In my post last week (Would you pay for Twitter?) I got a comment from a reader who asked:

“Here’s my question, if you are a business and offer a lot of things for free, how do you parley that into appropriate revenue without disengaging your audience?”

That is a very good question, and one that every business (or would-be business) should be asking. I started thinking about this a couple of years ago, posting this article (How Can You Measure the Value of a Conversation?) in October ’08. Here is the heart of the message:

Make money “because of”, not with

The “because of” effect is much more powerful than the “with” effect. One of the commenters on Jason’s post, Mack Collier (The Viral Garden), hits the nail on the head with:

…companies that are NEW to social media, wanting to use metrics and measurements that they are used to when using TRADITIONAL marketing methods to ‘get their message out there’. Their thinking is ‘how do we make money from this?’, whereas companies that have been active in this space for a while, such as Dell, understand that by PARTICIPATING that they will make more money as a BYPRODUCT of their efforts. Dell has been in the game long enough to see the impact that their efforts are making, and as a result have shifted away from the ‘how do we make money with this?’ mentality.

Attempting to DIRECTLY monetize social media efforts is the quickest way to ensure they fail. But companies that aren’t familiar with this space don’t know any better. In a few years, after more companies are more familiar with these tools, I think we’ll see them looking to INdirectly monetize their efforts, while putting the focus on SM as a way to DIRECTLY connect with their customers.

One of the best lessons that I learned from the SOBCon event that I attended in May was that blogging (and Social Media in general) should be treated like a business. That business is the marketing of your products and services & establishing yourself/your business as an authority. The goal of that business is to make money because of your blog (or Social Media efforts), instead of with your blog.

Let me repeat that for you – “by PARTICIPATING [you] will make more money as a BYPRODUCT of [your] efforts”.

Money as a by-product of participation

How exactly does this work? Well, it is both easier and more difficult than it sounds. The very first thing that your business can provide for free to its customers is Value. Something above and beyond the products and services that gives your customers a reason to visit your place of business or website, or follow you on Twitter, or friend you on Facebook (this list goes on and on).

For a real-world example, using a “place of business”, look at Starbucks. The mental images of the starving artist or writer slaving away over a venti latte, or the entrepreneur using Starbucks as an office are so common as to be a cliche. But they are a cliche because Starbucks offers something that places like McDonald’s do not – a welcoming atmosphere with music and ambiance, access to coffee and snacks, and typically like-minded folks to chat with. That is the value. That is what makes people come back.

Now, this example is not representative of what you can do with Social Media, or is it? Imagine that your blog or website is the Starbucks, how do you go about inviting people to come and hang out there? Give away some cool, free stuff. I’m talking about your blog posts, or FAQs on your industry, or whatever it is that draws people to your site in the first place. Give them the answer or information about the solution to the problem that they have, then give them even more. Add value.

Then add an opportunity for your visitors to have a conversation.

If you let them speak they will come

Online communities are exploding in popularity and will continue to grow. As Clay Shirky discusses in his book Cognitive Surplus (review here Thoughts on Cognitive Surplus) people crave community and the online space has the lowest barrier to entry, ever. Letting your customers talk to you and to each other gives you a Starbucks-like place for your potential marketspace to congregate. Then, and only then, can you get involved in the conversation – providing that added value, building your credibility and authority, and finally creating a rapport that invites your community to ask to buy something from you.

Jeffrey Gitomer says “People hate to be sold, but they love to buy”

In his Little Red Book of Selling (which every blogger and business person should read by the way) Gitomer says, “If they like you, and they believe you, and they trust you, and they have confidence in you…then they may buy from you.” That is what you are doing when you build the community and marketspace. Do ask compelling and engaging questions. Don’t sell your product or service.

Ask the community what they think. Talk about profit and productivity. Remember, they are taking the time to be involved in their community, not your community, it all needs to be about them.

I trust that this has given you some ideas for your own business and how to apply this concept to create more sales as  by-product of your Social Media activities. If you still have questions and are interested in being the feature of a case study on this topic (to be published for free on this site), please send me an email and we can talk about your situation.

I am a fan of gadgets and I am simply in love with my Android phone. Now, thanks to the technology of the Digital Video Recorder in my cable box and the video camera in my phone I can share with you a moment that I captured on TV yesterday: a newscaster on location, giving a live report – caught on camera reading the report from her phone.

She must have been in a hurry to prepare this report, because her voice is clear and her delivery is tight, until she realizes that she is back on the air herself, no longer speaking over some other images. Then her delivery collapses. Here is Amy Coveno, WMUR Channel 9, caught reading from her phone during a live
report on 5 April newscast. (the audio is not very good, you’ll need to turn up your volume, but you can see her reading straight off of her phone)

I am not posting this to poke fun, on the contrary. This is an important lesson that we can all learn from. Believe me, I could not do any better (would likely do much worse) without a lot of practice of the delivery.

The tools of professional journalism, once the preserve of large news-gathering organizations, are now in the hands of the people. The techniques, on the other hand, are available to all, and we still need to learn and practice the skills of public speaking. The tools can’t do it for us.

You might have heard of my friend and blogging consultant, Chris Garrett. He wrote the Problogger book with Darren Rowse.

Well he has a new ebook out that tells you everything you need to know to get quality authority links and a boost in traffic, all through a quick and easy approach to guest blogging.

Right now he is offering it for the crazy low introductory price of only $7! This price is sure to go up within days as the reviews and testimonials start to pour in, so make sure you grab your copy and check out all the bonuses fast.

Check it out here: Guest Posting Workbook

Watch this video from Honda:

Discuss: Leave a comment.

This is the fourth post in a series about Social Media Strategy. You can read all of the posts here: series one – social media goals and tactics. Dosh Dosh ran a series on the Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing late in 2007, and I believe that it is worth taking another look at it in light of the changes that the Social Media marketspace has undergone since then.

Search has become vital to every business interest, from marketing to sales to customer service. Using social media networking tools is one of the best methods for improving the results for your business. In fact, real-time search is the newest concept that marketers and news organizations are looking at:

Real-time Search Results

…take a simple example of how Twitter Search changes everything. Imagine you are in line waiting for coffee and you hear people chattering about a plane landing on the Hudson. You go back to your desk and search Google for plane on the Hudson — today — weeks after the event, Google is replete with results — but the DAY of the incident there was nothing on the topic to be found on Google. Yet at search.twitter.com the conversations are right there in front of you. The same holds for any topical issues — lipstick on pig? — for real time questions, real time branding analysis, tracking a new product launch — on pretty much any subject if you want to know whats happening now, search.twitter.com will come up with a superior result set. [Silicon Valley Insider]

People are talking to each other about your business and you. What does this mean for your business?

3. Improved Search Engine Rankings. When considered within a larger SEO and link building framework, content can be creatively developed and promoted for the purpose of obtaining links from the members of the social news websites.

This means you should primarily target social sites with the highest potential to give you links, instead of smaller-sized communities which only offer interested traffic. While important, your site’s profile need not be entirely relevant to the social media website in question; content can be created specifically to appeal to different audiences. [Dosh Dosh]

Your social media strategy is about creating a connection with other people that leads to a relationship. Building these relationships is the number one thing that you can do to build your business. The internet is a fantastic tool for doing business, but it is only a tool. It is a cheap and easy way to get your name and brand out into the world, but you still have to be there in a very real sense. It is up to you to use the social media networks out there to engage the people that find you online with your friendliness and authority on the topic of your business.

I am not going to dig too deeply into the idea of friendliness, as that is something that you should be pretty familiar with. Essentially it boils down to one concept: Be nice. Authority, on the other hand, can be a little trickier.

How do you showcase your authority?

Give value first, prove your reliability second. It is as simple as that.
Well, there is a little more, but those two points are a good start. Let’s begin with “Giving Value“.

• What value is involved when people meet you?
• What value do you provide with your business?
• What is in it for the people who visit your website?

Take a moment to consider the answers to these questions. While you are at it, think about how you feel when you meet other people. What do you like to get from them? I have found that total strangers generally have at least one thing in common with me, whether it is geography, background, work, skills, hobbies, or interests.

It is your job to find that common ground and plant a seed of interest there. The relationship that grows from that seed will provide the backdrop for many of your future interactions with that person. Even if the relationship begins with something as basic as a common interest in a hobby, you will always have something to talk about before you start talking about business.

Hold the conversations in public

The key to harnessing the power of the social networks is in the fact that these conversations are open to everyone. The topics of these conversations become search results, search results that point back to you or your business!

Mark at M-T Hacks has put together “a Greasemonkey user script that does exactly this. It displays the most recent 5 tweets for the query that you are search for, giving both real-time Twitter search results and Google results on the same page:”

Twitter Google Mashup

Get realtime Twitter results on your Google searches:

1. If you don’t already have it, install the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox.
2. Click the “Install” button on the “Twitter Search Results on Google” page on userscripts.org.

This is a fantastic tool and I highly recommend that you install it and start using it to guide your social media marketing.

From Website Magazine, a short list of very valuable link- and authority-building techniqes:

In the eyes of search engines, it’s both the quality and quantity of recommendations that matter. It’s not about making sure your site is worth a link (it is expected that our sites satisfies even the most critical user), it’s about going out and getting them. That concept understood, let’s look at few basic link building tactics you can (and perhaps should) employ in 2009.

Write and Distribute Press Releases Frequently

You very well might have the next great idea or that next amazing product that everyone needs to have, but if no one knows about it then you’re pretty much spinning your wheels. One way to spread the word is through the use of press releases… In 2009, resolve to send out press releases to your list directly via email or using services such as PRWeb, BusinessWire or PRleap.com.

Become a Guest Blogger

One of the easiest ways to get attention on the Web (regardless of the industry you are in) is to work for free. Now I know that this idea might go against every fiber of your business-savvy being, but the value of doing something (which in itself is extremely valuable) for someone else works and it works well. Guest bloggers have a captive audience and an unmatched opportunity to build a viable relationship with an audience that is not their own. … Identify blogs or email newsletters which you think your message would be valuable to and offer to share your expertise (for free of course) in exchange for a link or even some advertising.

Share Your Insights Through Commenting

One of my favorite down-time activities is writing comments on blogs that I find using the StumbleUpon toolbar… Search the service using individual keywords and couple that effort with comment tracking services such as CoComment for the purpose of measurement. The benefit of course is that you are identified as a participant in the conversation, which positively impacts your future link building prospects.

Do Something Nice

…for example [if] you write a weblog on music like WM’s Senior Editor Mike Phillips; why not consider writing a post on how to give back to music charities – someone will notice and grant you a link! Resolve to reap what you sow in 2009 and you’ll be that much closer to Web success at the start of 2010.

Create Authority Documents and Share Socially

An authority document is one that people look to for guidance on a) how to do something, or b) how to do something better. Content does not exist in a vacuum however – it won’t pull people on to your site on its own merit. You must share that information through an active network of Web friends and colleagues to make it stick in the Web’s sphere of influence…Resolve in 2009 to develop one well-thought out authority document each month of 2009 and, build out your social profile and share your content on as many social networks as possible, encouraging you friends to do the same.

I have used all of these tactics (except press releases) in the past and have had a very good success rate with them. Consider adding at least two of these activities to your marketing plan for 2009, and it will build toward your success. Finding good press release services and using them regularly is in my plan for this year.

(Editor’s note: this is not exactly a Productivity post, more of a personal update. Skip it if you like, or if you want to learn about the next exciting chapter in this journey we call life, read on…)

I have been Tweeting about “John Galt” quite a bit recently, as the lovely bride and I have been preparing to simplify our lives and try something new. As of 31 October, and for the foreseeable future, we no longer have a permanent physical address.

Are you guys crazy!?!?

That has been the typical response from many of our friends, family, and associates over the past three weeks. No, we are not crazy. We just have not found the right place to settle down, nor has the lovely bride found just the right job. We have enjoyed living in Maine for the last year, but it just did not work out the way we had planned.

So we have packed up our belongings, keeping only the most important and meaningful things, and put nearly everything in storage. The “stuff” that we did not really need we gave to charity, or to friends. This includes a lot of books that we’ll never read again, clothes we never wear, and a bunch of mis-matched furniture that we have accumulated over the years. It is quite remarkable how much “stuff” you can collect.

It’s time to focus on what is important

We have both been so busy with work and our “careers” that we have not really taken any time to enjoy life and each others’ company. We have not taken an actual “vacation” from work where we spent any meaningful time together. In fact, for the three years that we’ve been married we have bounced from city to city looking for a place to call “home”, made nerve-wracking trips across the country to be with family at Christmas, and had more jobs than I care to think about.

That is all over now.

We were frequently talking and fantasizing about where we would like to retire and how we are going to get there. What we were not been thinking about was how we wanted to live now. Three weeks ago the lovely bride saw this list of tips for achieving your personal success. Most, if not all, of these maxims are things that I have written about before, individually. I have even spoken to my lovely bride about these concepts when she was in a bad mood about her job, her boss, or a client. Suddenly they were all collected in one place:

1. It’s okay to fail.
2. Don’t be afraid to start.
3. Dare to dream big.
4. Don’t be afraid to try something new.
5. Take things one step at a time.
6. Keep moving forward.
7. The only thing that can stop you is you.

~Pat Williams

The last tip is the one that tipped the scales. The only thing that can stop you is you. We now have an opportunity to do something we have always wanted to do: live an exciting life!

Road Trip!

For the next three months we are going to take an extended trip around the country. We are going to load up the family truckster and go visit some friends and family in Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin. The trip coincides nicely with my sister’s wedding on Thanksgiving weekend (in WI), and a get-together with my college buddies in Chicago the first week of December.

After that, who knows? We may point the truckster West and take a look at parts of the country that neither of us have been before. No matter what happens it is going to be exciting, educational, and a lot of fun. We will be posting to a blog about this trip, and to my Utterli account via camera-phone. This blog will go on as usual, as will my new consulting biz, as we have all of the equipment that we need to go mobile and stay online.

I am looking forward to sharing this journey with you.

Jason Falls has started a stimulating conversation on What Is The ROI For Social Media?

Measuring the return on a conversation is tricky.

The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.

To illustrate that point for all our measurement and metric geeks out there, what you are trying to do is assign multiple choice scoring to an essay question. It’s not possible.

… “Ultimately, the key question to ask when measuring engagement is, ‘Are we getting what we want out of the conversation?’” And, as stubborn as it sounds Mr. CEO, you don’t get money out of a conversation.

To further the discussion a bit, I sat down with Katie for an episode of SME-TV, which will be added to this post later today.

What Katie evangelized a bit in her session was that the conversation (comments on your content) was the best measure of a level of engagement. Avinash Kaushik says much of the same in his discussions on web analytics. This isn’t an end-around the need for ROI, it’s the answer. Or at least a big part of the answer.

(Side note – Provided this is true, isn’t it sad that most companies haven’t even upgraded the technology used on their websites to enable commenting and conversation. Of course, it’s even more sad that if they had the technology right, they’re still afraid to use it. I digress.)

When you ask businesses why they are participating in social media, what do they say? If they say, “to make money,” then they will fail because currency in the social web is found in both relationships and content. If they say, “to grow our business,” they’re just saying, “to make money,” in a nicer way. If they say, “to participate in the conversation,” which is the more appropriate reason to be involved in the social web, then why on earth would they not measure success by the value of the conversations they have?

Stop the focus on metrics

I have to disagree with the “metric-centric” message of this post. It may be true that there is no way to quantify the conversation that takes place in the Comments section of your blog. But there is a way to measure the effectiveness of the conversation that your market is having. The tool I use for that is called “Google”, and when someone is searching for a product or service that you provide, the quantity and quality of conversation (as in links to your site, and to people talking about your business) is displayed for all of the world to see.

At the risk of breaking my arm patting myself on the back I’d like to point to an example of this, using my own “product”: the series of posts that I wrote about applying the 7 Habits of Highly Effective people at Productivity in Context (hdbizblog.com – I know, poor branding, lesson learned). Many of my readers had e-mailed asking for this kind of information, especially looking for worksheets and templates to use to learn these skills.

We had a conversation about it, and I wrote about it. Now, if you type “7 habits worksheet” into Google you will see this:

This is definitely a quantifiable result of the conversation that people are having.

Focus on fostering the conversation

When there is a conversation going on about a segment of your business, you need to get involved. As in the example above, I am in the business of helping people improve their productivity and one of the tools that I believe in is in the form of a worksheet. I make a lot of worksheets. I write about them and have conversations with my readers about them.

And some of the readers turn into clients.

Make money “because of”, not with

The “because of” effect is much more powerful than the “with” effect. One of the commenters on Jason’s post, Mack Collier (The Viral Garden), hits the nail on the head with:

…companies that are NEW to social media, wanting to use metrics and measurements that they are used to when using TRADITIONAL marketing methods to ‘get their message out there’. Their thinking is ‘how do we make money from this?’, whereas companies that have been active in this space for a while, such as Dell, understand that by PARTICIPATING that they will make more money as a BYPRODUCT of their efforts. Dell has been in the game long enough to see the impact that their efforts are making, and as a result have shifted away from the ‘how do we make money with this?’ mentality.

Attempting to DIRECTLY monetize social media efforts is the quickest way to ensure they fail. But companies that aren’t familiar with this space don’t know any better. In a few years, after more companies are more familiar with these tools, I think we’ll see them looking to INdirectly monetize their efforts, while putting the focus on SM as a way to DIRECTLY connect with their customers.

One of the best lessons that I learned from the SOBCon event that I attended in May was that blogging (and Social Media in general) should be treated like a business. That business is the marketing of your products and services & establishing yourself/your business as an authority. The goal of that business is to make money because of your blog (or Social Media efforts), instead of with your blog.

What say you?

UPDATE

David Meerman Scott addresses this question in a similar fashion in a recent presentation:

Many of the internet publishers that write about blogging will tell you that a good way to bring traffic to your site and build your credibility is to leave comments on other blogs, forums, and websites. What is frequently missing from these posts is an essential element:

Comment to join the conversation and community

…not just to drive traffic. Leaving one or two comments, once in a while, is a good way to get a handful of extra eyeballs to your site but it does nothing to build a relationship. Self-serving commenters are easier to spot than you might think!

Via Liz Strauss’ Successful Blog:

Leaving comments on other sites in your niche with an URL pointing back to your site. Should be easy traffic right? Not if it isn’t done correctly. How often do you click on a commentor’s name to see their site when all they left was a comment that didn’t either make you laugh or think?

Sure you can get the author’s attention by asking for links, but what if you want more than the author’s attention? What if you want his audience’s attention? Leave an insightful comment, but don’t just do it once, do it often. Do it on every post for a month if you can. Maybe do it for two months, but do it enough where people begin to recognize who you are.

Once people recognize you, they will begin to expect you and come looking for you. For your site. For your opinions on other aspects of the original topic. That is how a community gets built.

It takes time.

It takes a little effort.

And above all, it takes authenticity.

John Jantsh from Duct Tape Marketing has a terrific post about some innovative ways to save time and money when meeting with clients and collaborators:

As more and more folks use this technology (and with $4/gl gas) it even starts to make sense for the local business to conduct meetings across town. Think about how many times you have jumped in the car, driven 30 minutes to make a 10 minute presentation, chit chatted for another 20 minutes, jumped back in the car for another 30 minutes and, let’s see – invested 90 minutes in that 10 minute presentation. As you utilize web and other tools such as web collaboration tools and teach your customers to use them as well, your effectiveness and efficiency will soar.

Getting involved in conversations with your market is one sure way to discover new ways of connecting with our customers, probable purchasers, and prospects.

Our current customers will especially appreciate this increased efficiency and start talking about it with their networks.

Another benefit of using this technology is that it completely eliminates geographical limitations. Webinars and conference calls allow us to reach out to the entire world, creating customers and partners in places that we can never visit for a sales pitch or seminar.

One to one seminar – When you create a webinar or sales presentation using a web technology you can invite someone who calls in to jump online and walk through the archived presentation on the spot.

Peer to peer seminar – Get two or three happy clients to agree to be panel members for a discussion about the problems in their business or industry and gently explain how your business or product is addressing this for them. The key here is transparency. Don’t let your guests sell. Make it a thoughtful, meaningful discussion among peers that you just happened to host.

Interview an expert – You would be surprised at the quality of guests from around the world you can convince to present to your clients and prospects. It’s a win for all involved. You get great content and the presenter may get added exposure for a book or other project with little time investment on their part.

Co-branded panel – Gather up a couple related businesses and put on a panel discussion on a hot topic. Everyone on the panel invites guests and everyone gets exposure.

This has to be one of my favorite ideas. Co-creation of content like this is a fantastic way to increase your audience and get that marketplace talking about you and your business. “Walking the walk”, when it comes to Social Media, is of vital importance. Social Media is about networking and sharing, not about pushing ads.

Sponsored show – Go out and find a sponsor who would like exposure to your audience and allow them to promote in and around your teleseminars. For instance, if you are a CPA with a series of tax savings presentations for small businesses maybe a company that sell tax software would sponsor your sessions. There are lots of businesses out there that want to jump into this kind of marketing but don’t want to do it themselves. Give them the opportunity to help you.

Q and A time – Set a time each week, say Friday at 2 pm and advertise an open line to get your burning questions answered about a topic. Maybe it’s interior design trends, best software tips and trick for business or anything of interest related to your business. You promote the free time, hang out on the line and answer questions when they come in.

This is another powerful idea, one that I have been considering for some time. There will be an entire post devoted to this topic.

Another powerful benefit of systematically presenting information in events of this nature is that you can and should record the events and interviews you conduct and archive them on your website or turn them into an audio CD to distribute through other forms of marketing.

Which of these tools have you used? Which would you like to learn more about? Would you be interested in a free weekly Mastermind conference call?

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