flyte blog: small business web marketing blog

Book Review: Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence

I've often said that the best book on social media marketing is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. Although Carnegie never updated his Facebook status, tweeted or even commented on someone else's blog, the lessons one can learn from that book can be used to win Facebook friends and Influence people on the social webs.

Well, now that book has some real competition. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith is a must read for anyone looking to understand how businesses and non-profits can use the Web and social media.

This book is not about how to get more followers on Twitter, or to get the most connections on LinkedIn. Rather, it's about understanding how the Web--and specifically social media--is changing the rules of engagement and networking. 

The book takes a step-by-step, chapter-by-chapter approach of how to become a trusted member of this new society, and how to leverage that power. (But always for good; the book does address the possibly slippery slope of questionable activity, or taking advantage of one's community. However, no doubt that some people will put the lessons learned towards hacking the trust equation.)

There's a lot of great examples in the book, both from Chris & Julien's lives, as well as Gary Vaynerchuk and dozens of others who have learned the lessons in this book firsthand. I found myself folding down a lot of the page corners, and recommending the book to several friends and clients.

The book was also good at reinforcing what I already believed to be true, just with more concrete examples. Chris and Julien say a lot of the same things I say--except when they say it, it comes across as much more intelligent and insightful--I'll have to work on that.

You won't find get rich quick ideas here, and there's no promises of untold riches. If you're looking for how to set up a Facebook fan page or create a custom background for YouTube, better to Google it than read this book. But when you're ready to think about strategy and how this fits in with the bigger picture of your business, your career, your causes, this book will help you get there.

Rich Brooks
Getting There

How Does Web Marketing Help Your Business?

At flyte we have a model called Holistic Web Marketing; it's a way of explaining how Web marketing helps improve your online visibility, drive qualified leads to your Web site, and convert that traffic into business. There are four pieces:

• Attraction: How do you drive qualified traffic to your site?
• Retention: How do you keep the lines of communication open after they leave your site?
• Conversion: How do you get them to make a buying decision or move further down the sales cycle?
• Measurement: How do measure your site's effectiveness and whether your Web campaigns are working?

We recently created a cheat sheet around Holistic Web Marketing that you might find helpful. You can download the PDF of What Is Holistic Web Marketing? here.

 

Rich Brooks
Web Marketing for Small Business

How to Build a Business Blog That Generates Leads

Today's issue of flyte log--our email newsletter on everything Web marketing related--is all about turning your blog into a lead generation machine.

How to Build a Business Blog That Generates Incoming Leads is a crystallization of a number of thoughts, a session at BlogWorld by Chris Baggott, a review of my analytics, and a recent post called Questioning 6 Blogging "Truths."

The new article revamps some of the points in 6 Truths, mixes in some new ideas, and tries to deliver some actionable items that any small business or non-profit can use to drive more traffic to their blog and convert those visitors into qualified leads.

If you've been considering starting a blog, or have been wondering how to improve the performance of your own blog, be sure to check out How to Build a Business Blog That Generates Incoming Leads.

Rich Brooks
Small Business Blogger

Find Local People on Twitter Using NearbyTweets

Despite the global nature of the Internet, many of us still do most of our business locally.

Restaurants, doctors, locksmiths, massage therapists, all get most of their business from their extended neighborhood. Even when you're able to do business anywhere, such as Web designers, business coaches, and super nannies, we still find that we get a large part of our business form the local economy.

Whether through desire or necessity, many of us search out local people to network with. If this sounds like you, there are plenty of Twitter applications that help you find local tweeps, including LocalTweeps or the search tool on Tweetie for the iPhone, my favorite desktop app is Nearby Tweets.

Unlike a lot of its competition, the layout of the site is slick and elegant. It will often recognize where you are in the world and pre-populate your location. If it's not right, or if you'd rather find tweeps in the city you'll be visiting next week, just change your location.

Next up you can filter the results by keyword. Although when I'm looking for new local folks to follow I generally leave this spot blank, you could find out who locally is "hungry" or cheering on the "Patriots" by using the keyword filter.

Last up you can vary the search radius to whatever size you want. The default is 100 miles, but feel free to shrink it to 10 or double it to 200. Once you hit search, Nearby Tweets will pull up all the recent tweets from the people who meet your criteria in the right hand column, and their avatars on the left. It's up to you to decide whether you want to follow them or not.

I generally right-click their profile pages into a new tab in Firefox, go through the list, and then check out their profiles one at a time.

This isn't a tool where you add yourself to a directory, nor does it ask you for any of your own Twitter information. (Thank God.) In fact, like Search.Twitter.com, you don't even need to be on Twitter to use it.

Very slick, very powerful, very free. Check it out .

Rich Brooks
Twittering from 04101

Yes, You Do Have Time to Blog!

One of the common refrains I hear from people is that "I don't have time to blog."

On the surface, this seems believable. What small business owner isn't over-worked, whether it's with marketing, sales, bookkeeping, managing people, making the coffee, buying the computers, sending out proposals, answering the phones, taking out the garbage, and every other task that fills our days from the moment we hit the office (whether in or out of our house) to the moment we shut down the computer for the day?

And still, I call "B.S."

Because if you're a small business owner like I am, then blogging is something you can always fit into your day. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not octomom (dignity in check, thanks), but my wife and I do have kids, and a work/life balance is important to us.

You see, blogging isn't some self-indulgent activity; it's investing in the future of your business. Blogging increases your search engine visibility, establishes your credibility, and generates inbound leads. In my opinion, it's probably the best marketing tool you have at your disposal, and once you get it set up it's nearly free.

Unlike other required tasks (phone calls, meetings and making the coffee, for example), you can blog any time. In fact, I recommend doing it in the off hours so you can follow up on all the leads active blogging will deliver to you during your normal business day.

Here's how to get it done:

• Write a blog post before the kids get up, or after you've put them to bed. (No kids? Then no excuse. Seriously, this is the time to be blogging like there's no tomorrow because feedings in the middle of the night can kill your creativity.) 
• Give up one night of TV a week and pump out two or three blog posts, and deliver them Monday, Wednesday and Friday the following week. 
• Review your Google alerts for your targeted keywords and write brief posts while eating at your desk two days a week.
• Use a voice-to-text tool while on the treadmill and speak your next blog post (85% less weird if you have a home gym.)

Listen, this is your business. You're an entrepreneur. No one said this was going to be easy. A blog isn't some toy, it's a business tool that's going to deliver qualified leads to your Web site. If you'd rather watch American Idol that's fine; just hope your competition feels the same way you do.

Rich Brooks
Blogging Past Midnight

Win $6,000 for Your Business

As part of the New Business Stimulus Package offered by MaineBusiness.com, flyte new media will be offering 2 hours of social media and Web design consulting.

Some of the other prizes include:

• production of a 30 second ad courtesy of Fox 23
• Logo Design courtesy of Judy Thibeau, Tebo Design Studio
• 1 hour of legal consultation courtesy of Lorenzatti, Smith Elliott Smith & Garmey, P.A.
• 100,000 impressions of online banner ads courtesy of MaineToday Media
• and a whole lot more.

In fact, there's $6,000 worth of business-oriented goodies, total, and there's not one, not two, but THREE lucky winners.

Caveats? Sure, we got caveats. The biggest two being that your business has to be a legal, Maine-based business and it had to be started in 2009 or will be started in 2010.

If you met these criteria, be sure to check out the details of the Pitch Your Business package.

If you don't meet these criteria...well, let's see, what can we give you? OK, I got it: how about 3 lucky winners will win one hour of one-on-one Web marketing/social media consulting from me, Rich Brooks?

To enter, you don't have to live in Maine, or even the US, for that matter, and I don't care how long you've been in business. (I know, what a guy, right?)

Just complete this short form by Friday, 10/23/2009 to be entered.

Rich Brooks
Giving the Milk Away for Free

Book Review: Why Now is the Time to Crush It – Gary Vaynerchuk

I bought Gary Vaynerchuk’s first book, Crush It! Why Now Is the Time to Cash In On Your Passion, on the way to the airport today. Cracked it as we were pulling away from the gate at the Portland Jetport. Finished it somewhere over Ohio. (South of Columbus is what the captain told the flight attendant I asked—I know you demand accuracy.)

That’s no complaint against the length of the book. It may top out at 142 pages but it’s got more ideas than books three times its length.

The book now has a few dozen dog-eared pages, is filled with black underlines, and is littered w/a number of client’s names followed by exclamation points next to passages that inspired me to think about building there businesses using social media tools. (Chantal, Harbor Fish, and new person who knows she should be working with us, we have to talk.)

The book is part inspirational, part instructive, all Gary. He talks about how passion, hard work and social media tools can be used together to create an unstoppable force. He’s a walking poster boy for his line of thinking, the quintessential coming-to-America story. You can’t look at his history and think he had any advantage over you.

Through 13 chapters he walks you through how to brand yourself no matter where your passion lies. He has real life and hypothetical stories about gardeners, accountants, wine merchants and soccer players. There are chapters about how to create great content, which medium is best for you (blogging, video or audio), how to build a community, and a very short chapter—one word in fact—entitled “The Best Marketing Strategy Ever.”

In Gary’s world it’s not the size of your niche, it’s the depth of your passion.And you know what? I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. (Or maybe the Merlot.)

This book isn’t for everyone. If you’re not willing to take risks, if you’re not willing to share your passion, if you’re not willing to work hard—really, really hard—this book isn’t for you.

But if you’re entrepreneurial in spirit, I strongly recommend you run to your local bookstore or buy it here at Amazon, and soon you too will be able to Crush It!

Rich Brooks
Ready to Crush It!

Gary Vaynerchuk Tells You How to Cash In On Your Passion

Just in case this is the first time you you've used the Interwebs, let me introduce my guest.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a 33-year-old entrepreneur whose dual identity as both business guru and wine guy has made him known as the “Social Media Sommelier.” He's a dynamic speaker and passionate about everything he does. It's almost enough to forgive the fact he's a Jets fan.

********************************

Rich: I'm very excited you’ve got your first book coming out - Crush It! - on October 13. It’s about how to create a career around what you’re passionate about.

Obviously, the economy is not great. Some people might think this is a pipe dream. What are your thoughts on that?

Gary: I’m not really interested in convincing. I think my arguments and my thoughts are compelling. I know what it’s about. I’m not looking to do something that’s not real.

Anybody I know that’s in the internet space or social media space that really knows what they’re doing is up 35%, 50% or 80% in ad revenue, things like that.

The economy is bad for traditional places. It’s never a bad time to build a great business, right?

I love this time. I think that this is where the real players step up and win. I feel that if you come from a place of passion, you’re going to love the process. The results become almost secondary.

Clearly you need to pay rent, take care of your family and things of that nature, but I think people need to start wrapping their head around how much opportunity there is right now.

Rich: You talk a lot about passion. Do you think that passion is something that you can develop over time or is it just something that’s innate in that some people have it and some people don’t?

Gary: I think everybody has it. I think the innate thing is that some people see it and others don’t. What I’m good at is communicating and trying to force people to see it and understand it. That’s what I’m passionate about.

Rich: What happens if you’re passionate about something that’s kind of unlikely or odd or just a very narrow niche? How do you turn that into a business that’s going to help you make a living?

Gary: Mixed martial arts was a small niche seven years ago. If you came out and owned that space, you’d probably be sitting as a content provider and be in the half million or million dollar a year business right now.

My thing is to stick to your passion. I don’t understand how you can do something you don’t love. If you love it and you’re only making $40K and you were making $75K before, figure out how to subsidize the other $35K. Get a second job, a lightweight $35,000 a year job that may be at McDonalds.

Give as much time to what you love the most. You can grow with it. You will be bigger than you could ever imagine if you do the thing you love the most. It’s just the way it is. It’s so frigging obvious.

Rich: I had actually never heard you speak until I heard you do one of the opening presentations for the Social Media Success Summit and I was just really blown away.

You obviously have a very natural innate ability to attract people to your passion. But I know a lot of people who just don’t seem to be able to do something like that. What tips can you give people who might have a hard time attracting a crowd?

Gary: I attract a crowd, not because I’m an extrovert or I’m over the top or I’m oozing with charisma. It’s because I care.

I promise you that if you break down the people that you know that are in the content game right now and they aren’t building an audience, they’re spending more time reading about how to do it, trying to figure out how to do it, working on the content and are not putting in the 15 hours a day into the community. I promise you. I’ve never seen anybody put in a crap load of effort and time into their community and not grow. Never.

Rich: That actually brings up another question because I see a lot of people, especially lately on Twitter it seems, and I’m not sure if they’re people or bots some of the times, but they seem to be jumping into social media with the idea that it’s some sort of get rich-quick-scheme, that it's easy money and it doesn’t take a whole lot of work.

I know you have a strong opinion on this. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Gary: Yes, there’s a bunch of bull crap everywhere. People don’t want to work. That’s it. There’s nothing else to say.

I do not believe that people want to work hard enough and they want to find the quick Twitter, SEO. Anybody who's obsessed with SEO has lost already, period. I believe that firmly.

I just think that people need to think about big pictures. It’s a race.

I’m sitting here and I’m thinking about this. People are not running marathons, they’re running sprints. They’re looking for quick cash. They’re obsessed with things like buying AdWords and then converting on an affiliate program quicker and making cash. They’re looking for easy outs.

There’s only one true way to build a big business and its hard work, differentiating products and really giving a rat’s ass about your community.

Rich: I once called Twitter the 'Swiss army knife' of business communications. You had a great quote where you called it a 'caveman’s club'.

What do you think social media tools are going to look like in the future and how are they going to evolve?

Gary: I have no idea because that’s not what I do. But what I do is when I see them, I use them.

I don’t really want to invent a fork. I don’t want to invent a baseball bat, but I want to swing that bat better than anybody did. I didn’t want to be Louisville Slugger. I want to be Ted Williams and that’s what I’m good at. I recognize that. I’m not an inventor. I’m somebody that understands how to use products and tools to accomplish what I want. I know that there are going to be more and more connections and I find that fascinating.

I like that transparency is at an all time high because good people win and that’s a game I know I can win.

Rich: It’s interesting that you mentioned Ted Williams because I believe you’re actually a New York sports fan, aren’t you?

Gary: I am, but you’ve got to respect the sweetest swing. The best hitter, the person that saw it the clearest from all accounts is Ted Williams. It’s funny I didn’t pick a home run hitter, which I’m going to think about all day now. It's interesting that I didn’t pick Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron or what have you.

I’m just a slow-and-steady, singles-and-doubles kind of guy. I just don’t want to strike out. It’s a step back. I want to get on base. I’m an OBP kind of guy.

Rich: Exactly, small ball.

Gary: That’s right.

Rich: You’ve got a very interesting story to tell, your parents being Russian immigrants and working in liquor store. You also talk about the importance of storytelling. Can you talk to us just for a few minutes about why storytelling is so important?

Gary: Storytelling is the game. It’s what we all do. It’s why Nike is Nike, it’s why Apple is Apple, it’s why Walt Disney built Disney World and it’s why Vince McMahon makes a billion dollars.

Storytelling is the game. If you’re unable to convey your story, consumers will not consume your product whatever that may be, whether it’s content or entertainment or food. Whatever it may be, if you’re not capable of telling a story, you are not in the game with human beings because that’s what they want, that’s what they do, that’s how they roll and it’s the main principle of marketing in our society.

Rich: I also know that you’ve talked about authenticity. How far can one go to tell their story and still be true to what actually happened? In other words, you’re not suggesting that people make up a story, like make up something out of thin air. You’re saying you need to be able to tell your own story in a compelling way, right?

Gary: Yes, we’re not talking about fiction here. Absolutely, you need to create and invoke emotion around the reality of your product. I’m not looking for people to scam. You’ve got to tell a story. You’ve got to connect with people, but around authenticity and transparency, of course, because it’s the only game left now in the way that this has all been built.

Rich: Excellent. In the last couple of minutes we have, do you want to tell us a little bit more about Crush It?

Gary: I find it fascinating that a lot of business books that do well are from people who’ve never made any money in business. It's not that that’s wrong because I’m sure that they're intellectually smart and they get it and that’s phenomenal.

I just find that I’m excited that I’ve used these tools and I’ve made it happen. It’s real. It’s a very authentic story and I’m excited about that. I just feel like I pulled off a good book and I didn’t think I was going to. I’m not kidding. I feel like I was able to articulate what I wanted and I just want people to be happy because it’s so damn easy in today’s world.

Three years ago, no. Everything I believe in, three years ago, no. That’s powerful. That’s interesting to me.

I find it completely fascinating, Rich, that everything I believe in, every core principle, was not executable 36 months ago.

Rich: It sounds like you were just born at the right time or you just entered the scene at the right time and that could be part of it.

Gary: It could be. I’d like to think that I’m an explorer and I have my eyes wide open and I would have used different platforms. But the fact that this game is not predicated on cash but on sweat is very attractive to anybody listening to this.

Rich: Where would you suggest people go and check you out and learn a little bit more about what’s going on and learn a little bit more about Crush It?

Gary: I’d love for anybody who’s listening to this to go to Facebook.com/Gary and say, "What’s up?’" and definitely Crushitbook.com.

Rich: Gary, thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate it. I look forward to reading the book when it comes out on October 13.

Gary: I appreciate it, my man. Thanks for your interest.

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You can follow Gary Vaynerchuk on Twitter here.

You can follow Rich Brooks on Twitter here.

How to Add a Facebook Fan Box to Your Web Site or Blog

As a lot of small business and non-profits know, social media sites like Facebook are a great place to connect with your audience and build your business or membership.  

There are a number of reasons for businesses, non-profits and just about any organization to be on Facebook:

• Location, location, location: a lot of your prospects, customers, members and constituents are already on Facebook
• As people become a fan of your business, or interact with your fan page, their activity appears in their feed. This is then seen by their friends, increasing the chance that you'll be promoted to more people
• Fan pages are free to setup and run

One way to build your fan base is to add a fan box to your Web site or blog, which makes it easy for people to fan you.

The fan box is also great if you have a static Web site and can't make updates yourself. Just have your web developer to add a fan box to your site; now the updates you post to your fan page will appear on your Web site automatically.  

Here's a video called "How to Add a Facebook Fan Box to Your Web Site or Blog" which--surprisingly--shows you how to add a Facebook fan box to your Web site...or blog.

flyte new media on Facebook

Rich Brooks
Helping Small Businesses Leverage Facebook Since...wait, what year is it?

Monopolize Google's Results with a Blog and Social Media

A theme has come up recently as we work with some small business clients on whether or not they should have a blog, and whether or not they should optimize it for the search engines. (Crazy, right?)

The concern seems to be that if they optimize their blog for the keywords they're targeting, they are in fact competing against their own Web site, and thus their own self-interest.

However, as long as all your properties are funneling traffic to your Web site for conversion, or able to handle conversions themselves, you have nothing to worry about.

It's more like the game of Monopoly: the more properties you own, the more traffic you're likely to get. (Except in this case people are happy to be your guest.)

In fact, if you add optimized, quality content at YouTube, Flickr, Squidoo, and other social media sites, you can really start to monopolize Google's search results for your targeted keyword phrases. And since photos, videos, and localized content are becoming more prevalent at search engines, you don't want to cede that opportunity to your competition.

To create quality content you should use a combination of some keyword research and the questions you get on a regular basis. Often, if a client--or just a random person--sends me an email with a good question I'll generalize the details and turn it into a blog post. Then I'll send them an email with the link to the blog post.

Not only are you helping out your customer or prospect in that case, you're creating content that can help drive more prospects to your blog, Web site, or social media presence.

Just remember to create keyword-rich links back to relevant pages on your site so you can continue the conversation.

Rich Brooks
SEO for Small Business

Photo credit: Rich Brooks (yeah, that's me)