The Best Way To Get Big Projects Done

January 16, 2012 in Blog with 0 Comments

If you wanted to take down the biggest tree in a forest, how would you do it? Steamroll it? Charge at it like a linebacker? Throw a grenade at it? Or use an axe? Of course you would say ‘use an axe.’ Taking down a big tree requires patience and hard work. A great thing about using an axe, is with every swing, you get stronger and better at it. With every swing you’re closer to your goal. And the tree will eventually fall.

My mind runs a thousand miles an hour, I have multiple interests, hobbies, ideas and a never ending projects wishlist. It is very easy to get lost in all that and push old projects an ideas aside to clear the way for the ones. But there are certain things that persist. No matter how many new ideas come up, some old ideas still make their way up and sit at the back of your mind. And the only two real reasons why things get pushed back is because there’s no sense of urgency to get them done and perceived the size of the project. But there is a lot of literature on this exact subject on how to get things done, including Scott Belsky’s Action Method, as outlined in his very influential book Making Ideas Happen and David Allen’s GTD Method. Both are aimed to help you stay organized and productive so that you could get things done and make your ideas happen. I’ve learned a great deal from both authors, and implemented some of their ideas to my daily routine. But the best way for me to get big projects done is to chip away at it.

What do I mean by ‘chip away at it’? It’s quite simple, do a little bit every day. You can’t take down a tree by steam rolling it, charging it or throwing grenades at it; unless you want to cause a lot of damage to the environment, your equipment or hurt yourself. For example, if you wanted to write a book, you’d write 1 page a day for the next year. By the end of the year, you’d have 365 pages. If you aimed to loose 1 lbs a week, by the end of the year you’d have lost 52 lbs.

Whatever the project is you need to find a manageable way to chip away at it. Do a little everyday, because the time will pass and you’ll reflect on that week, month or year and realize if only you did just a little everyday, you’d have it all done.

Image courtesy of Alexander Gude

Why Your Company Needs to Start a Blog

January 9, 2012 in Blog with 0 Comments

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, chances are you read and subscribe to a blog or two. If you run a business, you’ve probably heard or perhaps even been advised by some young whipper-snapper at your company to start a corporate blog. Maybe you did some research or consulted with your peers, but still aren’t fully convinced starting a company blog is worth your time and resources. Perhaps you’ll change your mind when you consider the following reasons to start a corporate blog:

Blogging Improves Your SEO

Google and other search engines love new and fresh content. If you’re a static brochure-like site with only a handful of pages it will be hard, even impossible, for you to reach the ranks and search results you desire. By blogging, you’re adding more pages for search engines to index, increasing the number of keywords you’ll be found for and drive more new visitors to the site everyday.

Educate Your Customers So That You Could Focus on Sales and Service

These days, we do most of our research online. Even if we get a recommendation from a friend, we will inevitably go online afterwards to find more information. Educate your customers when they visit your site so that when they call you for an appointment, you could focus on sales and service. I am not talking about boasting about your product and how it will blow the competition out of the water. Ignore the urge to mention your products in every single post. For example, if you sell Espresso machines, you can teach your customers about different types of coffee, how to remove coffee stains, etc.

Blogging Helps Build Trust

Let’s face it, we’re more comfortable doing business with those who we know and trust. On his blog, Dave Fleet commented on the issue of blogs as trust builders:

Blogs don’t build trust. Genuine people, writing like themselves rather than machines, writing useful, authentic content rather than just messages, build trust.

I couldn’t agree more. Creating a blog will not instantly make the public trust you. Like building trust in the real world, you need to show genuine interest in connecting with your audience, be genuinely helpful, transparent and honest. Be human and help me relate to you. And blogging is one of the best online platforms to help you do this.

Start and Lead the Conversation

Would you rather be on the sidelines or in the game? Blogging provides you with a unique online opportunity to start conversations. By writing compelling content you can start conversations and attract an audience from around the world, not just your neighbourhood.

Your Competitors are Blogging

I absolutely despise using this as a reason to blog. But I can’t stress it enough, your competitors are doing it! And I bet, if they are doing it right, they are generating more online traction than your company. But don’t fret, if your competitors are doing it, you can do it better. Google wasn’t the first to do Search, they just did it better. Same thing with Apple, they weren’t the first to do mp3s, they also just did it better.

Your Online Hub

Forget about facebook or Google+ branded pages as your online hub. Your blog must be the hub of all your online activities. Tie all your other social networks to it. This is where you’re going to direct your audience to, this is where you’ll connect with them, share your expertise with and build trust with them. And if you do it right, they will become your customers and ambassadors. You have more control over what happens on your blog than any other online social network. From design to content to where the conversation with your audience goes.

Display Your Talents

Use the blog to display your team’s talent and expertise. Your audience wants to know what you do and what you’re good at. If you’re a new kid on the block, use blogging to showcase your talented team and their skills. And you don’t even have to stick to work related skills. Maybe you got an avid mountain climber, or a cyclist. Celebrate their successes and stories on your blog. Not only will this humanize your company, but also help others relate to you. And one of the first things we learn in Sales 101, “People buy from People Who Are Like Them.”

Lead Generation

Lead generation is the sum of all reasons above. It all helps you generate leads, and at a lower cost. According to Hubspot’s State of Inbound Marketing 2010 Report many businesses recognize the value in blogs and social media. It is evident in the share of their marketing budgets and % of leads inbound marketing generates.

6 Ways to Convince Your Boss To Invest In Social Media

January 3, 2012 in Blog with 0 Comments

It’s 2012, does your boss still think Social Media is a fad? It has never been more urgent to convince him or her otherwise; because the longer you wait the more catching up you’ll have to do. According to research by Ad-ology:

Just ten percent [small businesses] say they will not use social media in 2012, down from 24 percent for 2011 and 39 percent for 2010.

This is in line with other studies and surveys. An email provider, Constant Contact, surveyed nearly 2000 small businesses. In their Fall 2011 Attitudes and Outlooks Survey, they reported that:

Small businesses are using social media marketing more than ever before; of those surveyed, 81% report using social media marketing, up from 73% in Spring 2011

These studies indicate a significant shift to digital as many more decision-makers and business owners embrace social media and mobile. So, how do you convince your boss to embrace the social media?

Show the Case Studies

Find a handful of case studies of companies using Social Media successfully. ’Successful’ use of social media could mean many different things to different people. Some are only interested in ROI, some will care only about how active the audience is, and others will only think about how Social Media is helping their SEO strategy. Whatever the case may be, find case studies that fall in line as closely as possible to what your boss cares about. Look for cases studies that can relate to your company as well. Size, geography, industry, and so on. Your boss will need to relate to them.

Keep an Eye on the Competition

If you need to, present a case study of your top competitor. If your competitors are using social media to dominate the online networks, show your boss what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Show the Data

There’s an abundance of online resources, research, studies and surveys that illustrate how social media is increasingly being integrated into our daily lives. There are studies focused on SMB’s as well as on the users themselves. Look for studies that represent your customer base. Not only show how many of your customers are using social media, but also how they are using it. Are they spending more time on Twitter or Facebook? Do they turn to social media for purchase advice? And so on. Make your boss see the light by focusing on how this data changes over time.

Use Real-Time Examples

Let’s say your company sells organic toothpaste. Perform a search on Twitter using Tweetdeck (or a similar app) to pull live search results. As you can see there are a lot of people talking about toothpaste, but no one is talking about your 100% certified organic toothpaste. Wouldn’t you want to join the conversation or even lead it? Wouldn’t you want to educate your potential customers about your toothpaste? Wouldn’t you want to create compelling content that drives traffic to you? There are a number of approaches you can take here. I’m just tossing out some ideas. Show examples of companies delivering live customer service, take a look at @Mailchimp or @Freshbooks. You can even go ahead with personal examples that you feel have the potential to illustrate the effectiveness of Social Media. Maybe your network responded to your request asking for restaurant suggestions or you grew your mailing list by 10 fold by creating compelling content?

Bring In the Experts

Still trying to convince your boss? Try bringing in some industry experts. If the budget doesn’t allow for a professional speaker, there are a number of firms that specialize in online marketing and social media. Bring in these experts, for lunch and learn or even for a sales pitch. Don’t be threatened. The experts will only add credibility to what you’ve been trying to pioneer in your company. Sometimes it just takes an outside voice to nudge the scales in your favour.

Show the Results

Last but not least, show the results. Maybe you got the green-light to run a pilot project, or just been moonlighting on your own. You need to be able to show your boss some kind of tangible results. Maybe you generated additional leads at lower cost, perhaps you built a mailing list, or pushed your company to the top of Google’s search results? Whatever it is, you need to prove that it works.

How to Generate New Blog Topics

December 24, 2011 in Blog with 0 Comments

There’s no shortage of lists, articles, and blog posts online that aim to help bloggers find new sources of blog topic ideas. If you’re ideas ever dry up, all you need to do is Google for one these sources for inspiration. My three favorite sources of blog topics come from things I already do everyday: read blogs, answer questions and makes observations.

Blogs and Comments

Other people’s blogs are great sources of inspiration. Start by look at the titles, can you adopt it for your own industry? For example, 10 Marketing Predictions for 2012, change that into 10 Fitness Trends for 2012, if you blog about getting fit. I admit it, that was too easy. But that’s what I wanted to illustrate. Secondly, read the articles. Do you agree, disagree, did you learn something? Comment on it. If you’re going to be leaving a comment anyway, why don’t you just expand it and turn into a post? You kill two birds with one stone, a new blog post and a comment. In your comment, it is perfectly ok to notify the article author that you were inspired to write up a full blog post in response. Be sure to leave a link to your post.

Answer Questions

This has to be one of my favourite ways of getting some ideas down on paper. I am often asked questions related to marketing, technology, social media and fitness. When I provide an answer, I actually send myself an email reminding myself to answer this question in the blog post. I’ve done this a lot on my personal training and fitness blog. Also, if you spend a lot of time answering questions on sites like LinkedIn Answer, Yahoo Answers and Quora, why not turn your answers into blog posts? You don’t have to answer questions on there, you can simply browse categories that you’re most knowledgeable about and see the questions people are asking. Like commenting on blogs, turn questions and your answers into blog posts.

Observe

Look around you. Do you notice how people use certain products? Do you notice how people react to different events? How they interact with others? Turn your observations into blog posts. For example, if you’re a personal trainer and you notice someone lacking motivation to push through the extra rep, can you write a post on ‘how to get motivated to push through the last rep’? Of course you can.

The ideas are all around us, all we have to do is be aware of our activities and surroundings; and always be asking, Can I turn this into a blog post? An answer will almost always be a resounding, YES.

Groupon and The Psychology of Persuasion

November 8, 2011 in Blog with 0 Comments

Now that Groupon is back in the spotlight with a successful second attempt at IPO, I started thinking about the company again and what made it so successful in the first place. Besides launching at the right time, in a down economy with rising unemployment, Groupon utilized all classic principles of persuasion to influence purchase decisions. As identified by Robert Cialdini in his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, these principles are: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity.

Reciprocity

This tactic is pervasive across all disciplines of marketing. This is when you’re given or offered something for free with expectation that you’ll return the favour. Some marketers ask for something in return almost immediately, while others intend to influence your future purchase decisions. Since Groupon’s model relies on the high numbers of users. The more users they have the easier it is to make its pitch to businesses, and better discounts it can negotiate with them. Groupon offers a generous $10 for every friend you refer that makes purchase. You don’t even have to make a purchase, all you have to do is tell your friends about Groupon. The trade-off here is great. It’s no cost to you and you get credited real money for spreading the word.

Commitment and Consistency

The premise behind Commitment and Consistency principle is that people tend to be fairly consistent in their behavior once they make a commitment. If a user invites their network to use Groupon, and even if they do not actually make a purchase, they’re in-effect saying “I recommend this because I just bought something or plan on buying it in the future.” In addition, Groupon has a presence on all major social networks. They make it easy for users to like, retweet and follow the company, furthering your commitment to them. The company has also mastered the art of consistency. You are guranteed to get a daily email with a great daily offer. As a company, they have conditioned their audience by being consistent in the offering and commitment to great deals. What makes this tactic effective is that people tend to value consistency in others as well.

Authority

All marketers know that authority yields a great deal of influence. Think of advertisements for toothpaste, “4 out of 5 dentists prefer this brand over the other brand.” Groupon established their authority very early on. They created a brand new market out of nothing, created thousands of jobs and delivered an astonishing number of deals. With that impressive CV how can you argue that they’re not an authority figure in the space?

Liking

Research shows that we tend to buy from and are influenced by those who we like. There’s a lot to like about Groupon, although they’ve taken a few missteps along the way. However, you have to admire this startup’s drive to constantly improve, educate, and their pursuit of high customer satisfaction.

Social Proof

Social Proof principle states that you are likely to be influenced to behave a certain way if you see others behaving that way. For example, if you’re walking down the street and see group of people looking up, you are very likely to look up as well. Groupon displays social proof by listing the number of Groupons that have been purchased. The higher the number, the further proof you have the deal is well worth it.

Scarcity

Scarcity if one of the most effective tools of influence. Scarcity creates a sense of urgency, thus speeding up your purchase decision. Every time you look at the deal, you are presented with a countdown timer. This forces a user to act quickly if they want to take advantage of the deal.

Robert Cialdini identified six strong principles of pursuasion that have been tested in laboratories and in the real world. Each one on its own is very strong source of persuasion, but when used in combination they become a killer deal hard to pass on.

Avoid Facebook as Your Online Hub

October 18, 2011 in Blog with 1 Comment

As you’ve probably heard, Facebook is experiencing some kind of bug that is affecting brand page post impressions. As you can imagine, some brands are growing frustrated as there’s hardly anything being done about it. It’s been a month now, and no resolution in sight. It is almost on monthly basis now, Facebook manages to anger and annoy either its users, app developers or the advertisers.

I started drafting this blog post soon after the Roger Ebert fanpage going down story broke. So the urgency to publish it, couldn’t be greater. The marketers who solely rely on Facebook as their primary marketing channel and brands that use it as their central online hub for all their online activity are about to get a rude awakening. As relying solely on Facebook can and will bring your marketing and social media engagement efforts to its knees.

This is not an anti-Facebook post, but rather a cautionary article. Yes, facebook should be part of your marketing mix, yes you should connect with fans on facebook and you should use it to help build your company, product and/or brand awareness, but don’t make it your online hub. There are a number of reasons to approach Facebook with a plan B in your back-pocket.

Terms of Service

Facebook’s Terms of Use (ToU) aka Terms of Service (ToS) is mess. Seems like Zuckerberg and his legal team never know what to put in. And when they do update the Terms, they seemed to be in a need of always hoping to clarify some parts. Why don’t they just make it clear in the first place? I understand that ToU evolve over time, but Facebook never seems to get it right. I can’t even think of any other company that had to make so many ammendmends and backtracks on new changes to their ToU in such a short time. Backlash and petitions are well documented.

Too Much Control

Just when you think you have a solid business model and a common place to connect with your audience, Facebook can simply pull the plug on anything at a whims notice, if any at all. The common denominator is mostly because something doesn’t fit Facebook’s mantra (read: draconian terms of use), or their business model. So, putting all your eggs into one basket (read: facebook) will have a detrimental effect on the survival of your business, as was the case with Blue Noodle. A Toronto based company that ‘helps casual social game publishers monetize in-game advertising.’ Most of their efforts were focused on the Facebook platform. An anonymous Blue Noodle employee was quoted on a CNN Fortune blog article Investor immorality: The strange case of Blue Noodle :

“All seemed okay until January, when Facebook announced that game publishers would be required to use Facebook Credits as their exclusive currency. We had put most of our eggs into the Facebook basket, and that was like a shot through the heart,” says a former Blue Noodle employee who requested anonymity. “There wasn’t really a Plan B.”

Blue Noodle is partly to blame as well, but this incident illustrates the type of effect Facebook changes can have on 3rd party developers’ and partners’ business models.

Furthermore, facebook has a history of shutting down popular fanpages, groups and profiles. In addition to Roger Ebert’s page going down mentioned earlier, they also shutdown a fan page for Realtors which had over 47,000 fans, and Robert Scoble’s profile in 2008. Facebook can give you all the tools you need to connect with your audience and marketing insights you need carry out effective campaigns. But at the end of the day they ultimately have the final say if you get to use those tools or not.

Lack of Customer Support

If your profile is disabled, fanpage goes down or app isn’t working, how are you going to get help? Is there a number to call? No! For a company with such a large base of developers and high-spend advertisers, you’d assume there would be a better way of getting instant help. But there isn’t. Some users take their questions and frustrations to Twitter where in some cases it generates so much buzz that Facebook reps are forced to respond immediately.

No Respect For Users’ Privacy

Facebook is locked in constant battle with users over its privacy controls. One of the most annoying and frustrating things most users find with Facebook, is the default position of ‘opt-in’ to being set to ON whenever they introduce a new feature. More recently, Facebook introduced a face recognition feature which groups similar faces together to make tagging of your friends easier. This angered and annoyed many users as the feature was ‘on’ by default without users’ knowledge. A history of disrespect for users’ privacy has led the lawmakers to ask Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to probe Facebook. If Facebook’s leadership has no respect for their users’ privacy what do they have to ensure you trust them with your brand?

Unethical Business Practices

This post is full of examples of Facebook’s bad behavior, but the incident involving Facebook paying off a PR firm to smear Google takes the cake. These kinds of tactics are usually reserved for dying, spineless and desperate companies. Is Facebook really that insecure about Google’s latest attempt at ‘social networking’ with Google+?

Spam and Phishing

Spam and Phishing is nothing new. As the users shift their time spent on internet to Facebook, so do the spammers and scammers. These illegal activities come in different forms. Some are disguised as legitimate applications, others are just links or fan pages. Spammers and phishers can quickly hijack latest craze, event or even a brand, and disguise it as a legitimate app or a fan page. If Facebook scammers can exploit Steve Jobs’ death and take advantage of naive and unassuming Facebook users, what’s there to stop them from hijacking your brand?

To conclude, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using Facebook as a marketing channel and a place to connect with your customers, fans and followers. However, I would be wary of treating it as the only online marketing channel and a central hub of all your online activity. Instead, you need diversify and setup a hub of all your activity elsewhere. A place where you have more control and that connects to your other online properties, including your Facebook fanpage.

How I Use Different Social Networks

September 27, 2011 in Blog with 0 Comments

Not all social networks were and are created equal, or with the same intended purpose. Some intend to help you stay connected with friends and family, some focus on your business life, some help you explore and share online content and others are everything in between. But they all do the same thing, help you stay connected to people in your life, hence the name social networks. When I meet someone for the first time, they are often surprised that I am part of so many social networks. So the most common question I hear is How do you use all these networks, don’t they all do the same thing? Here’s my answer:

Facebook

I use it to stay connected to close friends and family. I never accept invites from people I don’t know. In order for me to connect with you on Facebook we would have had to meet in real life. I don’t share much content on here as I used to. If I wasn’t in marketing, I’d probably close my account.

This is where I stay connected to my professional and business contacts. LinkedIn also serves as my live resume. I am more likely to connect on LinkedIn than on Facebook. However, I only connect with current and former colleagues, classmates, thought leaders, like-minded individuals, people I’ve done some kind of business transaction with, and sometimes for strictly networking purposes. I tend to share content that is relevant to my contacts, my industry and career.

Twitter

The bulk of my social networking/social media activity happens on here. It’s very easy to get a pulse on what is happening in your neighbourhood, your city or the world. Very easy to connect with me as my profile and twitter stream are public. I tend to follow back if you seem interesting, have a real name in your profile and are a conversationalist. I broadcast almost everything and anything on here. See for yourself @andreipetrik

Stumbleupon

One of my favourite sites and web discovery tools. I use it mostly for web discovery than it’s social networking functionalities. It’s a highly addictive service that helps you discover online content that you wouldn’t have thought of looking for on your own. It also serves as my social bookmarking site. Check out my discoveries.

YouTube and Vimeo

I am not very active on these two sites as much as when I was doing video and film work. If you find my profile, feel free to connect, but if you send me a message through YouTube or Vimeo don’t expect a quick response. I watch the videos, but almost never subscribe to channels or participate in comment sections.

Slideshare, Goodreads and Flickr

These three services are used to bookmark, favourite and keep track of content I find interesting. I never use their social networking functionalities.

Foursquare

This is a location based social network that allows you to check-in to various locations to earn rewards, meet friends and discover other places around you. I am not actively building my network on here, as I have already connected with friends, colleagues and followers from existing networks. Useful to check out local deals nearby.

Google+

It’s a new network, launched in Summer of 2011. My usage is slightly increasing every week. One day I hope it replaces Facebook. At the moment I’m in the network building phase, and ever so often I’ll share some content. Follow me on Google+

Quora

Quora is a Q&A site with built in social networking functionalities. In addition to connecting to my existing following, I also use to connect to thought leaders and experts. Whenever I seek outside expert advice, tips and opinion is this my one and only go to Q&A site. LinkedIn has same functionality built into their service as well.

Tumblr

A blogging platform, stuck somewhere between Twitter and WordPress. Although I am not a frequent user, I do love this service. I have created an account, which one day I hope to put to a better use. This is one of the (social networks) accounts I created strictly to expand my digital marketing knowledge and experience. And to that point, I have a number of other social network accounts. Created them simply to explore, and expand my knowledge and expertise of the digital marketing space.

A Digital Sandbox

August 1, 2011 in Blog with 0 Comments

It’s what I refer to my blog as. Like a regular sandbox where you play, build and share; my blog serves that purpose. It’s my digital sandbox.

Maybe Excite Didn’t Understand Internet Users

May 17, 2011 in Blog with 0 Comments

In a blog post on Business Insider I learned that Excite (remember them?) refused an offer to buy Google in late 1990′s. I had no idea, or maybe I never heard about it because it never made it to the presses. Nonetheless, what I’m most surprised about is the reasoning Excite executives provided for not buying Google. Especially at the time when every search result was dominated by porn related keywords or pop-cultural flavours of the week; internet users we’re hungry for better search results. An explanation of Excite’s reasoning:

[Google] was too good. If Excite were to host a search engine that instantly gave people information they sought, [Excite's CEO] explained, the users would leave the site instantly. Since his ad revenue came from people staying on the site—“stickiness” was the most desired metric in websites at the time—using Google’s technology would be counterproductive.

Prior to Google, I was using Excite, Hotbot, Altavista and Lycos. And when I first discovered Google, I never went back. Yes, maybe I didn’t spend my whole time on google, but I always went back to it when I needed to find relevant information. Google was so good, and still is, that it became synonymous with ‘searching the internet’, and consequently ‘google’ was officially entered in Oxford English Dictionary in 2006. Where are the other guys now?

I am not sure where Excite got their reasoning, I bet they didn’t ask their users, but isn’t building an amazing product (search engine in this case) will make people use it more often and refer their friends and colleagues? As the popular saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20.

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