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How to Keep Your Blogging Enthusiasm

There are many benefits to blogging but, truth be told, it can be a lot of work. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, writing a blog post is something you can’t whip off in a minute or so. You need an idea, it has to be articulated in an engaging way, and well written.

Like anything that takes a lot of work, your enthusiasm can start to wane, particularly if you’re writing a blog on a regular basis. After awhile, the ideas may not be flowing as well or a case of writer’s block emerges.

So what are the things you can do to maintain your blog spirit? Here are a few tips:

1. Keen in mind that not every blog post has to be an opus offering in-depth perspective and insight. Blog posts come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Sometimes, they are long, thought-provoking pieces. But sometimes they’re short and poignant posts that deliver a punch in less than 250 words. Seth Godin has established a reputation as an expert bloggers, whose posts are only a few paragraphs long.

2. The collection of ideas is a continual process that can happen anywhere and any time. They key is being able to capture ideas when they pop up, which can happen in front of your computer, during dinner, at the gym, while having drinks with a friend, or while watching television. Having a notepad and a pen (or an iPhone) can be a good way to not let the good ideas escape.

3. Don’t force it. Sometimes, blog posts take awhile to arrive in the world. If you’re sitting in front of your computer but nothing is happening, walk away. Get something to eat, read the newspaper, go for a walk or listen to music. Sooner or later, the inspiration will come.

4. Read other blogs to see what other people are writing about and thinking. Spend some time on Twitter or go through your RSS reader as a way to gain information, insight and ideas. Who knows, you may come across a blog post that you violently agree or disagree with, which could spark a blog post of your own.

5. Unless you are compelled to blog every day, take a break once in a while. The blogosphere will go on without you. In the meantime, you can recharge your batteries and creative juices.

6. Immerse yourself in other activities to completely break away from blogging and the Internet. It could be playing hockey (a personal favourite), cooking, bicycling, going to the theatre, or spending time with your family. Again, it’s the time away from blogging that makes your a better blogger.

So what are the ways that you stay enthusiastic and engaged about blogging?

By Mark Evans - May 10th, 2011 - 1 Comment »
Tags: blogging, blogs, Social Media, tips
Posted in Social Media

Introducing Our New Resource Center

Our goal here at Sysomos is to continuously help you and your company make the most of social media. Be it by constantly updating our product line to better suit the ever-changing needs of our customers, providing interesting and relevant blog posts and by constantly educating our community through webinars and speaking engagements.

With that in mind, we are proud to announce the launch of our new Resources Center on our website. In this section of our website you will be able to find information that can help you and your brand make the most out of using social media. This section will be continuously updated with new content designed for people just starting out with social media all the way to the more advanced social media professionals.

Our first addition to the Resource Center is the presentation Different Types of Social Media Channels. Inside you will find introductions to some of the most popular social media channels; blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, forums and message boards. As well, the presentation points out different ways in which each of these channels can be used along with some real life examples of how existing companies are using them.

In the blogs section we explore different kinds of blogs and how they can be used. For example, will your blog be done to shed insight on what is happening within your company? Will it be insight from someone like your CEO? Will it focus on your industry? Will it show that your brand is a thought leader in your industry? Or, will your blog be used internally for your employees only? Will you have one or many blogs? With explanations and examples of each style you will be more informed to make the right decision for how your company will approach social media.

Please take a look at our new Social Media Resource Center and keep checking back for new and updated content. Also, please leave your comments on the content and what you would like to see in this section in the future.

By Sheldon Levine - April 27th, 2011 - No Comments »
Tags: resources, Social Media, social networks, sysomos, tips
Posted in Announcements, Social Media, Tips & Help

Things Companies Don’t Want to Hear about Social Media

When a company decides to embrace social media, everyone becomes an eternal optimist. Whatever services are selected, there is no doubt they are going to take the world by storm.

If it’s a Facebook Page, there will be thousands of “Likes” within months, if not weeks. On Twitter, there will be a stampede of followers. And a blog will attract lots of comments and in-bound links from other blogs and Web sites.

In the wake of all this bullishness, it becomes obvious there are a few things companies don’t want to hear because it would ruin the mood. These include:

1. Social media is a game of inches, not miles. While some companies hit the jackpot by attracting a lot of followers out of gate, most companies are lucky if they see slow, but steady, progress. It means that instant-gratification may be difficult to discover, and that success could takes many months rather than days or weeks.

2. Social media is grunt work. From the outside looking in, it’s glamorous with lots of shimmery tools. In reality, social media can be tough slogging that needs to happen each and every day.

3. There is a never-ending need for fresh content. Social media is a beast that is always hungry and never satisfied. One of the keys to engaging consumers is giving them a steady diet of content – be it blog posts, updates, videos, polls, photos, tweets or contests.

4. Social media can be an expensive proposition, particularly if you’re lucky enough to be successful. While the tools are free, it costs money to hire people to operate social media, create content, monitor activity, and engage with consumers. If a company’s social media efforts succeed, it may have to hire more people to support the growing amount of activity.

5. The ROI of social media can be challenging to measure. The thing about social media is often it can’t be measured in isolation. It may be easy to quantify the number of followers or “Likes” but extrapolating the impact on leads and sales can be difficult to pin down because there may be other factors – direct mail, advertising, etc. – that also have an impact.

If a company isn’t prepared to consider these realities, there is a real danger it will have unrealistic expectations of what social media can achieve. As a result, it may be easily disappointed when things don’t exactly go as planned.

By Mark Evans - March 8th, 2011 - 25 Comments »
Tags: Social Media, strategy, tips
Posted in Social Media

Six Tips to Hiring a Social Media Consultant

With social media emerging as more of a mainstream corporate activity, there is not surprisingly plenty of demand for social media consultants to provide strategic and tactical insight and counsel.

In a recent blog post, Chris Kleff outlined nine different criteria to evaluate a social media “expert”. While the list offers some good ideas, there is too much focus on numbers as opposed to critical thinking.

For example, Kleff suggests a social media experts need more than 1,000 Facebook friends, a Klout score of more than 30, more than 500 connections on LinkedIn, and more than 2,010 Twitter followers.

To me, these metrics are secondary considerations when evaluating a social media consultant. All they do is confirm someone is walking the walk as well as talking the talk. Simply because someone has a large social media presence doesn’t mean they offer good strategic and tactical advice; it just means they’re active and engaged.

So if numbers don’t provide a good way to judge a social media consultant, how should companies do it? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Ask for real-world examples of how the consultant has provided social media services to clients, and the results of this work. It could be the size of a company’s social media footprint, the traffic it attracted, or the number of leads or sales. Look for tangible metrics to put the spotlight on their success. It also helps to ask for references.

2. Ask for insight into their approach and methodology to social media assignments or projects. Are they just providing tactical services, or does the consultant also focus on strategic and big-picture issues? How do they manage their assignments and projects? What are the deliverables?

If it’s only tactical services, it may be enough to get a company’s social media efforts jump-started if there is already a plan in place. If a company is starting from scratch, it is important to hire a consultant who can offer strategic and tactical services.

3. Look for someone who can deliver perspective about other areas such as communications, marketing or sales. Given social media doesn’t operate in a silo, it is important to work with someone who understands how different parts of a company’s operations can be aligned with social media from a strategic and tactical basis.

4. Look for someone who has knowledge of the world beyond YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and a blog. Try to get more insight into the social media services are emerging, and how they could be part of a long-term roadmap, as well as any niche services that a company could exploit. Challenge a consultant on why only the largest social media services should be embraced.

5. Get a handle on how a consultant’s connections and network. This will provide insight into how they could attract other kinds of services beyond social media. What often happens during a social media project is other needs emerge. It could be the need for a refreshed Web site, better messaging or blogger/media outreach. A good social media consultant will recognize these needs, and offer people or organizations who can help.

6. Finally, review a consultant’s social media presence but do so by looking beyond the numbers. On Twitter, for example, look at the kind of tweets they do. Are they informative and valuable, or inane and silly. If a consultant has a blog, what kind of insight and intelligence do they offer? Check out whether the consultant has a Facebook Page or a Facebook profile, as well as what kind of updates they provide. On LinkedIn, who are their connections, and what are the common connections that you share with the consultant.

These considerations should provide solid information about whether a social media consultant can provide good and valuable service. By just looking at the numbers of followers, connections or Likes, you’re really just getting a picture of how well and/or how frequently someone uses social media services.

(Disclosure: In addition to being Sysomos’ director of communications, I’m also a social media consultant.)

By Mark Evans - November 22nd, 2010 - 1 Comment »
Tags: consultants, hiring, Social Media, tips
Posted in Technology

Five Key Ingredients for a Successful Corporate Blog

Despite the fact blogs no longer have a lot of social media sex appeal, they remain an integral part of the landscape because they offer companies valuable ways to deliver insight and information to customers, employees, partners, investors and suppliers.

But launching and running a corporate blog is not easy. It’s not as simple as writing posts on a regular basis because a blog has to provide value on a regular basis.

So what are the keys to a successful corporate blog? Here are five tips:

1. Content that provides insight, perspective and information. At its core, a corporate blog has to give its readers information they can use to increase their knowledge, learn new things or receive insight.

2. It has need to be well written. A blog with spelling and grammatical mistakes reflects badly on the person writing it and their employer. As well, a blog posts need to have good flow and provide an engaging narrative that makes it easy to read.

This is particularly important given many people scan content online as opposed to reading it. This is why a good headline so important to capture someone’s attention.

3. Posts have to happen on a regular basis. It could be one, two or five posts/week. Whatever the editorial plan, it needs to be consistent to establish expectations within the company and among the blog’s readers.

The worse thing a company can do is post four or five times a week for a few weeks, and then once a week or not at all afterward. When the audience doesn’t know what to expect, they start to drift away.

4. It can’t operate as a standalone entity. There are two angles to this advice. One, a blog needs to be supported and nurtured within a company. It needs to be actively promoted within communications, marketing and sales collateral, business cards, letterhead and email signatures.

It should also be promoted on social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. A blog needs to be seen as an integral part of a company’s brand and identity as opposed to be left alone to its own devices.

Second, a corporate blog needs to be integrated into the blogosphere and the blogging community. The people writing a blog need to be reading and commenting on other blogs. You can’t write a blog in isolation otherwise there are no connections with the “outside” world.

5. It needs to look good and have a user-friendly design. As much as a company will spend time and money to create a good Web site, its blog also need to be functional and attractive. In many senses, it is a public marketing vehicle that reflects a company’s brand, culture and approach to business.

A good blog should follow best practices by including things such as an RSS feed (both through an RSS reader and via e-mail), information about the writers, the ability to leave comments, links to social media services, and links to other corporate resources.

What are some of the other things that a good corporate blog should feature?

By Mark Evans - November 3rd, 2010 - 3 Comments »
Tags: blogs, Social Media, success, tips
Posted in Social Media

Five Ways to Get CEOs to Get Social Media

In yesterday’s post, we looked at how the majority of CEOs are not using social media. There are many reasons why this isn’t a surprise, although those reasons will likely disappear in time as more senior executives become savvier about social media and the role it can play as a communications and thought leadership tool.

In the meantime, how do you get CEOs more engaged with social media? This can be a challenge given it isn’t part of how they currently operate, they may not think they have the time, and the ROI can be difficult to articulate given there can be hard and soft metrics.

Nevertheless, there are some compelling arguments to be made. Here are some suggestions:

1. It can be a great way to establish thought leadership and domain expertise. One of the key roles played CEOs is positioning themselves as industry experts. This is an effective way to attract attention from existing and potential customers, employees, partners, suppliers and investors.

2. It doesn’t have to consume a lot of time. From the outside looking in, it can appear that social media can be a time-suck, particular for time-strapped CEOs. The reality, however, is CEOs can do be effective at social media by being realistic about how much they can do, and be consistent about their activity. For example, they could establish a solid presence by doing one blog post a week, or by tweeting a few times a day.

3. Social media isn’t that difficult. It’s not rocket science; it’s just a matter of having a plan of what you want to do, and then making it happen on a consistent basis.

4. It can be a team effort. Rather than having a CEO do all the work, they can get help from other people – and we are not talking about ghost-written blog posts. Instead, it could be doing a five-minute video of the CEO talking about a specific idea or topic that can then be shared on Twitter, the corporate blog, Facebook and YouTube.

5. Sooner or later, it’s going to be part of the job description so a CEO could get ahead of the curve by jumping on the bandwagon now. CEOs build their profiles by giving speeches and presentations so using social media will just become another tool to enhance their profiles.

Any other thoughts or ideas?

By Mark Evans - October 19th, 2010 - No Comments »
Tags: CEOs, Social Media, tips
Posted in Social Media

Five Ways to Effectively Scale Social Media

Last week, we had a blog post looking at the new economic of social media tactics. This included the suggestion that tactics could be outsourced in much the same way that many companies outsource customer service to cost-effective call centres.

In thinking some more about social media tactics, I started exploring the different ways companies could scale social media. While outsourcing is still part of the mix, there are a variety of ways that companies can scale other than simply hiring more people. These include:

1. Hire top-notch people. It may seem like a simple enough proposition but hiring the right people to operate day-to-day tactics should not be underestimated. You need people who are not only social media savvy but energetic, self-starters, engaged, willing to go the extra step, and see their jobs as a mission as opposed to just a job.

Of course, you usually get what you pay for so attracting these people may not be cheap. But if you hire the right people, there’s a better chance of achieving a solid ROI on their efforts. This means avoiding the trap of trying to hire people who are cheap, young and enthusiastic about social media.

2. Be focused. Rather than trying to be all things to all people, companies can be successful by focusing their efforts and people on the social media services that best meet their strategic objectives. It may mean just having a blog or only using Facebook and Twitter, rather than trying to embrace everything.

Too many companies shoot themselves in the foot by adopting a shotgun approach to social media in which they do everything, only to see their efforts fail because their people are stretched too thin to be effective.

3. Create strong content. At the end of the day, content is king, regardless of the social media being used. A company’s social media efforts will live or die by the quality of their content – be on a blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Flickr. It’s one thing to be have an active social media presence but quite another to have a presence that resonates, engages, entertains or educates users on a regular basis.

4. Democratize social media throughout the company. As much as a company wants great people to oversee their social media efforts, an effective way to scale social media is getting other employees to contribute to the overall cause. Companies such as IBM, for example, have harnessed the enthusiasm and intellect of their employees to create a major social media presence. An important part of making this happen is a social media policy that clearly articules what works and what doesn’t.

5. Let people who consume your social media content also evangelize and support your efforts. In an ideal world, for example, people who criticize or attack a company are quickly counter-attacked by consumers who like what a company is doing. This allows a company’s employees to avoid the fray because issues are being handled effectively by the public.

To encourage this activity, companies should make a point to thank their customers for their efforts in a sincere and transparent way.

6. Outsource tactics to a PR, digital, advertising and social media agency. It’s a model that is still evolving because the cost to let someone else handle day-t0-day tactics can be expensive. But it’s an option many companies should explore rather than hiring someone, particularly during the early days when a company may not want to make an investment before knowing exactly what it wants to do.

Any other suggestions on how to scale social media?

Mark

By Mark Evans - September 13th, 2010 - No Comments »
Tags: Social Media, strategy, tactics, tips
Posted in Social Media

Why Social Media is Like Going to Gym

Social media is sexy and glamorous but the reality is it involves a lot of hard work behind the scenes.

There’s the creation of content such as Facebook and Twitter updates, blog posts, videos and photos, as well as engaging with other people on social media, and monitoring social media activity.

This “blocking and tackling” doesn’t get a lot of love or attention but it supports and fuels social media activity, including campaigns that capture the spotlight.

In other words, behind every successful campaign is a team of hard-working social media soliders.

These efforts are often overlooked by companies exploring the idea of using social media. Even companies that have moved into social media sometimes lose sight of the importance of having people who drive their campaigns and day-to-day activities.

Here’s how social media is like going to the gym:

1. You have to work out on a regular basis. Just like working out for a week and then deciding not to exercise for two weeks is a recipe for failure, companies need to work on their social media efforts pretty much every day (although weekends tend to be slower).

2. Success can take time. Just like you can’t get into great shape overnight, it also takes time for companies to see the fruits of their social media labours. I often tell companies to give themselves three to six months before deciding whether social media is working or not.

3. Doing a variety of activities keeps things interesting. If you do the same kind of exercise all the time, it eventually gets boring, and the benefits start to decline as your body gets accustomed to it. In the same way, social media thrives when there’s a variety of activity – photos, videos, blog posts, etc. – and topics covered.

4. Be careful not to over-train. Working out too much can lead to injuries and fatigue; while generating too much social media content can burn out employees and, as important, cause readers, followers and friends to feel overwhelmed.

5. When starting, it helps to have a personal trainer. There are social media courses but it’s really something you learn through trial and error, as well as watching what other people do. When getting into social media, it does help to have a trainer or coach provide some guidance and tips about best practices.

6. Celebrate your successes and learn from your setbacks. While it’s important to put the spotlight on the good things such as winning races or reaching personal goals, it is also helpful to get insight when the expected results don’t happen.

Sometimes, social media works such as having a blog post that attract a lot of traffic or having a tweet retweeted a lot. At the same time, social media efforts fail to resonate or attract much attention. The key is figuring out what happened to see how things can be improved.

By Mark Evans - August 23rd, 2010 - 8 Comments »
Tags: gym, Social Media, tips
Posted in Social Media

Is Twitter Really about Lots of Followers?

I came across an article on how to get more Twitter followers. It includes some pretty obvious tips such as follow people back if they follow you, retweet, and use hashtags.

To me, the more intriguing issue raised by the article is the importance of followers, and how obsessed we should be with having lots of them.

Everyone talks about social media being about engagement and conversations (These are wildly over-used words in my opinion). Twitter is also about sharing resources and content, and using search to quickly find information. This is what makes Twitter so compelling and interesting.

Nowhere in this equation is the importance or need for lots of followers. If followers is a key consideration when using Twitter, you have misguided sense of how to use and approach Twitter.

The “trick” is attracting more followers is not things such as following people back just because they follow you, or retweeting for the sake of retweeting. If you want more followers, focus on doing a great job using Twitter.

Here are my “tips” to attracting more followers.

1. Create a steady flow of tweets that highlight interesting or compelling content (blog posts, newspaper and magazine articles, photographs, videos).

2. Take the same approach tip #1 when retweeting. This not only provides great content to your followers but it encourages the original Twitter user that their tweets are interesting and valuable.

3. Make it easy for people to follow you. If, for example, you write a blog, install a Twitter subscription button, as well as a retweet button. If people like your blog posts, make it easy for them to become a follower.

The common denominator is not to be blatant or overly-focused on attracting new followers. It is more important to generate content that people find interesting enough that they will want to follow you.

To paraphrase W.P. Kinsella’s “Field of Dreams”, if you build [a strong Twitter presence], they [followers] will come.

By Mark Evans - August 16th, 2010 - 6 Comments »
Tags: followers, tips, twitter, w.p. kinsella
Posted in Social Media

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