Excited about your new Facebook page but don’t know what’s next?  What does a truly advanced company look like in social business?  They can say yes to seven or more of these ten criteria.

We’ve been interviewing the most sophisticated brands in the world when it comes to social business for our upcoming report on “Enterprise Social Strategists Role”.  We’ve come to learn which companies are advanced and why.  Secondly, I meet a variety of companies who tell me they are “Very advanced, having done this for a few years, and have dozens of Facebook efforts” but when I ask them some specific questions on their sophistication, they often retract their statement.

How to tell if your Company is Advanced: 10 Criteria Of Social Business Maturity.
Corporations that have these and other following elements in place, may truly be sophisticated when it comes to social business:

1. Clear understanding of their customers socialgraphics. Clear understanding of how their customers use social media by knowing the socialgraphics of your customers.  Granular knowledge of where their customers are, which behaviors they use, who they trust for information, and how they influence their peers in the context of their own products.
   The true test? Your company can adjust budgets of your integrated social strategy based on data –not gut feel.
2. Your organization is in Hub and Spoke, Dandelion, or Holistic formation. Social technologies enable all employees that want to talk to customers to do so.  This means a massive change inside of your organization to get ready.  Your company is sophisticated if you’ve organized in the Hub and Spoke, Dandelion, or Holistic and all employees clearly know their role, process, and contact points.
   The true test? A product crises has emerged on YouTube on a Friday evening before a three day weekend and you can sleep peacefully.
3. Corporate website integration: Social sign on. When customers come to the corporate site, they can see which one of their friends uses which product, and what they think about it.  Common technologies would include OpenID, Facebook Connect, and other social sign on technologies.
   The true test? You can disable your corporate registration page and use social logins instead.
4. Personalized corporate website based on social data. When a prospect (someone who’s never logged into you website before) arrives to your corporate website, they receive a customized experience based on their social IDs.  This would be based on Social CRM infrastructure, social sign on technology and a large inventory of personalized content.
   The true test? The voices of the consumers real world friends emerge above that of the brand right on the corporate website, see Levi’s foray.
5. Thriving advocacy program: customers are actively selling on your behalf. The sophisticated marketing program isn’t really the company talking much at all, instead they’ve a thriving advocacy program and word of mouth program that encourages customers to recruit prospects for them –all unpaid.  Learn how to do this, by reading this piece on Forbes.
   The true test? most leads are coming in through existing customers –not your sales team.
6. A community of customers supports each other, reducing support center calls. A company that has a thriving branded community where customers are self-supporting each other with little aid from the brand or the support team is a sign of a sophisticated social support program.
   The true test? A majority of customer support issues are resolved by community faster, with greater satisfaction than your dedicated support team.
7. Anticipation of prospects and customers using Social CRM technology.  Brands can anticipate before a customer has a problem, or grab leads “right out of the air” by using brand monitoring software, intelligent keyword monitoring and responding to be faster than real time using Social CRM strategies.
   The true test? sales and marketing are getting leads before the consideration phase, and the support team reduces inbound calls by triggering the community to resolve a potential issue before it’s escalated.
8. Innovation of new products with customers using web collaboration.  Companies that use these same tools to glean input from customers (ethnographic data collection) or create private communities, or use collaboration and innovation tools like Ideastorm or Uservoice and build new products and services demonstrate true sophistication.
   The true test? faster time to market on products because consumers have dictated the specifications, and less inventory as the product is built on spec.
9. Supply chain is influenced by social data in real time. Social media isn’t just about marketing and support, but is very valuable in listening to customer signals then to anticipate which products, services, and teams should be when and where.
   The true test? Your company is sophisticated if you’re using social data to adjust your supply chain in real time based on customer signals from checkins, tweets, and plancasts.
10. Real time reporting of revenues, costs and efficiency:  I’ve met with some of the most advanced teams, and they have clear reporting and can measure the increased revenues (over the total cost of the program) to tell their executives the true ROI of their business program.
    The true test? Real time dashboard measures the health of all social channels revenues, CSAT, sentiment and overall program costs.

We’ve done research on the roadmap for companies to reach these 10 levels of nirvana, but have found few companies that have done a few, or even a majority of them. If you know of any companies that have achieved five out of ten of these criteria, we’d love to know, please leave a comment.

It’s free and comes with a slew of touch interface bells and whistles built right in. The app is intended to allow for seamless navigation between tweets, photos, web pages, videos and other media and updates. It’s also usable even for those who don’t have Twitter accounts.

Twitter for iPad [iTunes link] has a few new UI touches that you haven’t seen elsewhere. These features are custom-designed for the larger screen and touch capabilities of the iPad. It also caters to what the iPad was made for: media consumption rather than creation. Twitter’s Leland Rechis, a mobile UX designer, writes on the Twitter blog that the iPad is “a device that really lets content shine.”

The main interface is a series of panes that can expand and retract based on the kind of content the user wants to access. “Tapping on a Tweet opens a pane to the right. Depending on the content in that Tweet, you’ll see a video or photo, or maybe a news story, or perhaps another Tweet. You can continue tapping on Tweets, opening new panes, and getting new content as long as you’d like,” wites Rechis.

Media viewing is optimized for the iPad, as well. Videos play in-line with other content and can be loaded while you’re browsing through your timeline. You can pinch a video to view it fullscreen, too.

Finally, Twitter has really done some interesting things with touchscreen capabilities in this app. When you pinch a tweet, you’ll see details about the author and have a list of actions you can take, including reply and retweet. A two-finger pull-down gesture will show the entire conversation around a tweet.

It’s a creative way to approach multitouch app building, and we look forward to playing with it ourselves. We’re also really looking forward to what apps may come to other tablets in the future.

The iTunes release is rolling out right now; if you can’t get the latest version of the app right now, wait a bit and try again. And of course, let us know what you think of Twitter for iPad in the comments.

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I should have wrote this as one of the very fist post in the Beginner Blogger series.  And I realize this is a bit “bass ackwards” too.  However, I received a bunch of questions via email and twitter in the last week or so asking how to launch a blog.

As such, and before we get any further with Beginner Blogger, we need to tackle this and it is going to take at least two or three post to do so.

Before you even launch your new blog, you need to be positioning you and your blog for a successful launch.  In other words, you need to be getting noticed now. There are activities you need to engage in which will get you noticed and get you out there in your niche.  These activities are just like the networking activities you do in person.

What you are striving for is some way to set yourself apart from the crowd.  The crowd of other new blogs which might be coming in your niche or market.

This process takes work, effort and time.  Don’t shortcut this as the results you will get will be in direct proportion to the effort you put in.

First, start off by searching out and finding other blogs in your niche.  Listen to the conversations on these blogs.  Engage in the conversations taking place too.

Find blogs in your niche:

The easiest way to find blogs in your niche is to use Google Blog Search.  Find the blogs in your niche or market you are thinking about blogging on.  Search by topic and it will give you a list of blogs in your niche.

As a new blogger, you need to be reading as many blogs as your time allows.  While you are reading these blogs, consider the writing style of these other bloggers.  What do you like or dislike.  And pay attention to how these other bloggers might be linking out to other bloggers in their posts.  Take some time to also explore the blogs they are linking to in the post.  Chances are, these other bloggers are some you might want to keep track of too.

After you find these blogs, don’t forget to consider their design style.  What do you like or not like about the design.

Just because your blog may not up and running, does not mean you should not be reading blogs and participating in the conversation in your niche.

Listen to the conversations taking place:

After you find these other blogs in your niche you will want to listen to the conversation.  And this conversation may not just be on their blog.

Find where you can listen to these bloggers:

• Subscribe to the blogs.  I use both my RSS reader and email subscriptions to listen to the blogs I want to follow.  Try them both and see which one works the best for you.
• Are these bloggers on twitter? If they are, follow them.  Make a twitter list of the bloggers you are following and organize them into this list so you can easily follow these conversations.
• Is there a Facebook page for these blogs? Hit the like button on the page and take it from there.  Pay attention to the Facebook Pages for these blogs and watch the conversation there too.
• Do the blogs have an email newsletter? Subscribe and pay attention to the newsletters as you get them.  When do they send them.  What is the content like and how is the newsletter organized and/or designed.

Do you see a pattern here?  Basically, once you find the blogs you want to listen to, see where they are and do it.

Engage in the conversation taking place on and off the blogs you are following:

You have found them. You have been listening to them. Now it is time you engage in the conversation.

• Visit the blogs you are listening and leave comments. And please add to the conversation don’t just say “great post.”  Keep in mind you are wanting to get noticed. And you want to get noticed by not only the blogger, but those reading and commenting on the blog too.
• Start engaging in the conversation on twitter. Don’t be a troll or a newbie.  Really engage and have a conversation.  Another way to engage on twitter is to retweet the blog post you are reading on these blogs.  Not only does this serve your own followers and set you apart as a source information. The bloggers you are retweeting will notice too.
• Engage on the Facebook Pages. Don’t just lurk.  If there is a conversation on Facebook, jump in and participate
• Respond to a newsletter article. From my own experience, I love it when one of our newsletter subscribers actually sends me an email asking a question or remarking on one of our email newsletters.  You should do the same.  This is a great way to get noticed by this blogger and they will remember you.

Remember, your whole purpose for doing all of this is to noticed and to start the process of building your network.  These activities do take time and effort.  And these activities will get you some great results.

What other methods have you used to get noticed?  Leave your comments and let’s keep the conversation going.

It’s the Holy Grail of interactive marketing: getting “social media influencers”—the ones with the voice and the reach, the ones to whom everyone else listens—to endorse and promote what you’re doing.

Recently, my company managed to inspire 60 such influencers to participate in our event, called The Influencer Project, and they even took it upon themselves to help spread the word.

People like Social Media Examiner’s own Michael Stelzner, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk, David Meerman Scott, and others all signed on. We were grateful beyond belief.

Some of the brightest minds in social media spoke at The Influencer Project.

Why’d they come on board? And how’d we do it?

It takes creativity to inspire others.

Many of us who are new to the social media space want influencers to “get behind” our brands, products and special events.

We think we can just reach out to them, and if we have a great thing going on, they’ll naturally want to endorse what we’re doing.

It’s an honest mistake, usually, but it does backfire—or at least, it won’t get you the results you’re looking for.

Of course, if you have deep reserves of cash, you may be able to afford paying handsomely for a big name to review your product—although, to be sure, that can get into very tricky ethical territory and is a delicate issue.

But for the rest of us—for those who don’t have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on “influencer outreach”—we have to be a little more creative.

In fact, we have to get rid of the very idea of “trying” to “get” a social media influencer to “back” our brand.

Instead, we need to create innovative ways to inspire not only well-known influencers, but also large numbers of participants, to join a project, a cause, an initiative. And that takes a different kind of thinking—one that I’ll explain below.

The thing is, no-one wants to be your salesperson—unless they are, of course, being paid to sell your products. But everyone—social media influencers included—wants to be part of something that’s bigger than them, that’s creative and that brings new ideas into the world.

So, without any further ado, here are my 5 creative ways for inspiring web celebrities to come on board with what you’re doing:

Don’t ask them to endorse a product or site. Instead, create a project—related to, but independent of, your brand—that they can get behind. Think about the “Yes We Can” video that will.i.am created for Barack Obama’s campaign.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsV2O4fCgjk

Regardless of your political leaning, there’s a lesson here. Yes, will.i.am’s a celebrity. And yes, Hollywood is known for bringing other celebrities on board political campaigns. But that’s not the fundamental point. The point is that there was a cause, an initiative, a project that people wanted to get behind, that inspired them to act—and they did.

This is what you need. You want to create something that many people will join. A cause, a vision.

Memetic means that it has a meme-like quality. Well, what’s a meme, you ask? In its simplest definition, a meme is an idea that spreads from person to person, one that’s so “catchy” that people almost can’t help but to spread it.

“Yes We Can” was a meme.

A meme is bigger than a brand. Just Do It is a meme. No Fear is a meme. The Red Bull Flugtag is a meme. It’s something that people can identify with, make their own and share with others. If you’re simply trying to strong-arm a social media influencer into singing your brand’s praises, good luck. But if you have a project that has memetic quality, then you’re on the right track.

A meme unto itself isn’t enough. Sure, you could get lots of YouTube video views by trying to replicate something like a funny hamster, but you won’t be enrolling people in a vision.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40

In other words, you won’t be providing extraordinary value—to the end user or to the influencer.

On the other hand, if your project provides overwhelming value and is memetic, then you’re not only sure to inspire people, you’ll also be making the world a better place.

It makes business sense, too. Simply trying to make a campaign “go viral” for the sake of going viral is far riskier than creating a project that offers tremendous benefit. In our case, we provided users with more than 60 helpful tips that they could use to increase their digital influence in 60 minutes. They heard from luminaries they respected.

Everyone won. There was no attempt to manipulate people to act on our behalf for a hollow goal. It was values-driven all the way around.

There are two things all of us have an increasingly short supply of: time and attention. Unless you’re Apple or Microsoft and you’re offering a blogger a sneak peek at your new product, asking someone to write a whole blog post about you—or, for example, do an hour-long webinar to your not-quite-robust-enough-yet list of subscribers—is going to make getting a “yes” a lot harder.

In our case, we only asked for 60 seconds of the speaker’s time. The proposition was often met with enthusiasm. “Sure, I’d love to do a 60-second interview!” It was fun, short and interesting. There’s no way we would have gotten 60 busy people to do full-hour interviews each right off the bat. So we made it radically easy for them to say “yes.”

But that’s only part of the picture: we also made it incredibly easy for the audience to say “yes.” For only an hour of their time, we were going to give them 60 tips from 60 experts. Not a bad deal. And that’s exactly what we heard from participants: it was completely manageable and reasonable to take one hour to learn from so many people.

So don’t just reduce the barriers for those you want to headline your campaign, also make it easy for your intended audience to participate.

When describing his company’s financial practices, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said that while his software-as-a-service platform may have been revolutionary, his bookkeeping methods were as traditional as they get.

Similarly, I believe that it’s important to let your creativity and imagination run wild, and to create something new—for example, to take a conventional idea (say, marketing conference) and challenge it (the shortest marketing conference ever). But I see far too many campaigns that feature weird, wild and avant-garde stuff without making it accessible to the end users.

The “60-in-60″ idea was new. But it wasn’t “43-in-68.” We didn’t ask them to speak for 10 seconds. We didn’t request that they sing, dance or rap. In other words, it all made sense—both to them and to the audience. “60 tips” is still an attractive value proposition, and participants felt that they truly benefited from the advice.

But the other side of completely inaccessible and avant-garde is utter banality. Think of the typical webinar, conference or jargon-ridden special report. Sure, those can be great as ongoing lead-generation sources, but not as a way to get noticed and build digital influence rapidly.

So even though I’d recommend erring on the side of accessibility, I still want to challenge and encourage you to come up with something innovative.

Hopefully, these tips have given your creative faculties some juice to explore what you can do to inspire social media influencers—and your target audience—to join your cause.

What do you think? Have you had success recruiting influencers? Put your comments in the box below.

As the fugitive businessman Asil Nadir flew back to Britain from his North Cyprus bolt-hole last week, Sean O'Neill, the crime editor of The Times, scooped Fleet Street by being the only print journalist on the plane. Yet those searching Google for the latest on the breaking story that morning would have found no sign of O'Neill's exclusive – only follow-up stories by rival news organisations such as The Guardian and ITN.

Something has gone wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

Your posts aren’t attracting the attention they deserve.  Comments are scarce and retweets require hours of pleading on Twitter. You spend days scouring the web for answers.  You even reach out to other bloggers for their insight. But you still come up empty.

Soon you ask yourself if your market is ready for your blog. Or is the problem in your own head?

Along the way you may bought into “rules-of-thumb” that sound right but are really holding you back. These lies are killing your blog.  Here are 10 of the most crippling ones…

1. “They” Are Different Than Me

   This lie prevents you from using sound advice from other successful bloggers.  It tells you that “You are Unique” and that you can ignore “proven” strategies offered by successful business people.  So, instead of moving forward, you waste scarce time re-inventing the wheel.  Or even worse, you believe that everyone else has a special advantage.  You have to take the “scenic route” to success because you don’t have the money, education, or connections.  Trust me – this is bologna.

   Truth Serum: This post by Sugarrae will do the trick: “There are No Damn Silver Spoons (Or Defining and Achieving Success Online)

2. My Branding Can Wait

   It’s easy to fall for this lie.  It cons you into believing your readers only care about the content of your posts.  Not true.  Your reader’s visit your blog for an experience.  Your writing is just a (big) part of your success formula.  The rest relies on how you present yourself and your brand.  Poor graphics and layout will distract your reader and disrupt  their experience. Your blog needs to look great now.  Get on it.

   Truth Serum: Annabel Candy’s excellent post will set you on the right path: Personal Online Branding to Make You Shine Online
   

3. All I Need To Do is Publish Great Content

   This is a subtle lie that works because it is partially true. Great blogs DO have great content.  But, they are also great because people know they exist.  The big blogs promote themselves religiously.  Their content just pays off the promise. You may be buying into this thinking because your believe Marketing is inherently anti-social.  If so, then let’s deal with that fallacy right now -

4. Marketing is Anti-Social

   This one really gets under my skin. Listen, passion hidden under a basket is worthless. You need to get your message out there.  That means you need to market your viewpoint constantly.  Get this straight – BAD Marketing is Anti-Social.  Good marketing is authentic, backed-up by real products, and focused on serving your reader.

5. Making Money Shouldn’t Be A Goal

   You may believe that money is dirty and immoral.  Ok, fine.  However, consider this, if you were given $1 million would you use it for noble ends?  Could you help a person, a community, or a nation?  If you are truly passionate about your subject then why not make money to advance your cause?  Think about it.

   Truth Serum: I hang out with a great crowd of people called the Third Tribe.  We are learning how to combine authentic social strategies with business.  Check it out.

6. I Need to be A Great Writer First

   This may get me into a little trouble, but I’ll say it anyway.  Most top bloggers aren’t the greatest writers.  They succeed because they are constantly improving their writing skills.  Now, I need you to hear this.  This lie is a stalling tactic.  It bottles you up until you hit some imaginary expert threshold.  Don’t fall prey to this mindset.  The best way to become a great writer is to write.  So get started.

7. Blogging is My Business

   This lie uses misdirection to send you in the wrong direction.  If you look closely, the A-Listers use their blogs to gather an audience.  They then sell products to that audience.  It’s a simple model that works.  Blogging is not a business it is a tactic.

   Truth Serum: Taylor Lindstrom’s guest post on Copyblogger nails this one: “Why Your Blog Doesn’t Make Money”

8. People Don’t Want to Know About Me

   This lie feeds a deep-seated fear that you aren’t good enough.  You may be thinking that your story isn’t all that interesting.  Or worse, you believe that people will be turned off by you.  This is simply not true.  Blogging is a social activity that works when you put yourself out there and make connections with real people. It still shocks me that one of the most popular pages on this blog is the About Me section.  Give this some serious thought

9. There’s a Magic Formula to Success

   This is another stalling tactic.  You’ve fallen for this lie if you are scouring the web looking for the perfect formula.  If you are busy “researching” then you aren’t writing and promoting your passion.  The only “silver bullet” that I’ve found is disappointingly simple – Get started.  That’s right – start writing.

10. I’ll Build A List When I Have More Readers

    I’ve fallen for this lie.  Thankfully, I caught the deception early and started building my email community.  Your email list is your first “asset”.  The people who sign-up are your first loyal fans. Take great care of them and they will take amazing care of you.

Now that you know these lies, you have to decide to not let them stop or misdirect you again. Here’s a quick suggestion to keep you moving forward: be suspicious of anything that is stopping you from writing, connecting with your audience, or promoting your blog.  It’s working for me.  It will work for you too.

Comment below and tell me about a Lie that is crippling your progress.  Go ahead talk to me and I’ll talk right back

Two or three years ago, I received an email from Chris Brogan asking if I would give some advice to a recent college graduate named Avi Kaplan who was interested in a career of using social media for nonprofits.   I chatted with Avi and answered some of his questions.    Not long after that, Avi helped Stacey Monk develop a strategy for the very first Tweetsgiving.

A few weeks ago, Avi asked me if I would participate in a blog tour for the Jewels of Elul focused on renewal and beginnings that benefits a residential addiction treatment center in Los Angeles.  The Hebrew month of Elul (which started on August 11th), the site will feature reflections from prominent figures on Renewal and Beginnings and a blog tour as well.   While I don’t have a strong connection to the nonprofit or even the cause,  I know Avi and wanted to support his work.   In addition, the theme of new beginnings and renewal has been on mind lately.

This last year has been a year of many new beginnings – a move across the country,  a new title, a new book,   a new blog,  a new company, and new friends and projects.   Starting something new is hard for some people.  It is a change after all.   But with every new project, you always need an end point for reflection.

And that’s the point I want to relate to social media.    Whether your begin a new campaign or a new routine, it is important anticipate a point of reflection.  We begin a new project – sometimes with to high expectations or excitement.   But what we don’t anticipate is the stuff that won’t go perfectly.

When end up avoiding talking about mistakes and we avoid reflection that explores and opens up new breakthroughs because we’re moving too fast into the next action.    So, with your next social media beginning, be sure to hit the pause button at the end asks some questions that might lead you to new insights.   Here’s a list of questions that my colleague, June Holley,  shared with me that I’ve been using.

1.What worked really well in this project?
2.Did it accomplish goals or outcomes? In what ways?
3.Did it fall short? Why?
4.What would you do differently?
5.What surprises came up during the project? What unexpected happened? What could you learn or capture from that?
6.What insights did you get during the project?
7.What processes did you use that worked well? Which didn’t work so well? Why do you think that was?
8.How did people work together? Were there conflicts? How were they handled? Did people get any new insights or perspectives as a result?
9.Were there people or perspectives missing from this project that you would include next time?
10.What skills and processes did you help people learn as part of this project? What skills and processes would you spend time on if you did this over again?
11.What were the most innovative aspects of the project? How did they work?
12.What did you do in this project that you could transfer to other projects?
13.What is the most troubling aspect of the project? What might you do to deal with it differently?
14.What skills came in most handy during this project? What skills did this project make you realize you need to acquire?
15.What really puzzles you about this project? What are unanswered questions you have about what happened?
16.What intrigues you about this project?
17.What would you like to learn more about that would help this (or other projects) in the future?
18.Where did we mess up? Make mistakes? Fall on our face? What can we learn from this?

“This post is part of Jewels of Elul, which celebrates the Jewish tradition to dedicate the 29 days of the
month of Elul to growth and discovery in preparation for the coming high holy days. This year the program is benefiting Beit T’shuvah, a residential addiction treatment center in Los Angeles. You can subscribe on Jewels of Elul to receive inspirational reflections from public figures each day of the month. You don’t have to be on the blog tour to write a blog post on “The Art of Beginning… Again”. We invite everyone to post this month (August 11th – September 8th) with Jewels of Elul to grow and learn.”

We would love for you to join us, so we’re giving away passes to BlogWorld. To enter, answer the following question — “What is the future of blogging?” — in the comments below. Readers with the best answers will win one of five “full access” tickets to BlogWorld, which includes MashBash. Winners are invited to attend this industry celebration where the online world comes together to meet, relax and make important business networking connections.

Date: Friday, October 15
Time: 8:00 p.m.-10 p.m.
Location:Haze at Aria. 3730 Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas, NV.
Tickets: Must have BlogWorld Badge to enter.

• Simply click the “Like” button on our Facebook Page (below).
• Respond to the question: “What is the future of blogging?” by noon ET on Monday, September 6, in the comments section of this post.

Please use your real identity so that we may contact you via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook to let you know that you’ve won and how to redeem your prize.

BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas on October 15-16: “Join us at the World’s Largest New Media event and learn about Content Creation, Distribution and Monetization strategies, step-by-step techniques and bleeding-edge tools from the most successful Bloggers, Podcasters, Social Media Pro’s, Internet TV and Radio Content Generators and New Media Marketing Pro’s! From the premier educational sessions at the Social Media Business Summit and BlogWorld Conference, to the resource-rich New Media Expo, to Amazing Networking events…it’s One economical trip, One weekend, One Big Show you can’t afford to miss!”

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Of all topics, this is one of the perennials. People want more traffic, more attention, more awareness to their blog. It’s fair. We work hard on our blogs. We want more attention and traffic. If your business depends on volume, this is especially important (for instance, if you’re using ads). Getting traffic is a tricky business, and it requires a lot of experimentation. I’ll tell you what’s worked for me, so far, and I’ll tell you what you might try. Maybe others will educate us both in the comments on their best methods.

The first few seconds of someone’s attention are the hardest to pass. If you have a lame blog post title, no one’s going to want to read the post. For whatever reason, we react to “how to,” we react to “7 great,” we react to all kinds of things. Not sure where to look? I stole this advice from Brian Clark years ago: go to the grocery store, buy some ladies’ magazines like Cosmopolitan, and learn how THEY write headlines on the front page.

This entire series (and most of my blog posts) use graphics to catch your eye. It’s an easy way to get one’s attention. Screen captures help. Video helps. There are tons of ways to get people into a receptive space with your material, and graphics are just the easiest one.

Now that we’ve got a decent title, decent graphics, let’s be quick about your content.

Keep your posts brief (unless you want tons and tons of bookmarks). People don’t have all day to read. If you can keep your posts between 250-500 words, that’s in alignment with most people’s attention spans. Hey, you’re welcome to write whatever length you want. You asked me how to grow traffic to your blog. I can only give you results that I’ve tested. When I write a super long piece, I get much less involvement with it.

I’ve written about making shareability a priority. If you don’t have easy-to-share buttons on your blog, you’re missing the easiest way for people to see your stuff on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, and all the other sites where it would matter. Sharing out is a great way to make some more traffic happen. I also automatically push my posts into Facebook with their notes feature. I have an automated post into twitter via @broganmedia, but don’t do this same effect on my primary @chrisbrogan account.

In my case, subscriptions to my blog matter. I want people to subscribe, because I don’t necessarily survive on ad revenue. If you’re trying to monetize via ad revenue, and if your ads are in the header and the sidebar, a subscription really won’t help you get more traffic. If for whatever reason you want people to come to your website directly instead of via your RSS feed, you might want to obfuscate where you put your subscription information.

If you’re like me, you ask for the subscription all the time. In fact, I’ll ask now. You’re not yet subscribed? Enter your email (I respect your privacy):

Over in the Third Tribe, we talk about guest posts quite often as a great traffic-builder to your blog. Find someone who has a very similar kind of blog topic to yours (not sure where to start? Check out Alltop), and offer a guest blog post. Oh, and then actually follow through. I have heard recently from my friends who accept guest posts that often, people ask for something, get approval, and then don’t take an action. That doesn’t sound like a good plan. Just FYI.

This is one of those points where people disagree. I blog daily. Truth be told, I’m up to 2x a day most days. Why? Because the more I blog, the more people subscribe. I learned it from some of the larger blogger sites out there.

Lots of people justify once a week, or once every two weeks. That’s fine. But if you want to grow traffic to your blog, that’s a very long slow crawl towards that growth. That said, no matter which frequency you’ve chosen, stick to it. The moment you drop off the map, people who haven’t yet subscribed to you lose sight and move on.

You can always market your blog the good old fashioned way. I’ve had people hand me business cards at events that had a compelling question or interesting graphic, and then a URL to their blog. More often than not, I’ll at least check out the post. You might make postcards and bring them to the places where your prospective readers might congregate. For instance, if you write a restaurant blog, why not have a business card tray by the mints? Make an offer, just like you do with any other kind of marketing.

Often times, we sit around inside the fishbowl of social media and hope people from outside will find us. Here’s a hint, hero: the people you need are out there wondering what they can do to learn more about the thing you’re talking about. Go get ‘em, tiger.

I’m a big fan of the basics: write about what they need, make sure they see that you wrote about it, make it easy to carry on the relationship, make it easy for them to promote you to others.

Seems like a simple formula, and yet, we go through all kinds of hoops to come up with trickier methods. Try this one first. What do you say?

Guest Post by Ross Hudgens of Billy.com.

Making money as a freelance content writer isn’t easy. If you aren’t running your own blog or website, turning content into cash can be a difficult thing. But there’s opportunity out there – you just have to try a little harder than normal to find it.

One of the best places to look is the Problogger job board. Here, potential employers are looking for people like you – writers serious about their craft, with a strong content-creation skillset that often develops from reading a website like this.

Because of these potential employer’s high standards for Problogger readers, this won’t be the kind of cheap, outsourced content creation you’ll have to scrap up pennies and quarters from – it’ll be real, well-paid writing gigs with some of the best and biggest websites and content hubs on the internet.

Of course, with better gigs come higher standards – so you, as a potential applicant, need to spice up your resume and take note of the intimate details that’ll make your application pop.

My friend at another company recently created a posting for a content writer on Problogger and told me about his success. As a Marketing Manager at a new company with many quality content development needs, I decided to create a posting as well.

Overall, I was rather impressed with the quality of applicant, but what also shocked me were the glaring problems with many of the resumes and cover letters in my inbox. Similarly, I was equally impressed with some of the ways the better applications “stood out” in ways I wouldn’t have previously thought of.

Both of these revelations made me realize the necessity for this post – since I know the plight of a job seeker who often wonders – “Why wasn’t I picked?”—I thought I could help improve your application process in some way, and also, the chances you get picked up as a content writer on your next application go-round.

1. They had zero attention to detail. One of the classic ways to weed out auto-applicants is by using a “use this” subject line. For example, specifically requesting that the applicant include the job description as the subject. Amazingly, by including this simple detail in my job description, I automatically weeded out 15% of the applicants. Similarly, other applications would announce they were using a templated cover letter due to the appearance of two different fonts, or that they had found my application on Craigslist.

C’mon, really?

How can I possibly rely on you to complete a content piece with exact specifications if you can’t do it for a simple, straightforward application?

2. Their application was too bland. Yes, employers are hiring you on your content writing skills, but when I get 200 applications in my inbox for a position that isn’t full-time, it would be an immense waste of effort to scroll through 600 content pieces to find the best writer. I, like most employers, have a sifting process that involves automatically disregarding many of these applications.

If your cover letter was too brief or non-personal, this implies a disinterest in the job. Although you might have been aware of enough to post the “use this” subject line, you were also not with it enough to customize your application to look anything different than 5 million other similar ones that have made their way into employer’s inboxes.

3. Their content samples were not specific to the application. Although you may be a great writer, I would need to be extremely impressed with your prior history to choose you if you had not written about the subject I was asking for. Again, by disregarding many of these applications that don’t have a specificity, potential employers save a lot of the hassle, and to be blunt, being a “great writer” does not mean that you are cut out to write about green technology, fashion, or marine biology. Sorry.

When businesses come to Problogger looking to hire, it’s not because they want to find a generic person who can pump out articles about anything – they want expertise in an area. The cheap, bland kind of content creation can be found elsewhere.

If you’re really interested in a position that creates content green technology, write a sample article about it for submission. That’s the only way you’re going to get hired unless you’ve got a stacked history of creating viral, amazing content.

4. They only linked to their own blog. You might be able to write well about stuff you care about, but are you skilled enough to think outside the box and also meet the specifications of a certain job description? By linking to just your blog, you’re telling me you don’t have experience writing according to other’s specifications. It’s great that you’re a good writer, but there’s more to the job description than that. Ability to follow directions, attention to detail, and domain expertise are all things that can put an average writer far above a good one.

5. They lacked effort. Some people just flat out didn’t try, asking for payment information, more job details and etc. before supplying additional details. Don’t waste your time making these kinds of pitches! Employers have to pay $50 to get on the job board, and they do it for a reason – there is a wealth of quality potential writers that read the site. By making this kind of inquiry, you are not only wasting the employer’s time, you are wasting your own.

In this way, applications work like the below graph. At a certain effort level, the chances of being hired are rather low, not because you’re a bad writer – but because everyone makes that level of effort. Once you’ve hit an imaginary line – somewhere between 10-20 minutes of effort when applying, your chances jump dramatically. Before that, every second added does little to improve your chances.

Beyond the failures in the application process, there are also plenty of application “pluses” I stumbled into that made me stop and say “let’s talk”. Getting an interview among 200 applicants is more than just not being bad – it’s about being really, really good too.

1. Create a Customized, PDFed Resume. As a freelance writer, there’s a good chance you’re going to be applying for lots of these positions. As such, if applying is something you’re constantly doing, you should take steps towards investing in this process – and that means creating an amazing, aesthetically pleasing resume. One applicant sent me a PDF with their work history, a professional photo, and content examples, all in one aesthetically pleasing package. I was immensely impressed with the time and effort they put into this package, even if it wasn’t customized directly for me. Showing an immaculate standard for quality and great presentation is something I want to see reflected in writing, too.

2. Be Creative with the Cover Letter. You’re a content writer, right? This shouldn’t be too difficult. If your opening line says “I saw your BLAND JOB position at BUSINESS posted at X and I was extremely impressed”, you’re telling me that yes, you do care enough to change those custom fields in your template, but you’re also telling me that no, you don’t care enough to try any harder.

If you know the company, find some interesting detail about it and open with it. If you’re lucky enough to know the name of the person you’re applying to, you can go even further to pique their interest. Not only will you likely stroke the ego, you’ll also show you possess the creativity and wherewithal to create quality content.

3. Have content specific to the application. This is straightforward, but the more focused the content is on what the job description asks for, the more likely you are to be seriously considered. The better this content is, the more likely you are to get picked up.

4. Tagging your application e-mail as “High Importance”. This is a minor detail but I found myself opening these e-mails first, and any time you get seen first in a batch of 200 e-mails, that’s a good thing. This function doesn’t work in Gmail, but there’s a good chance you’re sending your application to a business address – so there’s a high probability they’re using Outlook.

5. Be a great writer – everywhere. Again, a rather straightforward thing, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night not mentioning it. Every piece of text in a content writer’s application is important, so make sure every bit of it is a direct reflection of your ability to create great content.

If you can’t properly format paragraphs in the cover letter, you’re not getting hired. If your punctuation is shoddy, you’re not getting hired. If your presentation is subpar, you’re not getting hired. You’re a great writer – why not be one all the time?

Now that you know how to get hired, get to the job board, check out those job descriptions and start applying! If you have any other stories, tips, or suggestions on how to get hired as a content writer, please share them in the comments!

Ross Hudgens is a Marketing Manager at Billy.com. He also blogs over at his personal website, Authentic Marketing. You should follow him on Twitter here.

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

How to Get Hired on the Problogger Job Board

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TopRank Online Marketing is proud to be a founding sponsor of the first Minnesota Blogger Conference. Tickets for this event “sold out” within a few hours and there are over 100 people on the waiting list. Thanks to conference founders Melissa Berggren, Arik Hanson,  Suzi Magill and Katie Schutrop, it’s already one hot event.

The date is Saturday, Sept 11 (the day I fly to Hong Kong) and the location is at CoCo MSP in Saint Paul.  Topics to be presented range from “how to blog” to “how to get your blog published as a book” to “how to make money with a blog” to “blog analytics” to a “business blogging panel” that will include Adam Singer from TopRank Marketing.

If you’d like to attend this networking rich and information packed event, you can’t.  It’s sold out!

However, what you can do is win a free pass from TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog.

All you have to do is:

• Write a blog post explaining the most important thing you’ve learned from blogging yourself
• Or if you don’t blog yet, one thing you’d like to learn
• Why you should get to attend the MN Blogger Conference
• Use the MN Blogger Conference logo above in your post and also include a link to the page you’re reading right now: http://tprk.us/mnblog

All blog post entries must be published and we must be notified (mnblog at toprank dot org) by Friday 9/3 at noon Central.   Once received, all posts will be linked to from the bottom of this page and the TopRank Online Marketing staff will read the entries and decide the winner.  THE WINNER of a free pass to the sold-out MN Blogger Conference will be announced at 5pm on Friday.

So what are you waiting for? Get started now on a compelling, creative and persuasive blog post that explains why you should be the winner of a very rare MN Blogger Conference pass.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Win a Free Pass to MN Blogger Conference | http://www.toprankblog.com

by Joe Pulizzi

I’ve been a MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group) member for almost a year now and have had the chance to talk with some very smart MENG members. 

From a discipline standpoint, I’ve found that there are two types of MENG members – marketing specialists (i.e., social media, search, direct marketing, etc.) and marketing generalists (“I’m a marketing expert”).

If you are a specialist, you can probably stop reading. If you are a generalist, I hope you become a specialist one day.

Why you ask?  Here are a few reasons.

1. A Marketing Generalist Search Does Not Exist
   Just think about Google for a second.  People go to Google when they are searching for something specific or have a specific problem.  Even this guy, who calls himself a marketing expert, really positions himself as an online marketing expert. This company has grown like crazy over the past few years because of their sole focus on web content strategy. So, when people search for you (consultant) or your company (marketing executive), what do you want them to type into Google?
2. What Can You Be the Best in the World At?
   When I work with companies on their content marketing strategies, I always ask this question, “What do you need to be the leading expert in to drive your business forward?” The answer to that question is telling for three reasons.  First, it identifies the areas that they feel they can be the expert in.  Second, it identifies the products or services they need to sell that drive the business.  And third, it should identify a customer challenge or their informational needs.The right answer to this question usually defines a niche and a buying group (i.e., 3D design engineering consulting for manufacturing executives). BINGO! Now there’s an area that you can be the expert in.  No company in their right mind would answer this question as engineering, so why should you say that you are a just a marketing expert.If you can’t identify an area that you can be the best in the world – or at least the possibility – you may be doing the wrong things. BTW, my expertise area is content marketing.
3. It’s Impossible to Differentiate
   We win business or customers because we’ve shown enough value that people are willing to pay for that value in the form of products and/or services.  Most likely, we’ve differentiated ourselves enough from the competition or internal resources to get this business.The marketing generalists I talk to comment a lot on integration and planning and blah blah blah.  Not that those aren’t important, but people don’t buy for that reason.  They buy because you are the expert that will solve their specific problems. How can you be interesting to your customers if you are talking about the same thing as someone else? You can’t.  That’s the exact reason why you don’t see a lot of marketing generalists succeed with their personal social media. It’s not defined enough, thus not interesting enough for the right kind of people.
4. People Buy Inspiration and Higher Purpose
   I’ve been blogging recently on the concept of higher purpose content marketing. The basic premise is that we (brands) create content that has nothing to do with what we sell (in the case of Southwest – plane rides), but what we stand for (everyone deserves to fly, no matter what). Without defining your specialist area, it’s almost impossible to inspire and it’s most definitely impossible to communicate a higher purpose that drives behavior.

So, if you happen to buy into this as a marketing executive, either personally or for your company, what should you do? My advice would be three things:

1. Create Your Own Category – Define a specialty area that’s all yours. Citrix GoToMeeting has done this with Work Shifting. I’ve tried to do that with content marketing. David Meerman Scott has done this with his New Rules of Marketing series. What category can you create?
2. Develop Consistent, Remarkable Content about Your New Category – You need to put your publisher’s hat on and develop the kind of information that positions you as the true expert over your new domain. Since creating a new category is not easy, this will take months of banging the content drum.
3. Spread the Word – People aren’t going to go looking for your new category. You need to spread the word.  Go out to the people – the blogs and forums where your customers are at – and start sharing this helpful information.  Be the giver.

As long as your new category clearly solves your customers’ problems, this can work. So, marketing generalist, what’s your specialty? Let us know in the comments…

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Photo is Technology Links a Deployed Surgeon with Stateside Specialists by MC4 Army.

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Sarah Cohen, the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, figured there had to be an easier way for journalists to organize their notes on chronological events.

“Time and place are two of the most important aspects in stories,” Cohen said. “Most reporters I know are still keeping a 40-page chronology in Word for long running stories.”

So, with a grant from Duke, Cohen hired two research scientists, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, to design a visual tool to allow reporters to not just organize their notes more effectively, but to also see the results of their research over time.

In this image, the tool tracked President Obama's first 100 days in office, by his location.

Viegas  and Wattenberg were the brains behind the IBM Many Eyes project and now work for Google.

The tool they came up with, an open source program that is free to download and use, makes it possible for journalists to look at the reams of data that went into those old 40-page text chronologies or multisheet spreadsheets in new and more useful ways.

“Say you’re working on the BP story, you can say, ‘I only want to see what happened in May having to do with birds,’’’ Cohen explained.

You can also look at how often President Barak Obama talked about the disaster in May, drill down into how when the president mentioned Gulf wildlife or any number of other functions. But the program doesn’t just making searching data easier – it’s a visual tool that makes understanding data points over time easier.

“The way journalism is going, as there are fewer boots on the ground. It’s important that they’re spending their time efficiently,” Cohen explained.