Coach Coen

Archive for the ‘Social media’ Category

Thinking of starting a blog? Here is a tip to get you going

Technically blogging has become very easy. WordPress, TypePress and other tools and services let anyone set up a blog within 30 minutes or less

The real challenge is figuring out how to make it work for you – what to write about, where to find the time, how to find an audience

For inspiration, ideas and a look behind the scenes of successful blogs I recommend “Blogging Heroes”, by Michael A. Banks. The book contains “interviews with 30 of the world’s top bloggers”

The book is an easy read, using interview questions to solicit bloggers’ personal stories

Each of the 30 chapters finishes with a summary of the main learnings from the blogger interviewed. Whilst I skipped the summaries, I can see how this can be useful reminder or check list when taking action on the book’s lessons

There are some obvious commonalities between many of the successful bloggers, making the last third of the book somewhat repetitive. Still, I found it the book a real page turner, probably because of the personal stories. Getting plenty of repetition helps to reinforce the book’s lessons, and may give it a bigger impact then reading a book full of theory

What most surprised me is how little, if at all, the top bloggers work at building up an audience. Most of their time and energy goes into writing about their passion, creating huge amounts of quality content and driving readers to their blog

Whilst few of us have the time, energy and passion to replicate the success of the bloggers in “Blogging Heroes”, the book does offer some great insights into the art and business of blogging

Recommended for any (aspiring) personal and business bloggers. Get it from your library now or buy it from your favourite bookshop

Blogging takes time. Good habits help to make the most of your time writing blogs. Here are some suggestions

• Have a system for collecting ideas for your next blog posts
  • A physical file for collecting scraps of paper, such as a shoe box or a suspension file. Every time you get an idea write it down on a piece of paper. Any piece of paper will do, even the back of an envelope
  • A computer file. Mine is called “Blog scratchpad”
• On a regular basis, sit down and look through your ideas file. Write one, two or more draft blog posts. Do this quite quickly. Don’t worry too much about style, punctuation or spelling. Just get the ideas down as quickly as you can
• You may need to do some research for one of your blog posts. Don’t let this slow you down or distract you whilst writing your draft. Instead put some marker in your text (such as “Do later”) and continue (with thanks to Mindy Gibbins-Klein of The Book Midwife™ for suggesting this during her presentation at the recent Euro Coach List Conference)
• Put your draft posts away for now, and come back to it the next day. Now do your editing. Check for spelling, grammar, style and punctuation
• Ask someone else to proofread your blog postings. If you do your own proofreading, leave your writing for a couple of hours. Force yourself to only read the posts for spelling mistakes
• Decide on a blogging schedule. How often do you want to publish new blog posts. With software such as WordPress you can schedule blog posts in advance. Your posts will magically appear on your blog as scheduled

To help you get clear about your social media strategy, take some time to see what other people are doing to attract clients. Study the inhabitants and habits of this new, digital, country

Ask your colleagues, clients and contacts about their on-line presence – their blog, Facebook profile, LinkedIn profile, Twitter username and other pages and profiles. Visit their profiles and pages. Look at each page carefully. Ask yourself:

• What is this person doing to connect with others? What interactions do I see? Do they make it easy to interact with them? Do they engage in on-line dialogue?
• What impression do I get from this page about them? Does it make them look professional, approachable, helpful, distant, disinterested?
• What do they have to offer? Who does this page speak to? What would they like me to do next, what action do they want me to take from this page?
• What is their approach to attracting business through social media. Do I think their approach is effective?
• What are they doing poorly? What are they doing well? What can I learn from this page?

Keep notes, print off excellent and poor examples. Complement people on their great online presence. Ask any questions you may have about their page or profile

After a while you may notice your own strategy coming into focus. You may even notice yourself just doing it, just getting on with your own social media marketing

Good luck

On the Euro Coach List, Denise Taylor recently started a discussion on “Are some people rude or thoughtless”, following on from her blog posting of the same title (at http://www.amazingpeople.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/11/09/are-people-rude-or-thoughtless/)

Here is my own contribution to the discussion, relating Denise’s question to what is happening on-line

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Could it be that our altruistic ‘genes’ developed when we lived in small groups? If someone did you a favour you’d better return the favour or they’d never help you again. It made sense to ‘keep score’

Nowadays, with billions of people, many very mobile, it doesn’t make as much sense any more. What you might call “communities of location” aren’t working as well as they used to. They have become too big and too fluid

On a hopeful note, we are now seeing many communities of interest (like the Euro Coach List) developing. We are coming together based on what they are interested in. We are learning to work together in new ways. Just think of open source software, Wikipedia, Barak Obama’s election campaign, the Euro Coach List Conference and even on-line gaming

Marketing is more and more about being truly helpful. I recently heard the expression “good customer care is the new marketing”. The idea is that you look after your clients well, so they will do the marketing for you through word of mouth advertising.

We have come full circle. Years ago, if a baker cheated his customers the whole village would find out very quickly. So the baker made sure to do a good job. With people moving into cities and more mobile, this link got lost. Thanks to the Internet, and especially social media, the world has shrunk again. If a global company mistreats their workers they may lose customers on the opposite side of the world. Once again it makes good business sense to be a good business

Hopefully the tide is turning and people will become more and more gracious and helpful over the coming years

There are many different ways to get clients through social media. Here are some of the main ones

• Gather friends, followers or contacts and send out adverts to them. This is the old fashioned way, all about the numbers, and not recommended
• Create a place where your target audience can discuss a topic which they’re interested in. Be seen as the leader of the community, for status and credibility
• Be interested in a topic, contribute to discussions, share resources you’ve found on your topic. This will get people interested in you

Whatever you do, have an online base. This could be a website, blog, profile page, or all of them linked together. Clearly describe and show what you have to offer, who you work with, what the benefits are of working with you. Encourage visitors to take the next step, for instance, sign up for your newsletter or contact you to arrange a trial session

Feeling overwhelmed by social media? Wondering where to start? Here is a simple tip

There are many detailed books on social media, for instance on Facebook, which will take you through all the different features step by step with lots of screen shots. And there are many books about social media from a marketing perspective

Plenty of information, but which book is right for you?

Go to your local library and take out a whole bunch of them. At home go through them at your leisure, read the ones you like and ignore the others – at no cost

Ask you library whether they have an on-line catalogue. Here in the south west of the UK we have a central on-line catalogue for all libraries in the south west. Search the catalogue on-line and reserve books from any of the member libraries. For only 50p it will get taken to your local library and you will receive an email once your books have arrived

Pick a topic you’re interested in, such as “Facebook” or “Social media”, search the online catalogue and order all books which look vaguely interesting. Take the whole stack of books home and see which one speaks to you most. If you come across a book which is particularly useful you can buy your own copy from your favourite store

Concerned about paying library fines? You may be able to get an email when your books are nearly overdue, and renew the books on-line. No more worries about getting books back too late or having to rush back to the library to renew books

Getting books from the library removes the pressure of getting just the right book. Instead get as many books as you can carry, read the ones you like and ignore the rest

Enjoy