January 2009 Archives - Professional Blog Service

Will Social Networks Play a Significant Role in the Recession?

January 29, 2009 By Mike Seidle

They say a man is rich who has friends. What about a company with fans?

There aren’t many internet users who remember seeing Charlie Chaplin’s movies when they debuted in theaters. Thanks to the internet, though, just about any user can watch Chaplin ham it up as the Tramp who faced many of the same challenges as his original audience.

During the Great Depression, poor folks watched the poor guy do his best to find a job (and keep it), fix up his house (err, shack), and woo the lady of his dreams. The audience had something in common with Chaplin’s characters, so they got the jokes, and the jokes brought them all together.

Of course, the Depression was no joke.

During these modern days we’re slogging through our own recession that doesn’t offer much to laugh about. A lot of Americans are facing those same struggles with work, housing, and even relationships. Just like Chaplin’s films portrayed the angst of those times, more and more people today are sharing the anxiety and worry of these modern times. Only we’re not doing it with slapstick and silent movies. We’re posting on blogs, sharing photos, and twittering.

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According to a recent trend report from Netpop Research LLC, online social networking has almost doubled since 2006 while the economy has only weakened since then. Netpop reports that about 3 out of 4 web users are personally sharing over the internet by contributing to blogs, rating products, uploading photos. etc.

Today about 29% of US broadband users communicate with each other specifically through social networking sites. Tough times do bring people together, and the results of this report point to even more online sharing as these recession days continue.

What This Means For Business
Commiserating with like-minded people can bring relief and comfort, but it can also impact our decisions. We aren’t sheep, blindly following anything willing to lead, but when every penny counts, it’s good to know how friends made similar choices.

While we’re updating microblogs and profile photos, we’re also rating products and declaring ourselves as fans of certain services. While we’re connecting through online chats, we’re also bidding at online auctions and sharing the scoop on great deals.

Netpop’s research revealed that social networkers currently spend more money online than “non-contributors,” and that they are likely to rely ever more heavily on the recommendations of their fellow networking media participants as this recession intensifies.

That’s why business owners need to get involved in social media. Reaching out to their existing customers who are already participating in venues like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.com will bring them into an ever-increasing network of contacts on the same wave length.

Just as Cate Riegner, VP of Research at Netpop Research, LLC, noted, “Brands that experiment in social advertising now will be in the best position to leverage these important media channels when the economy turns the corner.”

And, rest assured, this economy will indeed turn the corner, just like Chaplin always bounced back from that slapstick fall.

Filed Under: Social Networks Tagged With: engagement, networking, predictions, recession, social, twitter

Twitter Clickthrough Rates

January 27, 2009 By Mike Seidle

Update 1-28-09: Compare Twitter’s average 4% CTR to the .03%-.11% CTR on FaceBook. It’s becoming increasingly clear that ads don’t get it done on social networks.

I’ve been running an experiment with four twitter profiles to find out what a good click through rate (CTR) is on Twitter. What I found out was kind of shocking and amazing: Twitter seems to have a 4% clickthrough rate. No wonder the affiliate marketers, spammers and get rich quick crowd are flocking to it. 4% CTR is outstanding in any internet advertising program:

Indymike –- 4.17 % average clickthrough rate, >800 followers

Profile “N” — 4.05 % clickthrough rate, >300 followers

Profile “M” – 4.2 % clickthrough rate, >200 followers

Profile “L” — 3.8 % clickthrough rate, > 50 followers

Methodology
I set up unique short URL trackers on seperate domains and then conversed and posted links and retweets though the shorty tracker for four different profiles. After on month, I tabulated the results to find the aggregate click through rate.

What’s it Mean?

1. People click on twitter links more than pay per click ads and banner ads.

2. CTR on Twitter seems to scale with larger groups of followers.

3. The larger your follower base is the more people will click on links your post.

What’s Next
I’ll do the same experiment on Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace and Xing. It will be interesting to see if traditional social networks can outperform a microblog like Twitter.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: clickthough, clickthrough rates, microblogging, twitter

12 Ways To Do LinkedIn Wrong

January 22, 2009 By Mike Seidle

wrongtext1 We love LinkedIn for both personal and corporate networking & promotion. However, we see a basket full of blunders that any informed networker would be ashamed to own up to.

Here’s Our List

1. End your title with the word “Expert,” or “Guru.” Exception: if your name actually is “Guru” or you are wearing a Karnac the Magnificent Hat in your profile pic, you are welcome to use the term Guru.

2. Toss the word “foremost” or “leading” in front of your title. Everyone loves someone who is humble enough to know what they think you should think of them.

3. Combine #1 and #2 – and become the “Leading Organic Fertilizer Guru”

4. Don’t recommend people. Unless, of course, you wouldn’t like it if someone recommended you…

5. Use your logo as your profile picture. Unless, of course, you actually look just like your logo.

6. Don’t connect with anyone. LinkedIn becomes more useful with more connections. Why? Because you only see LinkedIn members you have a connection to. More connections means more search results and more potential connections.

7. Join groups and post “I am growing my linked in network please connect with me” spams in discussions. No one joins LinkedIn to shrink their networks.

8. Decorate your name with funky characters. People really want your to see ___**>>> Beth Badass <<<***___ in their Outlook. Oh, and funky character break features that people use to find you in Outlook, like say SEARCH. If your name is Beth, it starts with the letter “B” not the “_” character!

9. Ask spammy questions like, “Did you know you can make millions with my secret process revealed in my latest ebook!?” That “report spam” link is really easy to click.

10. Begin your title with “Professional,” “Competent,” or “Qualified.” You wouldn’t have a job if you were an amateur, would you? Why would an adult be less than qualified?

11. Refusing all connection requests by clicking “I Don’t Know This Person.” While it may be true you don’t know that person, LinkedIn actually punishes people when you click “I don’t know.” And worse, LinkedIn tells the other side that you hate their guts and wanted them gibbeted. Hit the “archive” button instead of the I Don’t Know button. It has better karma.

12. Log in once a quarter. Unless you like calling people and finding out that deal they sent over back in September, it closed three weeks ago.

Filed Under: Social Networks Tagged With: linkedin, lists, networking, tips

The Biggest Mistake “Business Bloggers” Make

January 16, 2009 By Mike Seidle

Before you rush into business blogging there’s something you should know:

Blogging does not work in a vacuum.

Every week someone calls us and asks if we can just ghost write blog articles for super cheap for their business blog. There’s a name for these spammy business blogs, and it sounds like something that grows in that goo that accumulates in the drain pan under the fridge: splog.

Splogs are blogging’s answer for the guy at the fair who yells “Hey you, with the face! Step right up…” So, after discovering that our future client has a splog, our first question is, well, if we are just writing, how is the blog being promoted? The answer from our prospective client is nearly always:

“We don’t care about that. We just have the blog around to mop up on some keywords on Google. It needs lots of new content, but we don’t really care what it says. We just want Google to index it.”

After we take a look at the prospects blog, we usually find three things are true about the aforementioned business blog:

1. It’s written by fake people. Not real people with pen names, but fake as in department store mannequin with a bad wig and big sunglasses.

2. The content isn’t personal (it’s written in third person), usually isn’t well written and isn’t tracking in the search engines for keywords that actually get traffic. It’s usually just more spammy content that will end up on page 8,500 in Google’s search results for a fourth rate keyword.

3. The business blog is screaming fire in an empty theater at three in the morning on a Sunday after the popcorn ran out. It gets 20 clicks. Per month. Meaning a visitor is more likely to be a hacker’s spider looking for unpatched scripts than a person, anyway.

Cheaply written business blogs which are put up for an audience consisting of a search engine spider and a ranking algorithm don’t work very well if you are trying to actually market. To engage, you have to actually communicate with people. Which raises the biggest mistake that people make when they start business blogging: failing to be genuine.

Blogs which are written by real people that can be called on the telephone are the most effective if you want good marketing. That does not mean you have to write the article, but it does mean that every blog post needs to be your ideas, and said in a way that is personal and genuine.

Why? Because, people do business with people. It’s that simple.

What are you going to do when someone calls and asks if Mr. Fake Person can speak at a trade show or come on a sales call? Hire an actor? Good luck with that.

Think about it.

People do business with people. People network with people. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn connect people to people. It’s called social media for a reason, and the blog is the foundation of it all. Spammy business blogs are anti-social.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: business blogging content, Ghost Writing, mistakes, splog, strategy

LinkedIn From a True Power Networker

January 8, 2009 By Mike Seidle

LinkedIn is absolutely the best social network for making business connections. To clear up a lot of misconceptions, we recently asked Vincent Wright, founder of MyLinkedInPowerForum (now called MyLinkingPowerForum) a few questions to see how a true power networker uses LinkedIn:

1. How do you use LinkedIn?

VW: Carefully! :-) More seriously: I’ve used Linkedin both for
extending my professional network and making introductions for my
friends. I’ve also used it for a bit of research and branding, as
well.

2. Do you go for quantity or quality in your connections?

VW: It cannot be just quantity OR quality, Mike. It MUST be both:
Quantity AND Quality. If it’s not both, you don’t need Linkedin.
For me, the QvQ concept strangles the very joy out of networking. QvQ
just isn’t sufficient. Asking the QvQ question is not much better
than asking if you prefer having just your Left Arm or your Right Arm?
You want BOTH arms, right? Personally, I think QvQ needs to be
re-argued towards Specificity/Generality (or something along the lines
of my C.I.A. Concept (Confluence -> Influence -> Affluence)

3. Do you ask or answer questions?

VW: I tend to ask more questions than I answer. I expect that may
change a bit once I have more time…

4. Is LinkedIn gaining or losing relevance for you?

VW: Though Linkedin has gained incredibly in power and membership size
since I was first fell in love with it about 5 years ago, it’s not
quite as relevant to me as it was 2-3 years ago. There’s an
extraordinary range of competing sites where you can meet business
professionals – Some of these sites are quite interesting, useful, and
beneficial in their own rights. (FriendFeed, Twitter, Ning,
CollectiveX, Xing, Google Friend Connect, My Blog Log, Yahoo Groups,
Facebook, etc. I think the more astute online networkers are now
using these these sites in conjunction WITH Linkedin.)

About the Interviewee:
Vincent Wright is an entreprenueral recruiter and leading LinkedIn Evangelist and a fixture in the LinkedIn community. Vincent’s MyLinkingPowerForum and MyVirtualPowerForum Yahoo Group are ground zero for many highly influential LinkedIn members.

Connect With Vincent
Twitter.com/VincentWright
Linkedin.com/in/VincentWright