Archives for August 2015

Content Movement: How to Get Your Share of the Conversation

Content Movement: How to Get Your Share of the Conversation

This is Episode 50 of This Old New Business weekly business podcast with Jeff Korhan.

In this episode Mark Schaefer shares why it’s necessary to build an audience of alpha’s, those people that have a strong connection to you and your content. These advocates believe in you, and that emotional or feeling connection compels them to consistently share your content.

Mark is a globally recognized author, speaker, educator, and a business consultant who blogs at {grow.} In addition to teaching graduate marketing classes at Rutgers University, Mark has written five bestselling books, including the Tao of Twitter (the #1 book on Twitter in the world), Return on Influence, and most recently, The Content Code: Six Essential Strategies for Igniting Your Content, Your Marketing, and Your Business.

Mark also studied under legendary business management consultant Peter Drucker. This is why top busineses and universities listen to Mark, so maybe you should too.

Content Movement: How to Get Your Share of the Conversation

Content Movement Sparks Conversations

In content marketing circles we often hear about sharing, but what does that mean in practical terms?

Mark Schaefer explains that content has to flow and move around in order to spark new conversations. Thus, it’s meaningless to have thousands of social media followers if they are not taking action to give your content movement.

In fact, Schaefer notes that Klout scores are really an indication of people’s ability to create content movement. Those conversations may be large or small, with small being significantly better than not at all.

This is why Mark Schaefer suggests making a list of your alphas, the people that believe in you so much they will share everything, even if they have yet had the opportunity to consumer it themselves.

By any measure, great content is the table stakes for playing in this game. When you think of content as your marketing “product,” it’s clear you don’t want to be in love with it as much as those that consume it.

Be in love with the customers and influencers, which essentially are the “market” that uses your content to spark productive conversations.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on content movement? Meet me over on Twitter to take the conversation further.

Lighting Round Tips and Advice

Mark’s Top Sales or Marketing Advice – Especially for small business, treat people online as you would offline. Engage with people in more human ways, such as helping them, as opposed to selling them. Let’s the sales be a byproduct of genuine interaction.

His Favorite Productivity Tip – Focus and discipline. Focus on the two or three things most important to your business brand that generate profits, either directly or indirectly, such as creating great content.

A Quote that has Inspired Mark’s Success – “A business is marketing and innovation. Everything else is overhead.”  – Peter Drucker. Mark’s take on this is that marketing has to be central to your business. Put another way, you cannot have a business without customers, and you cannot have customers without marketing.

Key Take-Aways

  • You can learn more about Mark at businessesgrow.com, where you will find his blog {grow}. If you make a comment he promises to reply. Also, check out his training courses and The Marketing Companion podcast.
  • Grab a copy of the Content Code, and also consider combining it with a copy of the Tao of Twitter. Both are packed full of practical ideas and useful lists, including BADASS, the six elements of the Content Code: 
    • B – Brand Development
    • A – Audience and Influencers
    • D – Distribution and promotion
    • A – Authority
    • S – Shareability
    • S – Social proof and social signals

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About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business and host of This Old New Business podcast.

He helps mainstream businesses adapt their traditional growth practices to a digital world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedInTwitterFacebook, and Google+

The Power of Engagement in An Automated World

The Power of Engagement in An Automated World

Did you know that if you have consistently low engagement on Facebook the bar for achieving it the next time is raised even higher? That’s how the algorithims work.

While this may seem unfair, the truth is all of the networks favor people and businesses that already have a proven audience. To make room for them, much of everything and everyone else gets ignored.
In our media saturated world this makes complete sense. These channels are vying for people’s attention, so they want to deliver media that is most in demand.

Here’s basically how it works on Facebook. One, two, three strikes and you are out! If you publish three consecutive duds on your Facebook page, the algorithm reasons you are not ready for the big leagues and sends you to the minors.

You need to get some hits, and that means stepping back to assess what works well on the respective channels, while concurrently encouraging engagement with it.

To Earn More Engagement Start Engaging

The engagement metrics the respective social networks use to validate your authority include likes, comments, shares and retweets (or the equivalent). If your content is not earning these signals, especially shares, then you need a new plan.

Apply a similar analysis to other media channels, such as your blog and digital newsletters. If you are not receiving engagement, then either the content is missing the mark or you simply need to open the door to feedback.

I encourage and receive a responses to my newsletter every week. They are greatly appreciated because they help to make it better.

How about you?

The simplest way to enhance your engagement is developing a system for doing so. Here are a few ideas.

#1 – Ask influentials to share your content. You have to ask nicely and carefully choose before inquiring or you may close some doors forever. Of course, be sure the content is useful and relevant to their interests, and clearly communicate that.

#2 – Freshen your lists of subscribers and followers. Most of us have email lists of hundreds to thousands, but we only occasionally engage with a few. Consider personally emailing 5­-10 subscribers every week to connect and warm up your relationship with them. Apply similar tactics to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on.

#3 – Seek sustainable impact. The surest way to sustain personal and professional relevance on all of your media channels is to test and analyze what earns engagement and publish more of it. Commit to making everything you publish a winner, because one­ hit wonders are soon forgotten.

That’s the goal. People like to engage with winners, and true winners graciously create opportunities for personal, one­-to-­one engagement.

About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business and host of This Old New Business podcast.

He helps mainstream businesses adapt their traditional growth practices to a digital world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedInTwitterFacebook, and Google+

Instinctive Action: How to Maximize Personal Productivity and Energy

This is Episode 49 of This Old New Business weekly business podcast with Jeff Korhan. In this episode former entrepreneur turned Kolbe Certified growth consultant and team builder Jason Cupp sits down to discuss how undertanding your instintive action mode(s) can favorably impact productivity and energy. Jason notes there are many roads one can take to a destination, […]

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Buyers Journey: Mining Insights that Drive Results

This is Episode 48 of This Old New Business weekly business podcast with Jeff Korhan. In this episode Nimble founder Jon Ferrara returns to the show to discuss how the buyers journey has changed and what we need to do to change with it. Prior to Nimble, Jon founded Goldmine in 1989 with a college friend, which he turned […]

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Social Selling: Taking Action for Your Customers

This is Episode 47 of This Old New Business weekly business podcast with Jeff Korhan. In this episode we sit down to discuss social selling with Jeffrey Hayzlett, former CMO of Kodak and host of The C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett. Jeffrey imparts lessons that dare companies and their leaders to define where they want to go and fearlessly […]

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