Aug
12

4 Strategies to Immerse Yourself into the Boston Startup Scene

burst bubble(Note: This post originally was written for the BostInnovation blog and re-posted here as part of my blogging portfolio.)

From the outside looking in, you may think getting a job at a startup is like getting a job at any other company – Starbucks, Staples, Macy’s, etc. I hate to burst that belief, but it’s a bit tougher than just filling out an application, having a formal interview, and hoping to get chosen among the multitude of applicants.

Getting into the start up scene is about who you know and how much you are willing to give to make a company succeed. Being in Boston adds another unique layer to this; we are a very tight-knit community. Although Boston is a relatively big city and it may seem like a large pool of companies and candidates, we all talk. Why? Because we all are on social media or go to events regularly!

Coming from a small town in Connecticut myself, I had to learn the hard way that getting involved in the startup scene in Boston was no easy task. However, it was the best journey I’ve ever been on. Being here a year and a half now, I want to share with you how you can go about getting a job in an awesome start up in Boston without wasting time.

1. Network – work the scene

networkign bostonDue to our tight-knit community, we all tend to navigate towards the same type of events. I find myself saying “Long time no see!” in a sarcastic manner to many people who attend the same events as I do. We all know the right events to go to, whether a casual beer and networking event or a knowledge-based event. Start attending events, talking to various people about the events they attend, look for patterns, and deepen your network.

This will allow you to become recognized in the area and allow you to learn from this group and get the ‘in’ on potential job openings.

2. Get involved on social media

Let’s face it – Boston is full of nerds. It is also full of social media enthusiasts – and we’re a bit proud of it.  I highly suggest you create Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even YouTube accounts and start interacting with influencers in Boston.

You can find these influencers by noticing how many followers they have, how much they engage with others and by catching them in person at events. By following conversations and talking with other people in Boston, you will build up recognition of your skills and interests.

3. Create your own personal brand

personal brandingJust like any consumer brand, it is important to distinguish yourself in the market. Making yourself both memorable and visible is crucial today. Chances are, if you are being interviewed for a job, the employer is Googling you to view your personal brand and digital footprint.

I highly recommend starting a personal website or blog that demonstrates what you are interested in, your past experience, and anything else career-related you want others to see.

For me, I blogged about digital marketing, posted videos on how to brand yourself online, and posted my video resume. On top of that, build out social sites like Twitter and LinkedIn demonstrating the same information on your site to create consistency.

People will come to expect certain content from you and will know where to get it. This is crucial when you are on the job hunt. Being visible and helpful online can go a long way.

4. Be yourself

It is important to first and foremost act like the same person whether online or in person. Your personal brand online should reflect who you really are. If you are a fun, bubbly person, write in a conversational, easy-going tone. That way, no matter which way a person is communicating with you, they know it is truly you.

At the end of the day, it is who and what you know that can get you into the Boston startup scene. Networking properly and demonstrating your expertise both online and offline are critical to getting seen and remembered by potential employers.

Most of us at BostInnovation have done these above four things to get jobs at really awesome companies and involved with this blog. Ask any of us, it was more than worth it!

Jun
13

“How Do I Get Involved in a Startup Company?”

get involved in startupTwo years ago, I never really knew what a ‘startup company’ was. Being from a small town in northern Connecticut, all I knew about were the large insurance corporations and chain restaurants and clothing stores. (Truth be told, it wasn’t surprising I didn’t know of any startups, as there are not that many in Connecticut). As of today, I’ve been working for a startup, Backupify, for 14 months. Did I ever see this coming? Absolutely not. Am I glad I’m here? Absolutely!

Many friends have approached me asking the exact question proposed in the title of this blog post. “So, how do I get a job at a start up company?” Truth be told, it is tough if you don’t know the right people. It took me a few months to carefully network and feel out the startup culture.

When people tell you it’s all about who you know, they are right. When a small company like a startup is looking to hire, they are very reliant on referrals and recommendations of good hires as they cannot risk making a wrongful hire.

In short, below I’ve answered the most common questions I’ve been asked regarding getting into a startup:

How do you know who to contact?

First, determine what it is you’re looking to do. If you’re into marketing like I am, start contacting marketing professionals in the area (either via email or Twitter) to make an initial connection. Thankfully, through college, I received a marketing scholarship from an organization based around Boston, so those were the first people I went to when I was looking for a job.

Essentially, network creatively. Find out what topic of interest you want to start a career in and find others who are doing just that. Get their attention either by chatting on Twitter, sending an email or attending an event and making a personal introduction. I was able to meet many very successful marketers around the Boston area by doing just that. After you’ve made your first successful networking contact, they can surely help you branch off and meet others.

How do you know what events to attend?

It’s always good to make a personal connection. If you can attend the events that admirable professionals in your industry are attending, that is a great start. You can also get recommendations about events and conferences from your first few contacts. I’ve found that some networking events are more valuable than others. Here in Boston, there are events where it is just a social gathering involving small talk and beer. Then there are conferences with learning sessions and breakout networking times. I value both for different reasons. I started going to both when I began crafting my way into the Boston startup scene. I found that the social ‘drink-ups’ as they’re called were great to have casual conversations and get your name known. You may not learn too much, but there sure are a lot of people to meet. That’s actually how I got involved being a writer for BostInnovation.

Conferences are a great way to learn and get your name out there. Conferences tend to be larger, so it’s always important to find out who is going and make a point to meet them there.

How do you know when to take a chance?

Working for a startup does involve some risk. Unlike an established brand or corporation, startups are small and often bootstrap or VC funded. This meaning that there is a limited cash runway and hard work involved to push through the competition and challenges to make it to the top. Before I accepted my job offer with Backupify, our CEO Rob May made a point to explain to me exactly what taking a job at a startup meant. It meant there was risk of failure, hard times among the good times, and long hours. Thankfully, I was up for all of that – but many are not.

I’ve spoken with many colleagues who started their career off at a standard corporation, being a number among thousands of other employees, and just living day-by-day, not enjoying their job. I’m always interested to hear how one day they snap and realize they want to enjoy their career and find a company and a job that is truly rewarding. Many times, landing a position at a startup company can be just that opportunity with exposure to almost every activity in the company including being involved with executive decisions, being challenged like never before, and having a say in the direction of the company.

I’m thrilled I took the leap into the startup world as my first career job. It has been the most rewarding, creative and challenging job I could have ever wanted.

What other questions do you have in regards to learning about startup culture? If you made the move from a ‘regular’ job to a startup, what was your experience like? I’d love to hear from you!

May
12

6 Ways To Improve Your Company’s Social Media Marketing

Using social media marketing can be a very good way to develop true and strong relationships with others online. Using it to develop formal and often very important informal relationships can be very beneficial to your business. Here are some points that you and others in your company should consider so that you stay at the top.

  • Minimize junk. Are you falling into the trap of putting every little detail about your life online? It is important that you keep focused on why you are involved in a certain group or medium. Remember that each of your posts needs to be important. Unless you are Brad Pitt and there is a mountain of followers drooling on your every word, make sure that you and others in your company are relevant.
  • Keep it consistent. As with every element of your company’s operations it is important that you keep standards of communication. Setting rules regarding tone and appropriateness for all of those in your company is of utmost importance. This may take some of the fun out of it, but one mistake could spread and be very damaging for your business. Perhaps you should consider those working for you have both their own personal and professional profiles.
  • Management. Some amount of randomness may be beneficial to creating and keeping interest, but using certain software programs to manage, schedule and assess the effectiveness of your company’s posting will be greatly beneficial to understanding your SEO efforts. Perhaps there are better times and better ways that your team can be collaborating (working together), and only analysis of your efforts will allow you to see this. There are several premium and free-ware options available.
  • Encourage participation. Having the technical means and the content to stir debate amongst your followers and readers is extremely important. Making sure that you have your networks set up correctly so that you have specific areas for participants to engage in, and you can moderate, are of the utmost importance. The two skills of being a good content developer, and intangible asset, and having the technical know-how, are extremely important.
  • Ahead of the curve. Learning from others in your industry can be very beneficial, however, it is those who are ahead of the curve, and dare to do something different, that often reap most of the rewards. You will need to use your imagination and creativity if you are to stand out. Respect the intelligence of your readers and understand that they are already getting used to many of the same tricks to get their attention floating around out there.
  • Keeping it real. This must be one of the all-time important factors of any company’s activities. Remember, people are not stupid, and as soon as they even get a hint that your company is not being real, they will drop you in a flash. Just because you are not communicating face to face, don’t think that they cannot read between the lines. Let them know where you stand from the beginning unless you and your people are extremely experienced in true guerrilla marketing.

It is important to not get overwhelmed with the potential and possibilities of any campaign. Some people believe in an online social Karma. Take on your company’s online activities like any other element of your business, step by step, and seek professional advice, after all it is your financial future.

 

 

Jan
11

The Pros and Cons of Social Media Metrics Tools

About a month ago I began the long search of finding the ‘perfect’ social media metrics tool to measure some of my work at Backupify. I utilized many channels to help me in my search. I posted on LinkedIn groups asking for recommendations, I tweeted several times for suggestions, and consulted my co-workers.

This process took much longer than I expected, but I finally found the tool that fits exactly what I was looking for.

To me, a great social media metrics tool needs to have the following criteria:

a. A dashboard outlining the most important statistics (preferably, this should be customizable)

b. Analysis of several social media channels (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.)

c. Ability to write into Google Analytics

d. Web monitoring so I know what is being said about the brand all over the web

e. Ease of navigation. I don’t want to spend an hour trying to generate one report or finding one set of information.

To note, I wasn’t looking at the big guys like Radian6 and Awareness Inc., and I also knew that search.twitter.com and Google Alerts simply were not enough for me. I decided to set my sights on the little guys doing big things (I tend to support them as the company I work for – Backupify – is such).

Here are the pro’s and con’s of the services I tested out:

HootSuite Pro

hootsuite pro

hootsuite.com/pro

I’ve been using HootSuite for over a year now and find it great to schedule and manage Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn status updates. However, I was not able to gain any metrics from my messaging unless I upgraded to a Pro account. A few months ago I received an email from HootSuite offering a week-long free trial of Pro. I tried it out but was not too impressed with what it gave me.

Pros:

  • Great for managing mentions
  • Easy way to schedule tweets
  • One platform to go to for message sharing which is a huge time-saver

Cons:

  • I found it hard to manage re-tweets
  • Analytics were definitley sub-par
  • I wasn’t able to measure much more than overall activity. I could not drill down into any other types of data (i.e. keywords, mentions per day, etc.)

ViralHeat

viral heatI was introduced to this tool over a LinkedIn discussion. While it did have its benefits, overall I found it to be very buggy.

Pros:

  • I liked the email alerts it gave me
  • Good custom reports
  • Showed me trends from week to week of activity on social media
  • Easy distinction between Twitter and Facebook performance

Cons:

  • Mentions were not accurate whatsoever. If I was trying to manage the term “Backupify” on the social web, it would show me a ‘relevant’ tweet related to something like “doctors in Botswana”…
  • Interface was subpar – it took me awhile to figure it out
  • Overall it provided me inaccurate information which made me not trust it. Most of the information it gathered for me made me scratch my head wondering how they even pulled in that data and found it relevant to my search criteria.
  • My tipping point was when I deemed this tool as insufficient for what I was looking for and it became IMPOSSIBLE for me to unsubscribe. There was no unsubscribe button. I had to search around to even find a support email and when I emailed them to politely unsubscribe me, I received no response whatsoever. To this day I am still registered even though I don’t use it.

Actionly

actionly

actionly.com

While Actionly did have some good benefits, I don’t think they’re quite there yet in terms of providing what I was looking for.

Pros:

  • Allowed me to compare social web buzz of Backupify in relation to competitors and other terms which was great
  • Showed trends of increased/decreased followers, mentions, etc.

Cons:

  • The generated reports were not actionable whatsoever, even if I tried to tweak them manually
  • They did not have Google Analytics integration at the time (I believe they will be soon)
  • No good dashboard view

Argyle Social

argyle social

argylesocial.com

I still use Argyle Social today (and have been for about four months) but not to the capacity that I need. This along with my chosen metrics tool provide me what I need.

Pros:

  • Great social sharing capabilities right from a web browser
  • Shows general trend of clicks via social media on the dashboard
  • The founders and developers keep me in the loop with all future developments and even made a point to contact me directly to gain my feedback on their app which I really appreciated
  • Allows me to breakdown clicks based on different social campaigns I have set up
  • Shows share of clicks by social medium

Cons:

  • I wish the dashboard showed me stats such as: most clicked posts, top keywords, top influencers, etc. Instead, I have to dig in manually to find out what is working and what is not
  • They do not yet have integration with Google Analytics

And the winner is…

Raven Tools!

Why I Chose Raven Tools:

raven tools

raven-seo-tools.com

Raven Tools provides me with everything and more I was looking for:

  • Comprehensive, actionable dashboard
  • Keyword analysis
  • Competitive monitoring
  • Integration with Google Analytics
  • Inbound link manager
  • Analysis of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
  • Customizable reports
  • Oh, and did I mention that they offer a 30 day free trial? I have yet to pay this service for all this awesome stuff! I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually looking forward to being able to pay them for all they do for me!

Cons:

NONE! I honestly have not found one drawback of Raven.

As you can see, it’s been a long road to find the right tool, but sometimes when you know what you want and need, it takes a little longer to get there. I want to give a big thanks to all the people on LinkedIn that helped me learn about these tools and for those that ultimately recommended Raven to me.

Currently, I’m using a combination of Raven Tools, Argyle Social and Google Analytics (although Raven integrates with this, I can dig into more data on Analytics itself) to measure social activity, and therefore how I’m performing at my job. If I want to perform well, my metrics tool must as well.

Have you tried out any of these tools? Do you use Raven Tools? Are there different requirements you have for a social media metrics tool? Let me know in the comments section below.

Note: I am not affiliated with any of these tools in any way nor was I paid to promote or demote any of them. This is solely my opinion based on extensive trials and testing.

Jan
07

10 Ways to Become a Better Marketer in 2011

It’s that time of year again when we’re all evaluating what our new years resolution will be this year, and wonderirng how long it will last this time. However, there is one resolution that should never fail to work: become better at your job. Social networks come and go, ‘best practices’ succeed and fail, and your company is constantly changing. What if there were some sure-fire ways to keep a resolution to always get better at your job, no matter what is going on around you?

Follow these ten tips to learn how to become a better online marketer in 2011:

1. Read. Determine which bloggers and experts in your industry you’d like to learn from. Chances are, they have a blog. Pick 2-5 expert bloggers and subscribe to them. Take time out of your day, even if it’s a half hour, to read what they have to say. By reading their posts, you’ll learn new perspectives and techniques. I take time to read Dharmesh Shah’s blog, Darren Rowe’s ProBlogger blog, and Chris Brogan’s blog. From all the other blogs I subscribe to, these provide the most value.

2. Use analytics to your advantage. With so many free analytics tools available today, from Google Analytics to Facebook Insights and free trials to many other tools, use them to your advantage. The more metrics-driven you are as a marketer, the greater the decisions you make will be. Metrics don’t lie, so if you are seeing a trend, act on it. If you need to make a case in your favor, use metrics to prove your point.

3. Use your valuable contacts. Each of your contacts, whether in your company or industry, has something to offer. Schedule a half hour coffee meetup, lunch meeting, or plan to attend an event where your contacts will be to talk with them. Find out what marketing projects they’re working on, what has led them to success and failure, and what some of their own marketing theories are. This will help you learn a wide array of marketing views which will allow you to create a customized marketing approach to your company using a variety of their ideas.

4. Keep an open mind. Never discount an idea until you can prove it won’t be beneficial. Many people become close-minded and stop innovating when they find a comfort zone in a company. Don’t fall victim to this. Instead, always keep an open mind. Whether you’re reading a blog post, attending a webinar, speaking with someone at an event or brainstorming yourself, consider every idea as valid. By not closing out an idea ‘just because’ will not help you grow as a marketer. Instead, explore new ways to market your business.

5. Take some time to evaluate your marketing tactics. Think back on what marketing campaigns and activities you’ve done in the past month. What worked? What didn’t work? What would you like to see done in the next month? With this, build upon your successes, learn from the failures and create new ways to improve your efforts.

6. Maintain your own personal brand. I’m guilty of ignoring some of my personal brand by using the excuse of being too busy at work to take time to write for this blog. I’ve realized that it’s always important to maintain your personal brand even though you’re busy building up the brand of your company. Whether it’s writing a weekly blog post, following up with people on Twitter, building out your connections on LinkedIn or making an appearance at a monthly event, do it. Your personal brand is something that can never be taken away from you and can make you more valuable at your job.

7. Pay attention to industry leading companies. Determine which companies are leading the industry and practicing cutting edge marketing and technological methods. Is there a company that’s doing an outstanding community management job? Follow them on social media and see what tactics they use and who they engage with. Do you admire a company for always staying innovative, using the latest technologies? Follow their blog, attend the events they do and do a weekly news scan to keep on top of what they are doing. This will give you a good sense of their work ethic and ways of finding ideas.

8. Never forget original marketing theories. Theories like “the customer is always right’, “test, test, test”, and the like are always important. Just because there are new theories and technologies to use doesn’t mean old ways don’t work anymore. Instead, the new ways, for the most part, build upon the old ideas. You also need to consider your target market. While there are iPads, Twitter and text messaging mediums, your target audience may prefer the traditional radio advertising method to learn about companies, products and services. While it’s great to know about a new technology and theory, take into consideration how your target marketing would respond. If you think they’re in their comfort zone with the traditional ways you contact them, stay that way. Eventually they will migrate to the new ways, and you can either nudge them that way or go there with them.

9. Always be a step ahead of the competition. Set up alerts, subscribe to their blogs, follow them on social media and go to the events they go to. It may even help to create a spreadsheet to track what major announcements they are making and any sneak peak insights you may have about what they are going to do. That way, you can either pre-empt what a competitor is going to do, follow along with it, or simply be aware of it. Never get caught blindsided by your competition or a surprise new competitor.

10. Keep it real. No matter the technology, medium, or method, always be real with your customers. This aligns well with point #8 as it means to never forget the voice of your company and keep it the same throughout all types of communications. If you’re company is known as a bubbly, conversational company on TV ads, magazine ads and through in-person meetings, keep that same tone and attitude while interacting with customers on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. It’s also important to always be honest and upfront with a customer. The last thing I want a company telling me is that they will be more than happy to give me a month free trial because I was unhappy and then boost up my fee every consecutive month. That won’t make me happy. If I was used to them being very accommodating, I’d be even more taken aback by this approach. Just keep it real.

I could go on and on with ways to become a better marketer, as I’m learning them every day, but I know your time is valuable and I’m sure you have some ideas of your own to share. Please leave your resolution to become a better marketer this year in the comments section!

10.

Sep
08

20 Effective Way to Increase Your Online Influence

Remember what it was like the first day of high school? You nervously walk to the bus stop, wondering who else is going to be there. Once on the bus, you cautiously look around at all the new faces, seeing if you know any and looking at others you don’t. During your first period class, you looked around to find some friends you knew, but most you didn’t know. It probably took weeks if not months to build up a good group of friends and influence within the school ecosystem.

Much like you built up your reputation in school, creating an online presence is just as valuable, if not more. Creating an online influence for yourself can help you gain valuable connections, teach others (and learn from them too), develop power of persuasion, and become regarded as a thought leader.

If you are in the marketing industry, you may idolize people like Chris Brogan and David Meerman Scott for their high influence, visibility and knowledge. I, like many of you, have sat down wondering how to become like them.

Here are 20 key tips to follow to build your online influence:

1. Don’t talk about your service or product. Instead, talk about customer problems and needs and develop meaningful content around those.

2. Be transparent. You will become more credible and trustworthy if you are honest online.

3. Follow great people.

4. Online to offline. Make connections online and continue the relationships offline at events or meet ups.

5. Start conversations with others. If someone shares your article on social media, writes about your product, criticizes you, or asks you a question, answer. That is key to building relationships.

6. Be early in the news cycle so you share information that people are looking for and haven’t seen anywhere else. If you are able to write about or share breaking news, people will come to you more for industry leading breakthroughs.

7. Share good content consistently. When people come to expect you to share and post content regularly, and it is good content, they will keep coming back to you.

8. Let your passion shine. The more devotion and passion you show in your work, the more others will see it and believe it. This will bring them into your content and will entice them to engage with you.

9. Talk about others. If you can praise others, discuss great companies, review an outstanding product/service, etc. people will recognize that, appreciate it, and perhaps return the favor.

10. Repeat your tweets. I will always remember what Guy Kawasaki said about retweets: It is a good practice to RT an article about four times over the course of a day for it to get noticed and shared.

11. Understand your audience and build content around that. If you are a lawn mowing manufacturer and know your audience is interested in lawn care, write about that.

12. Don’t try to be all things to everyone. Instead, master one niche. It is best to focus in on one particular topic (for me it is internet marketing) and share your expertise. Don’t try to write about five different topics; people will get confused about what you stand for if you do this.

13. Be active on other people’s communities. If you want to be seen and noticed, you have to go find other people, not hope that they will come to you. If your audience hangs out on a niche social network site, get involved there and in turn they may come into your community if you build effective relationships on their site first.

14. Listen, then engage. If there is a breaking news story in your industry, a massive online attack on your brand, or a common theme to your listeners’ questions/comments, understand them and then engage.

15. Network with other influencers. Once you have become influential in some degree, begin speaking with others that are already there.

16. Share your ideas. Long gone are the days where we secretly held in every trade secret. Today, it is best to share your knowledge and help everyone around you grow and improve. If you help your industry as a whole improve, then you are in turn helping yourself and your business.

17. Make friends. The more you can enhance a friendship online (and continue it offline) the better you will fare online. If you appear to just be networking for the sake of getting fans and retweets, people will quickly pick up on that and be turned off. However, if you are genuine and building friendships, people will like you and want to talk to you.

18. Give more than you get. The more you can share news and expertise, the better. If you can help your audience, they will appreciate that and that appreciation can go miles towards building your online influence.

19. Use social media to compliment existing message channels. Just because social media is hot now doesn’t mean you should abandon your traditional ways of reaching others. If you are used to interacting with your audience via forums, email, podcasts and events, keep doing those. You can use social media to continue those relationship and gain new ones.

20. Make something worth talking about. David Meerman Scott calls this a ‘worldwide rave.’ If you can create novel, interesting content, others will talk about it and share. If you are simply reposting content that others already put out, you won’t attract many viewers.

What are some ways that you have built your online influence? Have you implemented any of the above 20 methods? If so, which worked best/worst for your or your company?


Sep
02

10 Ways to Overcome Writers Block

broken pencil

We’ve all experienced it: the blank stare at the screen, an idea in our head that we just can’t put into words, or an outright empty bucket of blog ideas. In fact, I just experienced it yesterday while coming up with two blog posts to write for today for my company’s blog. Thankfully, I came up with two solid posts here and here.

I always end up coming through with an idea or two, but have certainly been in that spot where you just have no clue what else to write or don’t know how to start or finish a post. I write 7 to 10 blog posts a week for Backupify, one for BostInnovation, and 2 to 3 on this site. That can lead up to 14 posts a week, or two a DAY! I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this either, especially those who blog for their job at places like Mashable and TechCrunch.

While you could choose to just wait out the block, there are ways to be proactive and search for fresh new ideas.

Here are 10 effective tips to overcome writer’s block:

1. Spin Offs. Skim through some of your favorite blogs and pick up an idea or two and do a unique spin off of them. This could be refuting their point, making it an opinion piece or taking a whole new perspective on the same topic.

2. Coorelation. Pick a very unique object laying around you and relate it to something that you like to write about. For example, I’m sitting at a desk right now and a pen is to the left of me. You could talk about how pens once were crucial to our productivity but now we hardly even use them for to-do lists anymore. Almost everything is computerized, etc, etc, etc. You get the point.

3. Read a book or watch a movie and do a review of it. I usually do this after I have read a great book. This past winter I read Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot and loved it so much that I decided to blog about it. You can take mental or written out notes while reading/watching and then come up with your review of it that many will enjoy reading before buying a new book or watching a new movie.

4. Write about your surroundings. Go for a walk and take in everything around you. If you live in a city, observe the hustle and bustle of people, the smells, clothing styles, ethnicities, houses, animals, noises, etc. If you live in a rural area, take in the vast amounts of land, big yards, serenity, open skies, cars passing by, and calm lifestyle. Wherever you live, give a new appreciation for your surroundings by writing about it; maybe others will feel inspired to do the same.

5. Write about something you are doing at work (as long as it is not confidential). A month ago our company had a major press release go out. Around the same time, I expressed to my boss that I was having writer’s block and felt terrible that I was ignoring my own blog (this one). He suggested that I take something I have learned while working here and write about it. I decided to write about how social media can help leverage a press release online.

6. Interview someone. Is there someone you admire in your industry? Do you look up to your parents or grandparents? Was there one teacher or professor that had a profound impact on your life? Do you love your little cousin’s quirky comments? Interview anyone you find interesting and write about your experience talking to them. Appreciating the viewpoints and personalities of those around us can be more valuable thank you think.

7. Event Recaps. Write about an event that you went to for work. I try to attend a few marketing events around Boston every month, and if I go to a good one or met a lot of great people, I’ll blog about it. Those that attended will appreciate the recap too. This February I went to an event in Fenway Park called #Soxup where social media marketing professionals all met up to network. I blogged about it here. I also went to a CRM Acceleration event sponsored by BrainSell and Sugar CRM and blogged about it here.

8. Create a content list and calendar. Some days I find myself flowing with great blog ideas but never write them down. When I go to write one, my mind goes blank. To combat that, I keep a Google Doc list of content ideas I have both for my personal site, Backupify and BostInnovation so that I never forget a good idea again. You can then make it very organized by noting when it needs to be published by.

9. Write about old posts. Maybe you have something new to add to an old posts, want to list your most popular blog posts, or want to summarize a few posts into one. Any of these are a great refresher and polisher both for you and your readers. A few months ago I blogged about my most popular blogs thus far based on retweets, Facebook shares, number of visits and comments.

10. Invite a guest blogger to write. If you are out of ideas and can think of a writer who could provide a really good and unique perspective on something related to your blog, invite them to guest blog for you! Most people love to do this as it gives them exposure and a link back to their site if you offer it. Usually if you give them a link back, they can do it for free since an inbound link has power in terms of Google’s ranking. I have had several guest bloggers on my site whom have all provided great content for my readers.

What do you do to combat writer’s block? Do you use any of these tips or have some of your own to add? Let me know in the comments section below!

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Aug
31

Facebook and Twitter are NOT the same Message Channel

facebook vs twitter

I am a huge proponent of using social networking to promote a business, but first it must be understood that each message channel has a specific audience; especially Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook is now a mainstream social network with 500 million users and counting. 50% of users access Facebook via the web every day. Twitter had 106 million users as of this April so it is growing but certainly not mainstream yet. 75% of Twitter users access it via a 3rd party client such as HootSuite or CoTweet instead of the website domain which suggests most Twitter users are more technical. The average social networker would not know how to download a third party app, nonetheless know which one to use, to access Twitter.

Due to the large disparity between the two social networks, different messages need to be created for each channel.

Since Twitter is largely a technical crowd, they are looking to receive news about new products/services, innovation, gadgets, and statistics.

Facebook users, on the other hand, are there to talk with friends about more mainstream topics including trends, gatherings, celebrities, and their daily lives.

If you are trying to reach customers and leads via social media, it is crucial to keep that in mind.

At Backupify, I manage both our Twitter and Facebook accounts. On Twitter, I am able to tweet about OAuth, Twitter trends, Google Apps, net neutrality, and the like. On Facebook, I have to alter the messaging and post items like Facebook developments, Google trends, privacy, etc. Since our service is high tech in the first place, most followers and fans get the general idea, but I still need to tweak the messages accordingly.

I just started using a tool called Argyle Social, which is still in beta, that helps me measure which posts do best on each channel. You have the option to post any article on Twitter, Facebook or both and then track that URL using their web interface. The more clicks a post gets, the better it does. This helps me measure and tweak my posts according to what Argyle Social reports. If I post something too technical or non-conversational on Facebook and I see that it did poorly, I’ll know that it was the wrong post to put up and will avoid doing that in the future. If I post a really popular topic on Twitter and it gets, say, 200 clicks, I’ll know followers want more of that since they are highly interested.

When managing your Facebook and Twitter accounts for your company, always keep in mind who your audience is. The more you post about irrelevant information to them, the less people will follow, interact and engage with you. If done right, though, you can gain very passionate and smart followers who will become brand evangelists for your company.

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Aug
25

Is the Internet draining us or do we lack focus?

information overload

Five years ago you would never have had access to as much information as you do today. Now the question arises, “Is there too much information available at my fingertips?”

You might not have thought twice about the slow yet apparent increase of information that is available on the web until now. In fact, I hardly thought much into it until I read this article.

The upside to the matter is that no longer do you have to dig through a book, purchase a $500 research report or conduct a focus group to gain information that seems quite simple to obtain today.

On the other hand, our eyes are glazing over so much of this information that we are becoming far less able to soak in pages of data and would rather read quick snippets of information from article titles. For example, say you conduct a Google search for “Percentage of businesses on Twitter.” You might get a great result from eMarketer offering an extensive three to ten page report all about this. But do you choose it? Probably not. Instead, you take in what the title says, “Study finds 56% of businesses use Twitter” and do a quick scan of the first few paragraphs.

This demonstrates the inability and time deficiency that we have to sit down and read a real report anymore. Our depth of knowledge is limited but our breadth is expanding. We are now taking in more types of data but at a shallower level. Many psychologists and scientists question if this will in turn make us more stupid.

They worry that we will not be able to think deeply and thoughtfully into any one topic anymore. While we may be well versed in many topics, what does that do when we are asked to go into detail on a particular subject and can’t?

This debate boils down to focus vs. plethora of information. I stand on the fence about the issue but would have to lean in the direction of saying that in general it will be a good thing. I believe that the more well versed a person is in the world on many different topics, the better off they will be. This is not to say you should know a little about biology, green energy, social media marketing, architecture and pollution, but that you should have a broad focus on a particular industry or topic and take in bits and pieces of data all over about that.

For example, my specialty is high tech internet marketing. Do I read intensive reports on this regularly? Nope. Instead, I set up Google Alerts, subscribe to about twenty blogs, follow around 350 people that are tech and marketing related on Twitter and watch videos related to these subjects. This gives me an expansive and thorough understanding of the general state of Internet marketing. Instead of honing in on one very particular part of my speciality, I like to use the plethora of data to my advantage by expanding my knowledge and expertise to a more general category.

A few months ago I wrote a post titled ‘Information Overload or Filter Failure’ which discussed that maybe we are just having trouble creating our own data filters in our minds. To combat this, pick out particular topics you want to be aware of while scanning the web. While scanning through your Google Reader, email and Twitter feed, act as a keyword catcher and focus on picking up only articles related to those. Don’t let the data explosion overtake your whole Internet experience and let it ‘dumb you down’ as experts are calling it.

As a tip, I try to read a book a month to allow myself to not become too entrenched in only learning from what the Internet has to teach me. I also do this to be able to immerse myself into a longer story and focus on reading hundreds of pages of the same piece rather than snippets. I have realized recently that this has been a bit of a struggle to do since I read so much online now, but I am sticking to my mission to do this and it definitely helps. Try that out too and let me know if it works!

How do you react to this issue? Do you feel dumbed down by the Internet or do you think it can provide us with an opportunity? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!

You might also want to follow me on Twitter to learn more @kristinedziadul.

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May
06

Stop Making Excuses!

Stop making excuses for not being on social media!

Yes, it means you lose control of your content. Yes, it means being in places your buyers are, not where you want to be. Yes, it means you must take a leap out of your comfort zone.

However, it is more than worth it. Why? Read on…

You don’t have anything to lose because you can always delete something that is not working out. Social media can actually be very fun and exciting for you and your company.

So why social media?

1. Tell Your Story. If you create buyer personas for your market demographics, you can then tailor your company’s story directly to an interested market. You may have different personas in or between social media sites, and every persona has different needs. You can create several different stories and promote them on social media and your interested market will pick that up. It would be great to even interview your market and find out what they want or hear their story to share on your community site.

2. Earn Attention by Publishing Your Way In. The old way of marketing was to buy advertising space, beg your way into media through PR and buy your way in by direct selling. Now, you must earn this attention by publishing your content on YouTube, a blog, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and more.

On the web, you are what you publish.

3. Encourage Sharing. Those interested markets will willingly want to share information they find valuable. It is not word of mouth anymore, it is word of mouse. The mouse (or trackpad) helps listeners share your story with others. Consider yourself lucky to have these Internet marketing capabilities which allow interested people to share your information so quickly and to a large following. You can encourage sharing by making a link on your blog for readers to retweet, share on Facebook or Google Buzz, send in an email, or submit to delicious or other bookmarking sites. You can add the same capabilities to an email as well.

4. Lose Control of Your Content. This may sound like a scary statement, but it is the best and fastest way to gain viral attention. You must lose control of your content in order for it to be shared and spread around the Internet. You can do this by giving out free information or tools to help your market succeed and solve their problems. They will appreciate this and spread the word. Hubspot does this VERY well with all their free webinars, tools, and blogs.

5. Put Down Roots. Be in the places where your buyers are, not where you want to be. It is much easier to gain attention in spots where your market is already comfortable being instead of enticing them to join a site where you are. For example, if your market is a huge NFL following, you must be on NFL related blogs and sites to talk to them and gain attention.

6. Point the World to Your Virtual Doorstep. One you have established great content, a firm standing on social media sites, and a good following, then drive people to your site through inbound marketing. No one will visit your site if they have no idea who you are, what you do, and what you write about. That is why you must first get involved on sites where your market is, develop relationships, THEN drive them to your site and get a lead.

Although social media may seem scary to a company who is afraid of negative feedback, wants a firm hold on their content, and does not know how people will react to them on social media, it can gain you rewards two-fold. By allowing yourself to lose control of your content, share it, and manage your fear, you are taking a great leap and starting a viral rave.

You may find markets that you didn’t even know existed who want your product or service, people may love what you do and are willing to share it, and your market may need and want your free content and become very loyal to you. The possibilities are endless when it comes to social media.

Social media is actually a very natural thing for the Internet. The Internet was designed to be a collaborative, social environment and up until recently, it really was not. Finally it has come full-circle and people are using it in a social, collaborative way. So by getting on social media, you are doing exactly what the Internet was intended for.

Get out there and make those valuable connections and talk to and listen to your market!

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