Elie Kochman on Business and Networking

Actually, this document is titled “The Income Blogging Guide” and contains a mix of text, audio, and video. It’s free, and was sent to me by Robb Sutton. Considering that Robb generally sends few links, and he gave his recommendation for it, I figured I would give it a look.

To get your copy, go to the book’s site and enter a name and an e-mail address. Within a few minutes, you’ll have access to 95 pages of instructions, videos, detailed images, and all  the information you need to get your blog up and running.

You can watch a video of Matt Cutts from Google giving a talk at WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco.

Not sure how to set up a website? Click-by-click instructions are included (along with screenshots to help you).

Wanted to know how to find good keywords? What to do with those keywords? The answers are all there.

Best of all, the authors, Andrew Rondeau and Joel Williams, aren’t charging you for this information – because it’s not a trade secret. This is how information about blogging should be distributed – for free, because the answers are all available for free already. In the process, they save you time performing searches of your own, collecting all this information on your own.

So check it out, it can help you get up and running as fast as you can read!

I just finished reading Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. If you’re reading this blog, you probably already know the authors from their wide-spread online presence. If not, check out their blogs, from where you can find more information about them (for Chris’ blog, click here; for Julien’s blog, click here).

I would first like to thank both Chris Brogan and LinkedIn – this book was sent to me as part of winning a contest on Twitter several weeks ago. There were no strings attached to me getting the book. However, I enjoyed reading the book, and so decided to write a review of the book.

In order to understand my perspective on the book, I need to take you back to when I was first introduced to Chris. My friend and colleague Jeremy Lichtman started a friendly competition on his blog on January 1, 2009 (read the post here) to complete Chris’ list of 100 blogging topics, and on January 12, I decided to take him up on the challenge. At this point, I had never heard of Chris Brogan.

Fast forward a few months, and I had become a regular reader of Chris’ blog, and soon signed up for his weekly newsletter. I’ve had a couple of e-mail exchanges with him on various small topics relating to his newsletter. Then the book came out, and I was immediately intrigued by the title, and when he posted the competition in conjunction with LinkedIn, I submitted my entry (click here to see my post), and was pleased to see that I had won.

The way I had won the book in the first place demonstrates how appropriate it is that I read the book. Chris and Julien wrote about establishing trust online, and clearly, I had already been involved with establishing trust with Chris himself. Many of the lessons they wrote about I already knew, but never thought about in a conscious manner. Trust takes time to establish, but can be destroyed in seconds. Most people know this, but don’t think about it.

The book was easy to read and well-written, flowing smoothly between topics. The objectives of the various points were well laid out. If you read Chris’ newsletter (and if you don’t, I recommend you sign up here), then you’ll be familiar with the style.

From a content perspective, the book did not teach me anything new per se, but rather promoted critical thinking about how and why online relationships work. Having completed the book, I do not believe that I am now a trust agent – rather, I understand more about the side effects of the various actions I do online. I understand the power of the masses, and how it can be harnessed for mutually beneficial purposes. I understand the difference between asking a friend for a favor, and getting your friend to offer the favor before you ask.

Most of all, I now understand the path I am on (after all, if you are present in several online communities, you are involved in establishing trust at some level), and what I can do to ensure that I don’t have to learn all the lessons the hard way, and how I can be sure to apply established rules to increase my circles of awareness and acceptance as rapidly and smoothly as possible.

If you blog, or interact in any manner online, I strongly recommend that you read this book. It will explain to you much of what is happening to your relationships as you progress in your online involvement.

This is the final installment of the social media series, which started with the post on August 7. There was to have been a post last Friday, but life sometimes gets in the way. I’m curious to know what you thought of the series – how might it have been improved, what additional topics should I have discussed, did I make some errors. Please comment and let me know.

I apologize in advance for what is about to happen. I’m going to be separated from the internet for about 10 days. So if you post a comment, it may take until I get back for me to respond. However, I will respond when I get back.

Recap

When I left off the series, our model business owner, Jane, had started a blog which she uses to hold directed conversations with her readers. She has also started a Twitter account which she uses to post news and links to her articles, and uses the account to see what topics are of interest to people, and then writing about those topics.

Facebook

The largest problem with blogging and Twitter is that conversations are generally one-sided. Jane acan pick a topic to discuss, and interact with her audience regarding those topics. Using Twitter, she can respond to short questions. What she cannot do (yet) is allow her audience to pose its own questions, to hold undirected conversations.

This is where the networking sites such as Facebook and Linked In become important. Both these sites allow groups to be created. The creator of the group can act as an administrator of the group, and encourage conversation and participation among the group’s members. However, each member can start a new conversation, a new discussion, on a variety of topics. They can ask questions.

This will put Jane back to the first stages of becoming involved in social media, in which she interacts directly with her audience, as a member of the audience, but now Jane is in control of the environment. She can market the sites to people who come to her store. She can start getting feedback from her customers on topics she didn’t realize were issues.

Conclusion

Social media is about personal interactions used as a means of promotion. The fundamental component of social media is interactions. Social media is built on socializing. In order to run a successful campaign, you must interact with your audience – respond to their questions and comments, start conversations, ask questions of your own. Everything else is merely a tool to help you interact.

This is the third article in a series of articles describing how social media can be used by businesses. The aim is to publish one article per week on this topic, the first being Friday, August 7. Each article will address a single topic, and build on material provided in the earlier articles. Through feedback provided on the articles, this may lead into another series after the conclusion of this series.

Note that any clients referred to in these articles are fictitious, unless I specifically indicate otherwise.

Applying the Concepts

The client described in the first post in this series can make good use of the previous article as she develops her strategy. Social Media is built around interactions, so Jane must decide what kind of interactions she would like to foster. She must also look at how each platform is constructed, so that she can play to its strengths.

The Blog

The first step for most businesses starting with social media is to write a blog. If the client is technically adept, they can follow the instructions here on how to set up a WordPress blog on their own site. If not, they can hire someone to set up the site for them. (If you are looking for someone to set up a blog for you, please contact me directly and I can refer you to a reputable company that does this for a minimal fee.)

Before going live with the blog, there are a few things Jane needs to do.

1. Choose a topic for the blog. As the owner of a hardware store, she may feel comfortable writing articles about how to fix some common problems around the house on a tight budget. The title and sub-line for the blog should reflect the topic chosen.
2. Set a schedule for posting. More important than posting frequently is to post on a regular schedule. It is tempting to post each article as soon as it is written, but that may end up causing the blog to die quickly, as the speed of your writing drops. My usual recommendation is to start with one article per week, posted in the afternoon of Tuesday or Thursday. As the number of viewers of the blog grows, the frequency of publishing can be increased to twice a week, then three times a week.
3. Prepare some articles. While Jane has selected a topic that she feels confident she can write about, she does not know how much time she will have available for writing. She should prepare about 3 months of articles (if she’s publishing once per week, that works out to 12-15 articles) and upload them to the site in draft mode.

At this point, Jane can launch her blog. Some companies (including the one I recommend) can do some preliminary advertising for her to increase the number of viewers quickly. Other plugins for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be installed so that new posts are automatically submitted to various search engines. Certain types of content will result in Google scanning the page earlier. A reputable company will help to explain and set up these components.

Jane should also be sure to monitor the number of viewers to the site, and respond to comments on her posts. Writing the article is only the first step – interacting with her readers is more important. While it may take time to convert a reader to a client, if she does not interact at all with her readers, then her blog is merely another form of traditional media.

Jane must also remember to tell people about her blog, and ask for feedback. A sign in her store can drive her existing customers to the site, and they can tell her, in person, what they like and don’t like about the blog. She can ask them for ideas for articles and for suggestions on how to improve her existing articles. They may tell their family and friends about the site. If Jane can establish her credibility as an expert on the blog, then people will be more inclined to come to her store when they need something, or need advice on her area of expertise.

Tweets – Part 1

Now that Jane has her blog up and running, she may want to create her first Twitter account. With this account, she can post links to articles on her blog, talk about those articles, and create an additional community of people interested in those topics. Using various tools discussed in a future article, she can analyze what people are talking about, and write relevant articles on those topics. With this Twitter account, Jane is trying to attract more readers to her blog, to increase the amount of attention on her writing.

What’s Next

In the next article, I will be discussing other uses of Twitter beyond driving traffic to a blog, and the benefits to creating a page on a social media platform such as Facebook.

This is the second article in a series of articles describing how social media can be used by businesses. The aim is to publish one article per week on this topic, the first being Friday, August 7. Each article will address a single topic, and build on material provided in the earlier articles. Through feedback provided on the articles, this may lead into another series after the conclusion of this series.

Note that any clients referred to in these articles are fictitious, unless I specifically indicate otherwise.

The Tools of Social Media

Social media requires, as a fundamental component, the ability for people to interact. Therefore, any tool claiming to be a part of the world of social media must include interactions between the provider and the audience. Each tool will therefore include one or more of the following components:

1. Comments – the ability for the audience to publicly reply to some statement
2. Forums – the ability for the audience to create a statement and then provide feedback
3. Messaging – the ability for people to communicate in real time

Looking at some of the common tools of social media, it is easy to see how they are making use of at least one of these components.

Blogs

Blogs, such as this one, allow their audience to provide feedback on any given article. In this manner, the provider can post a message of arbitrary length, and the audience can then provide feedback.

The distribution of information is weighed strongly in favor of the provider, as they usually retain the ability to edit or select responses to be posted. (As an aside, I do not edit comments to this blog, and only refuse to post those comments which can clearly be seen to be spam.) The provider can control the topic of discussion to some extent, and can choose to incorporate the opinions of the audience in future posts.

Twitter

A form of micro-blogging in which each post is limited to 140 character, Twitter allows its users to post short messages. Conversations can be held by tagging posts, or marking a post as a reply to another user (via the # and @ tags).

Facebook (and other social networking sites)

A page can be created on a social networking site, providing an online location for people with a common interest to congregate. Interactions are usually via a message board, although private messaging is usually available as well. In the example of Facebook, targeted conversations can be created as well using forums.

What’s Next

In the next article, I will be providing an explanation of how the sample client, Jane, can make use of each of these tools to promote her business, and what some of the other tools she may want to make use of to facilitate her use of these forms of social media.

This is the first article in a series of articles describing how social media can be used by businesses. The aim is to publish one article per week on this topic, the first being today, August 7. Each article will address a single topic, and build on material provided in the earlier articles. Through feedback provided on the articles, this may lead into another series after the conclusion of this series.

Note that any clients referred to in these articles are fictitious, unless I specifically indicate otherwise.

The Client

Harvey’s Hardware is a small store located on the corner of a busy intersection in a residential neighborhood. The original owner, Harvey, has retired, and the store has been sold to Jane. Jane has an MBA from a prestigious school, and is interested in running her own business after spending over 20 years working for a large multi-national corporation. She bought the hardware store using funds she has saved, and spent the first year after the sale becoming familiar with the store and its clients.

Jane is not technically illiterate, but her use of technology is limited to word processing and checking her e-mail. She is comfortable with her inventory management software.

Recently, a few of her customers asked if she had a website for her store, to which she had to answer no. However, she is interested in creating an online presence, and has heard about social media and would like to become involved.

The Problem:

The real problem, in this case, is that Jane does not understand what social media is, nor how it can be used to help her store grow its customer base. Her first step, therefore, is to learn about social media, and how it compares to the more traditional forms of media with which she is already familiar.

The Background:

Social media, as defined by Wikipedia, is “…online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies… transforming people from content consumers into content producers”. In other words, social media makes use of the internet as a dstribution medium and is based on interactions between people, rather than simply delivering information.

Traditional media including newspapers, radio, and television, are based on information delivery. Information is collected and converted into a message, which is then broadcast to the audience. The audience may be able to provide responses to that information, but those responses are delayed, such as the letters section of a newspaper. Additionally, distributors of traditional media are faced with large expenses in creating and delivering the content.

Social media, on the other hand, relies on the audience itself to both create and distribute information. This has the benefit of incorporating feedback from the audience in the message itself, and in reducing the cost of distribution to a negligible amount.

The downside, however, is directly tied into the benefits. Traditional media, such as newspapers, go to great expense to distinguish fact from opinion, and to verify any facts to the best of their ability. This results in a quality of information that is difficult to find in social media. Since the control over information in social media is distributed among the audience, it is nearly impossible to ensure that all the facts will be accurate.

Another key difference between social media and traditional media is as follows. In traditional media, the creation and delivery of content is where the majority of the effort is. Social media, however, requires more work in following up on content than in the creation or delivery. This form of media bases its distribution on interactions – the more interactions there are, the more successful the distribution will be.

What’s Next:

In the next article, to be published on August 14, I will be giving an overview of some of the tools of social media, and how to use them successfully.

This is #11 on Chris Brogan’s list of 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write.

Until I was 17, most of my life was spent in school. At the parochial schools I went to, a typical day started at 7:30 AM (6 days a week) and didn’t end until about 9:30 PM (5 days a week). This did not leave a lot of time for many extra-curricular activities. Not only that, but I was in school from September through the end of July, with a single month of summer vacation. Getting a job for the summer was difficult at best, because I could only work for 4 weeks. Camp was an option some years, not others, depending on the exact dates for the start and end of the school year.

My children will not have to do this. They will go to schools with reasonable hours. They will participate in extra-curricular activities. They will have time off each summer to go to camp or get a job. Fortunately for them, there are more options available today for parochial schools, and so I do not have to choose between lifestyle and beliefs.

This is #10 on Chris Brogan’s list of 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write.

It’s quite astounding how many people fail to think before they speak. I’m not referring to the occasional social slip up, but to people who can be relied on to say the wrong thing. Examples of this include handing out unsolicited advice and criticism to strangers. Or stating the obvious when everyone else in the conversation was deliberately trying not to (this is usually done by the last person to catch on to what the conversation is really about).

A piece of advice: before you say anything, pause for just a second, and think about whether you should be saying something, and whether what you’re about to say is appropriate!

This is #9 on Chris Brogan’s list of 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write.

I read the paper every day, and so I am fairly caught up on current events. I’m working on building a business, so I do a fair amount of reading along those topics. I read other peoples blogs using the WordPress Readomatic. As well, I am an avid reader, and am constantly reading novels, going through 2 to 5 novels a week. I spend time on LinkedIn and Facebook, reading what my friends and associates are doing, as well as belonging to several groups and following their discussions.

With the amount of reading I do, it should not be surprising that I will come across ideas or statements that pique my interest. When that happens, it will often be the source of another article. Some get written immediately, others sit around for a while.

The only exception to this is Chris Brogan’s list, which I came across via a friend’s blog (http://lichtman.ca/) and who opened a challenge to see who could get through the list first. I’m usually up for a challenge, and so I started writing on those topics. I did find a few items in the list to which I cannot relate (for example, #6: How Flickr Did It Right) and skipped over those. The list, however, did provide me with ideas for starting articles on days that I want to write, but for some reason, can’t be inspired to come up with a topic.

This is #8 on Chris Brogan’s list of 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write.

First of all, I have skipped #6, and, not having used Flickr yet, will not be writing about that at this point in time.

To me, there are two types of bad times at conferences. First, the conference may turn out to be something that you were not expecting (as an example, you go to a Sci-Fi convention, and discover that it’s actually a Star Trek convention, in which you happen to have no interest). The second type of bad time is where the conference could have been good, but for some reason, you aren’t connecting.

In the first case, there’s really not much you can do, unless you decide to take the opportunity to learn something new. Extra knowledge can be useful, even if you don’t know yet how you might apply it. Besides, in any group setting, there’s the networking aspect, which is difficult to predict as to how it will pay off in the long run.

In the second case, there’s a different problem. You went to a conference on the nature of the universe expecting to hear lectures from the like of Stephen Hawking, and discover that he wasn’t interested in presenting, so they took the local high school physics teacher as a stand-in. Couple this with the fact that 90% of the attendees are still in high school. You have a PhD in physics.

Remember, that unless you failed to do any research into the conference (in which case you have no one to blame but yourself for it not living up to your expectations), there are likely other people at this conference who are also not enjoying themselves. Other people who came to the conference with similar expectations to your own, and made similar discoveries as you have about the nature of the conference.

Find them.

You could sit and complain together, but better yet, you can set up an impromptu conference in the middle of the one you’re all attending. Even if you can only find one or two other people who seem bored, get together with them in a fairly public area (look for a spare room that’s part of the conference area but isn’t being used at the moment) and give a presentation on a topic you are considered expert in (assuming, of course, that it relates to the subject of the conference). Ask the people you’ve met to do the same.

In a short while, you will have heard a few ad lib presentations on topics that you would have found interesting. You’ve connected to a few other experts in the field. And if the organizers of the conference are paying attention, you may soon get a request to help them organize their next conference, preventing a repeat of the poor performance.