Dan Price @danprice-blog - Tumblr Blog

Were infographics just a fad?

I’ve noticed that infographics are less prominant in the social world, at the moment.

Were they just a fad, or am I blocking them out from my periphery?

Do you find infographics useful?

#infographics #social media #marketing #content marketing

@MercedesAMGF1 have locked down their Twitter account to their current followers, to celebrate reaching 1 million. They are providing followers with exclusive content and offers.

Their two hashtags (#MercedesMillion and #AskTheTwit) were trending topics at the time.

What’s great about this is that not only does it create exclusivity to give something back to their fans. It also has increased their reach. Curiosity will get the better of people who want to see what is going on but can’t.

A lot of people will be clicking that ‘follow’ button.

#examples of good social #twitter #social media

Asking questions on Facebook to gain a deeper understanding of your audience

Facebook is not just a great tool to communicate and engage with your audience. It is also a fantastic research tool. You can learn an incredible amount about your customers by just asking questions on Facebook.

I don’t mean straight up - “how much would you pay for this product?” type questions - although you could do that if you have the right audience/brand! (I'm thinking B2B here). I mean understanding your audience on a much deeper level - their likes, interests etc. Much like building buyer personas.

Asking simple things like “what’s your favourite TV show?” can be an excellent way to gain an understanding of your customers on a human level.

Of course, there's the issue of whether it may put people off interacting with you - what kind of value are people getting out of this? "This isn't entertaining me?!" etc.

If you have a strong brand, it can even be an effective interaction catalyst. After all, people tend to Like a brand to show support.

Thoughts?

#social media #facebook

Something that is right for others, may not be right you

I’m a sucker for apps. I will download and try almost any app that I see gain traction - often productivity apps. This is for two reasons:

1. I want to increase my productivity (and improve other elements of my life) 2. I enjoy experimenting with apps

I think, a lot of the time, people can subscribe to a new way of doing something because it works for everyone else. Something that works for the majority of people, doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Evernote is a company I love. I don’t think I could live without Evernote anymore (just kidding!). One of the things people do, and I think is really useful, is saving articles Evernote, using the web clipper, or Clearly. To me, this seems like a great use. I can see the benefit. It just doesn’t work for me.

I end up saving too many articles to Evernote, and I can’t find the time to read them all. It may seem like it isn’t that much of a problem if I don’t read them all because they are stored away for later consumption. The problem I find is that I will see an article I want to read, and then just save it to Evernote. I’ll then move around the web and save other articles. I end up spending my time saving articles instead of reading them. All I get out of it is a huge list of articles to read, and this puts me off due to the shear number. I start to feel negative when I see too many articles, and not enough time. I had a similar issue when I used Pocket.

The key here is to not use an app or method for the sake of it. Use it because it genuinely helps you. Of course, experiment and try new things. But make sure you are testing and measuring it's effectiveness. You will know pretty quickly if it is going to have a long term benefit. If it isn't working out, drop it.

Brand names and their social availability

If your brand name is taken on Twitter, how much does that impact you as a startup?

The importance of being discoverable online cannot be understated. And with this comes the availability of your brand name. Securing your domain name is the first port of call and the .com domain is often the most popular choice. A .com domain is not the only option, so in some ways it is less important, as there are many other other TLDs to use, and no character limit.

It could be argued that the availability of your brand name on Twitter is more important. If it is not available, then there are minimal alternatives. You can try shortening, appending something within the 15 character limit (UK, News etc.) but there is not much flexibility with your Twitter username.

With the growing importance of Twitter, how essential is it to be able to secure your brand name? We’ve seen, multiple times, how users of the social media channel simply assume brand's/people’s Twitter handle. Examples in the UK would include @NatWest and @johnlewis. You would assume that large, global, brands would own their name on such a popular channel - they do own natwest.com and johnlewis.com, respectively.

This issue isn’t just localised to Twitter - it is the same with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and any new social media channels that will come out. If your name, or even close alternatives, are unavailable on all major social channels, then you’re in trouble.

What can you do if this is the case? Well, you can come up with a creative way to use a consistent pseudonym. Perhaps you could create a mascot? This would represent your brand, and be a consistent username for all your channels.

Google+ are rolling out /usernames, beginning with the larger brands first. They get to reserve, and secure their brand names.

If you’re an existing brand, you better sign up and reserve your name on all social media channels that pop up. You never know how big they’ll become. And, many people will simply ‘take’ big names purely to sell them on.

#branding #social media

Can you be an introvert and enjoy tweeting?

I think it takes a certain type of person to be popular on Twitter. First of all, to be popular on Twitter, you will often need to tweet regularly. And tweet insightful things about your life, thoughts, or opinions. To do this, I think you need to be an extrovert. I’m not talking specifically about personal branding, being a thought leader, or being a cultural figure. I’m talking generally, to include almost all types of Twitter users where you are tweeting personally, as yourself. I’m an introvert, and I find it difficult get involved on Twitter. I find it difficult to tweet regularly from my personal account. From a business account, I am absolutely fine and I love it. It’s just when it comes from me, I don’t enjoy it. I constantly feel nervous, or cautious about what I am writing. I mean, nobody even follows me so why should I be bothered? A few people I know personally follow me but, it isn’t a huge amount. But even these few just make me nervous about what I am tweeting. I’ve thought about tweeting from a pseudonym account, as an experiment, but I haven’t had time. Generally, I think I would enjoy that because it wouldn’t be coming from me. I am constantly on Twitter, lurking, and analysing people’s usage of the service. Some people tweet constantly. Like all the time. I think it takes a certain type of person to do that. Thoughts and ideas for tweets always come into my head. But they are often turned away by the old ‘nope, not worth tweeting about, nobody cares’ type of thought. I like to keep things to myself. Maybe I just need to grow some. Maybe I can change. I’m going to give it a go. If I become disciplined and dedicated to tweeting I think I could do it. Every time I have a thought, I should tweet it. Don’t think about it - just send it. The worry with that though, is that I will start well and then give up. I’ve done it before. For the next month, at least, I will tweet every day.

#twitter #social media

Focus by Listening to New Music

I’ve been trying to listen to more and more new music lately. I am a huge music fan and I haven’t given it as much attention lately as I would have liked. I want to find new bands and new albums to listen to. The main problem has been trying to find the time to discover and be patient with unfamiliar artists. So, I have tried to listen to new bands when I have been working, reading, writing etc. In other words, when I need to be focused and productive. Killing two birds, right?

A surprising benefit is that I have found myself to be more focused and productive. So, the theorist in me has set out to look into why this is. I haven’t give it too much thought just yet but I have a feeling it has to with the fact that we become more relaxed and calm through listening to music - it’s soothing and relieves you of stress. I also think there is a slight negative to listening to music that you are familiar with. This is because you can suddenly become excited and distracted by a song you know well. The lyrics or melody, for example, may interrupt your flow.

Reading whilst listening to my favourite music has always been a struggle for me. And I guess this is because I am being distracted either by the melody or the lyrics. Listening to lyrics I know and reading new words are hard for me. My mind just can’t handle two things at once!

That’s one of the main problems, people can’t focus on too many things at once. Too much going on at once - music, conversations, writing, thinking - can break a person’s concentration and productivity. Take away the distraction of a familiar song and you relieve yourself of a disruption.

As I said, these are just thoughts and I will be experimenting over the next month to think about how and why music can effect productivity. Happy rocking!

#music #productivity #life hacks

A Lesson in Innovation from the Music Industry's Failure

I have a huge personal interest in the music industry, and in particular music startups and business models. I studied why people adopt music streaming services for almost a year and I often used Spotify as an example, as they had the biggest brand awareness. In this year I managed to find out that people used Spotify because it allowed them to listen to music. Really simple, right? Well, the music industry didn't seem to actually understand this.

The three biggest innovations in accessing music since the CD are arguably Napster, iTunes and Spotify. These have been hugely disruptive to the music industry and they have moaned, thrown tantrums and sued a lot of people since. It led to think why on Earth could they not have created this? Surely they learnt a lesson after Napster? One of the problems is that they didn't focus on why people bought their music.

Vinyl made them a load of money, so did cassettes, so did CDs. They were too focused on the belief that people wanted to buy these commodities, they thought that there was value in the physical product. Nobody in their right mind went into a record store because they wanted a round plastic disc. They wanted to listen to music. It just so happened that the music was on a physical item.

Nobody likes CDs. They like what it does for them but no-one looks at a CD and think "wow, this is really awesome!" People wanted to listen to good music. If the music industry focused on the users and their needs, then they could have monetised these disruptive events.

This can be applied to every business. No matter what industry you are in, you must understand the root problem that your business is solving. Start with asking why? Why would somebody by my product, what need am I actually fulfilling?

One thing great entrepreneurs do is constantly ask this why question. Keep asking it and dig deep to discover more about your market. Focus on this and act on solving the problems they have, quickly.

#music industry #innovation

Limit the Choices of Social Sharing Buttons

I began writing a blog on how having too much choice can actually be disruptive to your decision-making. As I was researching, I found a great post that I was going to tweet and I noticed a share button that was pretty surprising. It must have had over 200 different social buttons. I mean, seriously!? Is that necessary?

So this got me thinking. Can you have too many social share buttons? 200 is definitely too many but what about just 5 or 6? Let's just take a look at a few of the most popular ones:

Facebook (Like, Share, Follow)

Twitter (Tweet, Follow)

Google+ (+1, Follow)

Pinterest (Pin, Follow)

and so on...

There is usually more than one button per social channel and certainly so with the bigger social sites.

I do not think it is necessary to have more than 4 social buttons. I personally think just 3 is the perfect amount, but it depends on your audience. For our company blog we just have Tweet, Like and +1 and that is aligned with our audience's needs and expectations.

Page Speed

Social share buttons heavily increase a website's loading speed. Not only does this impact user experience but page speed is a ranking factor for search engines. The longer a page takes to load, the less likely it is to rank higher. Every social button uses JavaScript to make calls between their servers and your website and the more button available, the more calls are needed.

Decision-Making

Too many buttons can be a little intimidating, especially if the user has not heard of 90% of the social media sites available. Psychology suggests that too many choices can be damaging to a user's experience and that often, limiting a user's choice can be beneficial.

Appearance

One of the problems with starting a blog is that you have to encourage people to share your content. Social share buttons are the obvious choice to do this but unfortunately, it makes your site looks unpopular. Most social buttons include the usage figures and if these are low, or even zero, then it decreases your social proof.

Usage

Personally, I have never actually used a social share button on a website. There's two reasons for this:

I often use 3rd party tools that have their own bookmarklets, so I use them instead.

I find it easier to copy and paste the URL into my social accounts and share that way. This gives me more flexbility and higher control.

This is just a personal preference but I'm sure there will be other people with similar thoughts.

I'm not sure if there has been a full study into the usage of share buttons, but I am almost certain it would be lower than most people expect. If anybody has some good studies then please share in the comments.

#social #social media #social sharing #facebook #twitter #google plus

The Value of Valuable Content

Content, content, content... it's all about content. Marketing your website has suddenly become all about creating stuff that people find valuable. SEO, social media, are all becoming heavily driven by content marketing. If you want to be found online, you need to create something awesome.

It's actually very easy to understand the value of creating good content. I believe it's part of a simple, continuous cycle.

Ultimately, valuable content will attract new visitors who find the content useful. These visitors will then share that content with their social graph which will, of course, attract even more new visitors. In order to sustain and grow traffic, you will create even more valuable content and thus continuing the cycle.

Very simple model but highly effective. The bigger question to ask is: what the hell is valuable content?

#content #marketing #content marketing

Don't use no-reply email addresses

I am hugely against using no-reply email addresses. The main reason is that it alienates your customers and audience. Business has become social. We are used to talking to companies online through social media and often we receive responses and it's fantastic for customer engagement. However, email is somehow different.

"Hey Customer, here's our newsletter. We hope you enjoy it. Don't let us know though, we don't care that much. Also, if you have a problem or recommendation please just keep it yourself - you're not important."

Listening to customers is one of the most important rules of business and we have a great opportunity to increase this through email. We listen on social media but not emails, why? Some people may not want to publicly talk to you, that's fine but don't exclude them by using no-reply emails. You will likely have a support email address that people can find and access but that requires action from your user.

1. You shut out your customers

A no-reply email is similar to old fashioned advertising - "look to me, listen to me, over here!" Communications should be two-way and reciprocal.

2. It's not a great look

A reason we like seeing businesses on social media is that it adds a person to the end of the message. We know that a human is communicating and not a robot. A no-reply email looks automated and unpersonal. People don't like it.

3. You just don't care

It makes it look like you don't care about your customers and their thoughts. When actually, you do.

4. Opportunities are scarce

There will be occasions when a recipient has an opportunity for your business. This could be a recommendation for your products, a possible sale, important feedback etc. If you do not offer an easy and useful way for them to quickly communicate this to you, then you'll most likely lose the opportunity.

What to do instead

Email should be personal. In fact, all of your communications should be personal, and consistent. If you have a community manager then most of your marketing communications (newsletters, product updates, surveys etc.) should come from them. This puts a face and name to email and will increase engagement. If you don't, then create a persona - this can be a person or a character. A great example is Mike the Frog, at Treehouse.

It feels much better receiving an email from [email protected] rather than [email protected].

#email #marketing #communications

Earning trust and loyalty

Building trust and loyalty is a very valuable way to growing your online, and offline, personal brand. I believe there are two very simple ways of doing this online:

Be a thought leader (to build trust)

Have a strong, likeable personality (to receive loyalty)

Of course, there are many many tactics and strategies employed to achieve these results. But I think this is a great starting point for anybody looking to develop their online presence.

I have outlined how you begin to become a thought leader and build personality below:

Become a thought leader

Produce remarkable content. Creating content that people find hugely valuable will get you about 60% there in your journey to become a thought leader. Write blogs, guest posts, eBooks. Talk on podcasts, videos, online seminars. Comment on industry leading blogs, news, and communities. Build up your profile through content.

Curate remarkable content. You may know everything there is to know about your subject, but unfortunately there isn't enough time to share all this through your own content. Because of this, curation of other people's content is necessary. Fortunately, you will have the knowledge, and skill, to weed out all crap content and share the ones containing the most value.

Be opinionated. Don't follow the crowd. Say things that are controversial. Stand up for what you truly believe in, even if you get backlash. People will respect that.

Develop relationships. By having relationships with other (especially fellow thought leaders) then not only do you receive higher visibility but also social proof. Social proof is one the most powerful ways to gain trust.

Ask questions. Huh, but I know everything!? Well, maybe you do but by asking questions you get people to think and drive conversations. Discussions start and this is a powerful thing to have on your side. Your curiosity will rub off on people.

Build personality

Have conversations. Sounds simple but many forget to actually do this. When trying to become a thought leader, it can be very tempting to constantly tweet your knowledge. However, it's possible to forget that there are actual people listening out there. You do not want people to just listen, you need reciprocal communications.

Just be yourself. Similar to being opinionated, have a voice but don't be somebody you're not. Be passionate, humble, transparent and polite.

Be confident. Two reasons for this. The first is that you want people to trust you. The second is that you want to be confident with your own ability in order to develop your personality. You don't want to be afraid to say things.

Create a voice. Don't be complicated. You may think people will see jargon and be like "woah, this guy knows his shit!" but it's not like that. You will be more successful if you make the most complicated idea easier to understand than a children's book.

There we have it! How to earn trust and loyalty by becoming a thought leader and building loyalty.

#social media #branding #personal branding #loyalty #trust

The benefits of writing every day

One of my goals for 2013 was to write more. I didn't have any specific targets in my mind, I just knew that I wanted to jot down more thoughts. So far it is going really well and I'm starting to see a lot of benefits. A few of them are shared below:

It's relaxing

Writing for personal reasons can be hugely therapeutic. When all restrictions are taken away and I am just writing for pleasure, I find myself relieved of stress. It helps take the mind off any current problems. This works especially well when it is a topic or post that helps get me into a rhythm of writing.

Betters communication skills

There are often times where I quickly rush something in writing and it is only when I have time that I re-read what I had written. By then it it is too late. Sometimes I will think "hmm, I could have made that clearer." Blog posts are different as I will always read through them to tweak and change things. This has helped significantly with my communication skills. I'm getting used to choosing the correct words or structure to enhance readability.

Allows for transparency

Depending on what you write about, it can help you become much more transparent and open about yourself. In turn, I feel it can make you a much more confident person. It also helps you become a much more valuable writer. People want to know about other people's experiences.

I believe that transparency is an invaluable asset to have. SEOmoz are huge advocates for being transparent and authentic in their TAGFEE code.

Get to know yourself

You will be surprised with how much you will learn about yourself through writing, even if you do not write about a certain topic and do not provide any transparency. When you are so engrossed in your work and life then it can actually be very hard to take a step back and think about someone very important, you.

Develops a new habit

To keep yourself fresh and excited, I believe in developing new habits on a regular and consistent basis. They help bring in a new dimension to your life. I don't want to think I will be doing the exact same thing every day for the next 3 months, or even 1 month! Yes, it is important to have consistency and regularity in life but I feel much more motivated and productive if something new is happening. This could learning and new skill or developing a new habit.

We're two months into the year and, thankfully, I am beginning to write even more. Hopefully, this blog will help me develop my writing as I plan to write much more personally than I would in a company blog. It is going to really stretch my ability, but I'm excited about this!

#blogging

Why start blogging if nobody is going to read your posts?

I think this is a very important, and highly valid, concern that many people have about blogging. I try to encourage people to blog because I'm incredibly passionate about providing an audience with value, which stems from my love of SEO and inbound marketing. I've also been known to tell my friends to start blogging about their own career interests. Most of my friends are recent graduates looking for jobs and so having an online portfolio of their knowledge is a great way for them to present it.

I received a question once and, although I replied, my answer was awful and against what I advocate. The question was "if blogging is so great then why don't you do it?" I quickly said "well, I run and write the company blog and that's great but to be honest I don't personally blog because nobody would read it. I doubt people would find much value in it."

That really made me think - why would somebody invest their time in starting a blog when they think that nobody is going to read it? Unless you're a well known figure then all you will begin with is just a handful of people, and they will most likely be personal friends. Surely I'm not the only person with who has had that concern?

Creative learning

One of the problems I thought I had was that nobody would read (or enjoy) my personal posts because I'm young and don't have as much experience as some of the great bloggers out there. I read blogs from some of the most remarkable people so how could I possibly provide value to others? Then I thought about how many times I've read through my previous blogs. Although I have written all my blogs posts and articles, I still read them and think "hey, that's useful" or "how on earth did I come up with that!?" Surprisingly, you can create a moment of inspiration when writing and if you do not record it then it is forgotten about. So that's one reason to blog, even if nobody reads it. Because it's such a creative learning mechanism.

Differentiate your career proposition

Another is that you can completely show off to potential employers! Point them to a great blog where you post regularly and if it is great content then you are going to look great. It is a superb virtual CV of your knowledge. Build up your social influence and trust and your reputation will be enhanced.

Do it for the challenge!

The last reason is that is a fun challenge. Sure, maybe you won't receive a 1,000 hits for your first post but you will feel proud of the start you have made. You will start to gain traffic, referrals, shares, comments, conversations and this is all part of the online journey. How many times do you see charts like the above? So many people give up after months and months of trying without persevering. Don't let the lack of growth dishearten you. It only takes one retweet or one recommendation from an influencer to change everything.

Start small and aim big. It is for this exact reason that I'm going to begin blogging (well, definitely writing for sure) at least 3 times a week. They will inevitabley vary in size and value but hey, as long as somebody out there finds it useful then I'm happy.

#blogging #writing

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