traffic. And it won’t burn a huge hole in your wallet.

1. SEO fundamentals - if you are going to do just one thing, this is the one. This all starts with making sure your keyword list is accurate (pertains to your specific products and services) and realistic. For example, stop trying to compete for the broad keywords that the big brands shell out tens of thousands of dollars per month to dominate. Start out with local terms and build your way up. If you can afford it, hire a professional to build that keyword list for you. If you don’t get that list right, it will make everything else on this list a lot harder.

Use those keywords to build your URLs and meta data (page titles and meta descriptions). Get those keywords in H1 tags, alt tags, and in the content (without blatantly stuffing them in there). Do all of these things are your website will have the basic foundation you need to start chasing organic traffic.

2. Choose the right domain - whenever possible, build your website (or an affiliate website to feed your website traffic) around an exact match domain. For example, if your business is in car insurance, the most valuable domain in that industry will be carinsurance.com. Domains that are an exact match get bonus points from the search engines that can be tough for competitors to overcome.

3. Link-worthy content – search engines love quality, unique content. And they like to see lots of it being added frequently. Coming up with a 6-12 month content strategy for your website is crucial. And every bit of content you create should always be worthy of a link, meaning someone reads it and thinks it’s so good that they want to link to it from their website or blog. If it doesn’t pass the linkworthiness test, toss it and move on to the next idea. Remember, links are GOLD. The more links you can acquire from quality and relevant sources, the better it will perform in organic search (which should lead to more traffic).

3A. Linkbait - this is a lot easier said than done. It’s almost like trying to come up with an idea for a viral video. Everyone tries it, but very few execute it to the point they get a return. The thing I always tell people when they ask how to create something viral is to look within to see if your business produces unique data. Then think of a way to present it in a clever, visual way that doesn’t require any heavy lifting to understand. The best recent example I can think of was this post by Mint. This may or may not have come from internal data, but it sure garnered a lot of attention because it was topical and easy-to-grasp (especially the video). Look at all of the retweets and comments! Best of all, they picked up hundreds of links. That’s the real value.

4. Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising - this is the the fastest way to pick up lots of qualified leads. It can also be the most expensive. If you have money to burn, try it yourself but don’t get frustrated with the long learning curve. Chances are you’ll be competing with professionals that really know how to play the PPC game. So many companies try to manage this on their own and become so disenchanted with the whole thing that refuse to get involved again. All that does is block a very valuable source of traffic. So either be patient or hire a pro.

5. StumbleUpon - these days you have to be really lucky to have something get hot on Digg or Reddit. Don’t waste your time trying to compete. Stumble is an easy way to pick up some traffic. And it’s free to Stumble your own content! Just make sure when you Stumble something that you put it in the right category.

6. Word-of-mouth - take extra good care of your customers and you will be rewarded. The more you make them feel like you’re listening, the more likely they are to refer you to their friends. It doesn’t cost anything to treat someone right.

7. Two-way conversation - make your site social. The key here is you have to have great content. Try to write only about things that your target audience really cares about. Offer them a place to discuss it with you (like in a comment section). Not only will you get return traffic but you’ll learn a lot about what your customers think and want from a product like yours.

Here’s what didn’t make the list: Facebook and Twitter.

Look, you’re a startup or a small business. There are only so many hours in the day and resources are most likely not unlimited. I think having Facebook pages and Twitter accounts are time traps. Everyone says, follow me on Faceboook and and Twitter! But how many companies are really doing things on either that’s producing business? Very few. And it’s mostly big brands that can pay people to just monitor their presence on those properties. Until you can afford to do that, put all of your money towards getting traffic to your website.

Have you tried any of these tips? What was your experience? Let’s chat in the comment section below.

I’ve recently noticed a lot of companies making the same exact mistake in social media. They make an announcement about new content they want you to read on their website, but they forget to include a link to said content.

Look, I know no one out there is perfect when it comes to social media practices. It’s still relatively new and there is a learning curve (don’t believe anyone who tells you success on social media is instantaneous). In fact, I applaud companies for trying. But from what I’ve seen, too many companies are forgetting a basic fundamental of usability – make it easy for the user to find the content they want. The harder it is to for them to find, the less chance they will have a good experience on your website and return again.

From what I’ve seen, the offense is taking place more via Facebook Fan Pages than Twitter (although I have seen it happen more than once on Twitter). The announcement typically sounds something like this,

“We just posted a new/great/helpful article about XYZ on our website. Check it out!”.

I cringe every time I see it. No link or any sort of direction about how to find it once you actually get to the website. (Aside: I left out the annoying trailing set of four exclamation points. That’s a topic for another day.)

Here’s why not including a link is wrong:
1. No one has the time or patience to look for anything. Let me get this straight. You want me to read your update, type in your URL, then magically find the new fantastic content you mentioned? Sounds like a homework assignment. I’m out. If there is a perception that work to find your content is involved, your conversion rate will be super-low, if not zero.

2. It’s hard enough to build a loyal user-base. If you’ve been lucky enough to build an audience, treat them like gold. Don’t blow it by using social media. Make your announcement short-and-sweet and lay out the red carpet with a link that takes them right to the new content. If your content is as great as you think it is, then they will keep clicking every time you post.

3. You wouldn’t do it on your website. So why is it okay to do in a social media? Is it because you feel like you are limited by a certain number of characters. Word to the wise: something isn’t worth tweeting if you need more than 140 characters to say it. If you need more words, then you should be using your blog and not Twitter.

The solution to this problem is really simple. Just add a link to the end of your Facebook post or your tweet. Advanced users should strongly consider using a URL-shortener with tracking like bit.ly.

Here’s an example from my last blog post:

Now I’m not claiming I get 100% click-thru rates every time I tweet or post to our Fan Page, but I get a heck of a lot more people reading my content than if I didn’t include a link.

Have you seen this same mistake lately? I’d love to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Ever wonder how to automatically post your Tweets to their own separate tab on your Facebook Fan Page instead of on the Wall tab? Well, I’ve been trying to figure it out and finally did thanks to Involver.

Involver has a free and simple-to-install app called Twitter for pages that allows you to setup a separate Twitter tab on your Facebook fan page.

Here’s a view of Brand5′s Facebook Fan Page with the Twitter tab installed.

Here’s what you need to to do install it (it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes):

1. Make sure you are logged in to your Facebook account.

2. Visit the Involver app gallery and click “Install” in the Twitter app box.

3. From the dropdown, select the Fan Page that you want to install the Twitter tab to.

4. Click the “Add Twitter for Pages” button.

5. Fill out the form and click the “Save & Continue” button. The form asks for pretty basic info. Asking for your phone number is lame, but there’s no validation so you can put in a fake.

6. Click the “Continue to Fan Page” button”

7. Click the tab with the “+” on it and then select “Twitter” from the dropdown.

That’s it. Complete those steps and you’re done. Every time you Tweet, it will automatically post to this new tab you created. From what I have experienced, it take a couple of hours for the tab to update.

Here’s what the Twitter tab looks like on the Fan Page I used in this example:

Involver offers some premium services, but unfortunately doesn’t say what they are unless you contact them through a form. That’s unfortunate.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. By the way, this post is not an endorsement for the Involver Twitter app. I am not being compensated in any way for this post.

In case you aren’t one of the cast of thousands (slightly exaggerated) that regularly reads the great content we generate here, a blog adds a lot of SEO value to your website. If you don’t have a blog as part of your current content strategy, then you need to set one up. As always, I recommend WordPress.

Once you have a WordPress blog, I highly recommend you socialize it – make it easy for people to spread your content virally through social media. If you don’t socialize your content, it’s going to sit on an island waiting for the search engine to rescue it. Socializing can bring your blog traffic it probably wouldn’t otherwise get.
Think about it this way – most social media sites (Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon) have way more users than your site ever will. Don’t try to compete. Instead, make your content available to more people through those different mediums and bring in extra traffic.

Besides this blog, we’ve setup some other blogs for clients (here’s the most recent). In doing so, we’ve had a chance to try most of the plugins available.

Here’s a review of some of the ones we’ve used:

Disqus Comment System (download)
From my experience, this is the best commenting system available. If you want comments on your blog, you need to use this. There are a lot of features, but the coolest part is that it integrates with Facebook and Twitter. That means that commentors can elect to have their comments automatically post to the Facebook wall or Twitter account.  From a moderator’s perspective, you can either approve all comments or let them all ride. You can also build your own commenting profile that works all over the web on other sites that use the same commenting system.

TweetMeme ReTweet Button (download)
I rank this plugin as a “must-have”. First of all, Twitter is the hottest thing out there and is not going away anytime soon. If your readers are on Twitter, this is the most effective way to make your content re-tweetable. What’s cool is that you can easily see who else has ReTweeted your content by just clicking the grey box. This week they just added an analytics program (with a 30 day free trial) that sounds like it might be valuable.

Facebook Share Count (download)
I first saw this being used on Mashable. It’s just one click to post a blog entry onto your Facebook wall. And the counter updates pretty much right away. Out of all of the Facebook plugins I’ve tried so far, this is the best one.

ShareThis (download)
This plugin adds a little button to the beginning or end of your blog post that allows people to share your content with virtually any bookmarking or social media site available. I used to think this one was really cool because it’s so comprehensive. But from what I’ve seen, it offers too many choices. Plus, only really techy people know what it is (and click on it). Also, this one is kind of a pain to install. You need to wait to get an email from the developer and then paste some code into the settings in WordPress. For these reasons I have switched to Sociable.

Sociable (download)
This is my pick of the moment for plugins that allow you to share your content. I like it’s simplicity. As a reader, you see the logos of the site you want to share it on, and click it. No scrolling to find the one you want. This too has the option to add share buttons for seemingly every single bookmark website out there. The difference between this and ShareThis is that it’s way easier to pick which ones you want included on your lineup.
Give these plugins a try and let me know what you think. I’d also love to hear about any other you’ve tried and either liked or disliked.

Does your business have a Facebook Fan Page? If not, you should consider creating one. It’s a very valuable way to connect to your customers amongst an incredibly committed user base (more than 300 million active users and growing fast).

If you do have a Fan Page, do you promote it either on your website or blog with a Fan Box? A Fan Box is a little snippet of code that you can paste into your website or blog. Here’s an example:

A Fan Box is the perfect way to drive awareness of your Fan Page. More importantly, you will get more fans!

Here’s a real-world example from Matt Hasselbeck, one of our clients. Just before the first game of the NFL season on September 13, we added a Fan Box to his home page. At that time, he had 2,716 fans. According to Insights, a handful of users became fans every week prior to adding the Fan Box.

Since we added the Fan Box, his fan base has jumped to 3,023 (as I write this). That’s better than a 11 percent increase in just over two weeks. Since we launched his Fan Page in early 2008, there’s never been a spike like this.

Here’s a screenshot of the chart over that same time from Insights.

It shouldn’t be too hard to believe that promotion raises awareness which leads to more “conversions”, especially with something like a Facebook Fan Page. Fan Pages are still relatively obscure. And, people don’t really know where to go to find them for their favorite brands.

So if you have customers on Facebook, connect with them through a Fan Page. Make sure you use a Fan Box to publicize to your customers your presence on Facebook. Once you do that, watch for your numbers of fans to increase.