There are two vaults we need to open (or improve)  in 2012 and more importantly, use wisely:

Open your knowledge vault

If there’s one major mistake that companies and brands keep making year by year is to keep betting most of the chips on “interruption marketing”.  I still see loads of organisations delivering “we’ve been 20 years in business” as their unique selling point or differentiation factor. We can do better than that.
Turn it around by sharing nuggets of the knowledge that you’ve phenomenally achieved during all these years. One of the best ways to do that is through a company blog but, please do not focus on the technology or think this is something for the “social media person” to be hired (hopefully) next year. This is your knowledge vault remember? This will be your golden avenue to share with the world “knowledge gifts” (no strings attached) that will help your audience of prospects and customers to make better decisions, to find you, to come back to you and more importantly, to trust you.
The fact that you will share business solutions (in the form of a blog post) for problems that people have doesn’t mean that they’ll get the advise for free and run away. Many professionals think this way.
Your company blog and outposts (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube accounts) are in charge of connecting with people that are looking for what you have but still don’t know that you exist or for those who know you exist is helping answer the question “why should they go with you?” Your content should make that decision a no-brainer for them, whenever they’re ready to make a move.
Connect at a deeper level with your audience by listening to what they’re saying and write effective content as primary and nuclear fuel to propel your business beyond the competition.

Open your ideas vault

Facundo and I have been using for a few years two main platforms to save all different types of ideas (personal, for the business, for blog posts, new ventures, etc): Google Docs and Evernote. The latter is very handy since you mostly manage it through the mobile app on the go. You may take a picture of something, record your voice or write the idea, label it and it will stay there!
Imagine, in a 12-month period, the hundreds or thousands of ideas that you and  your team will come up with. The problem is that if you don’t save them somewhere, they’ll be gone with the wind and you’ll miss out on potential solutions that could make your business more effective, innovative,  profitable, fun and memorable.
Take the lead to create a space to save all ideas. If people tell you “I don’t have good ideas“, reply: “…tell me all the bad ones you have“, as Seth Godin would say.

2012 is another chance to make every minute count, every penny. Look around your business, your context. Are you saying you’re doing things differently already? Try harder because you are not. Do you have great ideas but the C suite can’t envision them? Get creative or get out of the comfort zone.

2012 is your best shot.

According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute: “the biggest challenge for corporate content producers is to actually come up with engaging content all the time”. Due to the overwhelming abundance of content out there and the imminent catching up by competitors or simply better content producers that your company who is giving the first steps, this race can feel daunting.

A great part of content marketing nowadays is a mix of compelling information, entertainment, reach, openness and a big dose of personal touch nurturing that mix you present to your audience.

No one can create 100% engaging content all the time just like no event is 100% satisfactory to everyone; neither is a get-together or any social endeavour. However, your company can take a strategic approach to connect with your target audience and support business goals. Should you aim for perfection? Yes, of course. Even if you know that along the way you will land some nice triumphs,  some average interactions and the occasional hiccup. It’s about following a strategy & also making adjustments but commiting to repetition of the core pillars (more below).

Assuming your team has got the skills to produce good content the key is that, according to the business function they represent, these individuals are fully aware of the goals and possible benefits for their business wing so that their creative process is fully in line with the direction.

Here are some ways in which your team may have the business goals present in their minds (obviously the team needs to be creative enough to avoid the hard-sell):

Sales

Ask collaborators to produce content in line with the different stages of the buying process. A blog post or video, even pictures can cater for stages such as the consideration stage, comparison stage, closing stage, etc. Think how your possible buyers think and make it easy for them to have questions answered even before they ask them. Have a look at this great article over as Social Media B2B covering more about these stages.

Purer Marketing/ Promotion

Remember about entertainment. Even if storytelling is nowadays a buzzword, it is what the community wants and engages with. Ask your content producers to abandon the hammering announcements and build your messages around stories. I am not asking you to create a sitcom (although if you can, people may like it). It’s down to internalising the story as a vehicle. Let me give you an example before I get too abstract: If you are pushing a new product, change in the company, partnership you can present it to the community in a video/ post that actually walks the viewer through how this novelty came into being. For instance, when we opened our London office we created this video in an effort to escape from the typical written announcement.

Publicity

Is your content likely to be picked and shared by authorities & influencers? For instance, is it written/ formatted in such a way that it is easy to be grabbed by an important journalist or blogger who may want to write about it? You cannot artificially generate this interest by others but you can certainly ask your content team to keep best practices in mind and also an eye on the type of content your target influencers are fond of. Then, simply be consistent. Thanks to Ivan Walsh for inspiring this thought.

Customer Service

Even though we are all in the customer services department, senior customer services people in your company should probably take the lead on content production. These experienced people should aim to cater for the different stages in your particular customer services matrix. This could come down things such as tutorials or explaining after-sales processes better.  Why not bring in storytelling to the equation and showcase how you solve specific problems or a client’s success story with your department?  See how Zendesk go about this concept. Ask your content team to also share how you make things better based on complaints (e.g. based on this backlog we have done this and that and rewarded patient clients with X).

Community Building

Caring about the people who relate to your company has always been a business function. We all know that this has been neglected for years and is now changing back to what it should be, with the help of social media and the consumers’ resonance. Ask your collaborators to listen to what the community wants (literally see what key individuals have “liked” “tweeted” or even criticized). Sense what makes them tick and take a leap to try to meet that need. The more you do it, the better you get. The more you serve them, the more room they will give you to actually present brand new inputs that they were not looking for but they like, because they come from you.

Now go and review your content strategy. Is it supporting your business functions? I know for a fact after writing this post that we have a lot to work on here too. Let’s get down to it and if you feel like, leave a quick comment below, we can all do with your great examples and thoughts

As you know, we are very fond of Seth here and as I was taking notes I decided to share a quick (I said quick, not short) transcript of this useful webinar. You’ll feel that most are Seth’s word and some are mine I Regardless I hope you take away a few things that can work for you and others you know.

Seth is self-proclaimed contradictory, so pick what works for you.

I hope that you grasp why I’m sharing this in this format, sequence and burst; but if you don’t, the hints are the points highlighted in green

On blogging:

1. Don’t be a generalist. Be a specialist
2. Break news (breaking is being the first, I think I’m more doing number 6 below)
3. Write about timeless things!!! (think Zenhabits by Leo Batauta)
4. Be the first one to blog about something and explore encouraging the  competition to blog about it too.
5. The more you share the more people come to you, it’s ironic
6. Announce news
7. Short bursts are easier to spread because we don’t need to read all in order to feel confident to spread it
8. Write long definitive posts (contradicts above, it doesn’t matter!) Every now and then it works perfectly. It’s contradictory because there is no map. No magic rule on length of content
9. Don’t write about your kids or pets
10. Write about your kids (again contradictory), use analogies he means, still he’s like a modern Heraclitus constantly contradicting himself
11. Be snarky, nearly libellous (Seth says be careful), accuse (sort of), shout (sort of), be over the top. Pick a fight. It doesn’t make you trustworthy though (I’ll stop to see a car crash but wouldn’t pay for it)
12. Be sycophantic, spread link love
13. Include polls, meters and eyecandy
14. Think about SEO, tag your posts. Black hat doesn’t scale. Seth is obsessed with scaling
15. COIN a term or two. Whoever coined “blogs” or “the long tail” can be found (Chris Anderson)
16. Do e-mail interviews. Plenty of people would like to be in front of your audience.
17. Answer your e-mail (doesn’t scale but it works). Contradiction
18. Use photos, salacious are better… lol
19. Be anonymous (contradictory). Anonymous people have more freedom (a post by a fake Steve Jobs is of interest)
20. Encourage your people to Digg and Reddit your posts
21. Post yout photos on Flickr; still spreads ideas. Well curated galleries rule
22. Encourage your readers to subscribe to RSS. People who depend on “drive by traffic” are in a losers game. The Big game is subscriptions. NY Times would be out of business, Rolling stones too otherwise. RSS to email is OK, but when e-mail becomes spammy RSS through a reader is the way
23. Take your readers and bring them to a month’s education, linear, step by step. Seth blogs daily, sometimes you spread a concept gradually
24. Include comments to create a virtual water cooler. Often comments are better than posts
25. Assume that people visit you at your blog for the first time
26. Highlight your best posts on you Squidoo lens. Enter your RSS and highlight your favourite post
27. Point to useful but little known resources (you get the credit, not Google, not the developer). Here’s a resource by the way to find search for free pics for your posts: http://compfight.com/
28. Write about stuff that people are interested in (gadgets, web 2.0, things for people that are on the web)
29. Write about Google
30. If you have ads, they should be even better than your content
31. Don’t include comments (contradictory). Seth doesn’t allow them because he doesn’t want his writing to be influenced, fair enough. He also thinks that people should comment on their own blogs about your posts (food for thought for the likes of Disqus and Intensedebate or WordPress?)
32. Don’t use trackbacks, they are broken
33. No ads. Seth’s a maximiser, and he cannot write the best and be the best advertiser. He only wants to spread interesting ideas so he sticks to that
34. Keep tweaking your template (you’ll learn a lot)
35. Write about blogging/ write about Twitter. It works, period
36. Digest good ideas of other people
37. Invent a whole new art or interaction (postcards, secrets)
38. On weekdays there are more readers, traffic
39. Cover different topics, neverending parade of topics
40. Post on weekends, more attention (contradictory)
41. Don’t interrupt your writing with a lot of links. Talk to people quietly
42. Dress your blog well like your clothes, tipography, colours, pictures, etc
43. Edit yourself, ruthlessly
44. Don’t promote yourself and business at expense of reader’s attention
45. Be patient. Forget an overnight success. Seth is in post 3500. If you can stick to it 3 to 5 years, it’ll work.
46. Give credit to those who inspired, don’t steal ideas
47. Ping Technorati, ask the tech guy how
48. Write about one thing only in deep detail
49. Write in English (the Language, no irony here, it just reaches more people)
50. Better, write in Chinese
51. Write about obscure stuff that obsesses a minority
52. The goal is simple: Ask yourself if your community would miss you if you were gone. If the answer is no, quit (read “the Dip”, that’s my own comment)
53. Don’t be boring (comes from previous point)
54. Write stuff that people want to read and share

If you are still here reading you’ll notice that I missed 3 ideas out of the 57, what do you think about my attention span? Leave a comment below, be kind.

Bonus 1

Why do people spread ideas?

In real space/ real flesh and bone life, ideas are absorbed by way of interruption (ads, billboards, rent space on busy street). Internet works so well because people spread ideas person to person. Here are some thoughts on why ideas spread.

• It makes “me” feel generous
• “I” feel smarter
• I care about the outcome, I want to be generous to YOU (the idea owner)
• Because I have no choice (e.g. tattoo, iPhone,)
• Because there’s a financial benefit (like an Amazon affiliate). Most people fail on this watch out
• The idea is hysterically funny and laughing alone is not fun
• Everybody is lonely and loneliness will never go away. Give people something to share and they’ll love you
• Because I’m angry and want to bring it out (flip side of above)
• Because close people I know will benefit  or all will benefit (Groupon)
• Because you asked me to and it’s hard not to say no. Watch out on pushing this, but it works.
• Because I can introduce other people to other people. That’s why people spread Facebook (combination of selfishness to connect to others and believing the idea that connectedness is good).
• Because if everyone knew this idea I would be happier
• Because your idea makes it easy to spread an idea I am uncomfortable spreading
• Because I care about someone that would be happier or healthier
• Because it’ll annoy someone (e.g. teenagers do things just to annoy parents)
• Because the tribe needs to know about this to avoid an external threat
• Because it’s my job
• Because I love your art, cannot repay you so I have to share it. You see it with great musicians and writers

Bonus 2

Where do these ideas come from?

• By being innovative (Michael Dell was innovative and then he hired an army of people that weren’t; the company sneezed…)
• Risky ideas don’t come from watching TV
• Often, good ideas come from books
• Good ideas come from bad ideas (look at 30 crappy iPad apps and you’ll probably work out a great number 31)
• Almost never a good idea comes from an annual review
• Ideas occur when 2 worlds collide (ballerina dating a weightlifter)
• Ideas often happen when you need them (just in time)
• Ideas fear experts but adore beginners (stay naïve)
• Ideas come in spurts, don’t come forever nor systematically
• Ideas come from trouble
• Ideas come from our EGO
• Ideas come from Nature (Velcro)
• Sometimes come from fear, but often come from confidence (more powerful)
• When you feel the texture of the universe, feeling aware, you are most definitely going to have an idea
• Sometimes they sneak in when you sleep
• Out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower
• Mediocre ideas like copying but bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones
• Ideas don’t need a passport
• Expose yourself to other universes

Yes, I took a screenshot of the final slide and grasped a thought which I found motivating:

“In this era anyone can play for free, anyone can put an idea into the universe. You are not gonna make it signing NDAs

The new world demands collision and driving without a map…

Go make something happen”

The combination of both sites’  names explains why this is a “Sweet Business Blogging Contest”. The idea is to give your articles extra online visibility, reward your social networking and an opportunity for you to win prizes to help you promote your business.

• It’s free to enter
• Anyone can join the competition including current Bloggertoners and BizSugar members!
• You’ll have lots of chances to win
• Prizes total USD 6,921

How You Can Win These Prizes

#1 Do you write business articles?

All you have to do is submit a business article to Bloggertone Between Monday March 15th and Wednesday March 17th – but there are a few guidelines you need to follow.

All votes will take place on BizSugar, the social bookmarking site for businesses.
#2 Do you like to read business articles?

You can also win prizes by simply voting and commenting on the Sugartone articles posted on BizSugar.com

Click on the banner below to learn more!

The first one was : “How to build your business network with social media” and as promised, we compiled all the relevant info below:

• Full recording of the webinar
• The slides
• The conversation thread under the Twitter tag #sm4biz
• Some questions…

Subscribe to Channelship’s You Tube channel

The slides are already available on our Slideshare account!

My Power Point slides also contributed to the Twitter conversation
Have a look at what was said during the webinar by clicking on the image below:

Thanks very much to everyone that helped us spread the word in the different social networks.
We’re looking forward to have you on our next free monthly webinar:  “Social Media for Sales & Marketing Departments“.

Got questions or comments? Add them to the thread below!

We’d like to share with you an overview of our 2010 social media strategy. It’s a good opportunity to help you start with your own plan, give you some ideas or at least point you in the right direction
We are absolutely open to suggestions so remember to leave your comment at the end of the post!!

Blogging

Focus: Build authority / Expand community /  Increase US & UK readership / spark conversations / *Networking / Improve search engine rankings

* This year we’ll choose to read and comment on 10 blogs: 5 will be to follow trends and stay up to date, the other 5 will be strictly for business networking.

Blog topics (Tip: Define categories first)

Reviews, Video tips, Internet marketing, Social media

Blog’s ideas sandbox:

Ask on LinkedIn Q&A, Read other blogs (listen)/ reblog, Reviews (books, events, apps, etc), Web trends/ Search / video tips

Characteristics

• Frequency: Twice a week
• Posts must offer value
• Must include images and/or video
• Time allocated per post (research, writing, marketing) = 2 to 3 hours

Blog post Marketing

• Include relevant trackbacks in the post
• Send tweets throughout the week to promote the content
• Bookmark: delicious.com, bookmarks.yahoo.com, stumbleupon.com
• Submit post to: Bizsugar.com, Digg.com and Reddit.com
• Send post only to relevant LinkedIn groups and “follow” articles (this way you’ll be notified if someone makes a comment so you can follow up)
• Submit blog feed to 5/10 RSS news feeds weekly

Video & Photo content

Photos will be uploaded to FlickR and Facebook (automatic to Twitter).
Videos will be uploaded to You Tube / Tube Mogul, then Facebook (automatic to Twitter).

Subscribe to Channelship’s You Tube channel

Facebook

Focus: Share engaging photo and video content / Build authority / Expand community /  Increase US & UK fans/ multiply interactions / Networking / Company-Industry communications

Building the community

• Friend relevant contacts from Twitter and LinkedIn (profile)
• Pump good photo and video content
• Listen: reply to any question or comment ASAP. Keep the conversation
• Interact: Make comments / “like” status updates
• Facebook ads campaign: targeted to people in marketing and communications

Time allocated: 4 to 6 hours weekly

Twitter

Focus: Share helpful-engaging links / Listen to random and selected conversations / Build authority / Expand US & UK community/ increase conversations / Networking / Company-Industry communications

Building the community

• Follow contacts from LinkedIn
• Follow back relevant contacts
• Follow people especially traditional marketing and communications
• Proactively do Q&A
• Chit-chat
• Share GOOD stuff! try to always include a link to good content

Time allocated: 6 to 8 hours weekly

LinkedIn

Focus: Share helpful-engaging status updates / Build authority / Expand US & UK network/ increase group interactions / Business networking / Company-Industry communications / Increase business opportunities

Building the community

• Follow contacts also on Twitter
• Join US/UK strategic groups
• Send blog posts only to relevant groups and “follow” the article.
• Read groups’ digest and engage in relevant threads.
• LinkedIn Q&A: offer value answering selected questions. Ask industry questions also.
• Keep personal/business information and LinkedIn apps on profile up to date.

Time allocated: 6 to 8 hours weekly

Email Marketing

Focus: Share helpful-engaging content/ Build authority / Expand US & UK awareness/ increase business opportunities / Company-Industry communications / webinars main promotional tool

• Platform: Mailchimp
• Grow email database using website, webinars and offline networking.
• Segment database!!! (don’t send every single person the same information!)
• Newsletter will contain three topics: best blog post/s, Great tips or social media case study and invitation to monthly webinar
• Frequency: Once a month

Time allocated: 5 to 10 hours monthly (depending on the campaign)

Have you found the strategy useful? Go ahead, and share below what worked for you last year or how can this strategy be improved!!

Best,

Fred

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We’ve been quite busy with Niall the past few weeks getting Bloggertone.com ready for launch. We are nearly there, and here’s a sneak preview for you:

Bloggertone is a new web space that will allow people in business to access and share useful business information and opinions (in the form of blog posts), constantly updated by the collaborative effort of business bloggers.

The proposition is for this web space to enable and promote some sort of dialogue between business bloggers and business readers (hopefully I am not making up terms here!).  We would encourage commenting but also requesting comments!
Some site functionalities will include author pages for the bloggers, voting, post ratings, and some social media sharing widgets (share this, tweet this, facebook connect, etc).

This initial phase will consist on 11 main areas:

1. Starting up
2. Talking Leadership
3. Transforming Your Business
4. Managing Money
5. People Matters
6. Technology & Web 2.0
7. Marketing Ideas
8. Growing Sales
9. Going International
10. Work/Life Balance
11. What’s Happening?

We hope to launch in the next few days, those of you waiting to read, stand by; those of you getting your post submissions ready, keep it up, our inboxes are happy to see those posts coming

Why not join Bloggertone on: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter?

Best,
Facundo

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