Social Media Policy for Dummies (in 50 words)

A veritable buffet of social media products

Most firms I know have a social media policy big enough to choke a minke whale and quite rightly so because it provides all the legal cover they need but, will it actually have an effect in the real world?

Well if your social media users are prepared to spend the time to read it, inwardly digest and then commit it to memory then yes it will otherwise no it won’t. I think we both know which is more likely.

So here is a social media policy that works 100% of the time, is easy to remember and should be placed at the front of any official social media policy.

You’re in the pub surrounded by your best client, fiercest competitor, your boss, your co-workers, Rupert Murdoch and your mom. Anything you can say in front of these people that will not offend or be used against you (or your organisation) is safe to place on a social media site.  

Do feel free to send this to anybody using, or contemplating using, social media – I have found it resonates with most people and, despite its simplicity, does seem to make them more aware of the risks they face.

Enjoy social media responsibly.

You’ve decided to write a blog – here’s 14 things you can blog about.

Blogging does damage your eye-sight – probably

You’ve decided to start writing a blog. Gaining credibility, reaching a wide number of new people and having a platform to promote your brand/opinions/thought leadership/ideas/experience and so on has finally got the better of you. But what to write about?

In fact this is one of the most common objections to starting a blog:” I’m not sure what I could write about”. Well, I’m not saying that what follows is definitive but I do read a lot of blogs and I have been writing a blog myself for a couple of years so I’m going to put it out there and see what happens.

1  News

Anything current that you feel your readers would be interested in. Obviously if you are writing for a specific audience this is easier but even if you aren’t if you find it interesting you have to believe your readers will too. Remember if its news it’s usually interesting.

2  Opinion

Coming off the fence and putting your opinion out there is usually quite compelling. Too many people play it safe which is, well, safe but if you want to stand out from the crowd be prepared to stand up and be counted. My advice is to avoid politics, religion, race, sex and sport. Nothing to be gained there, but anything else is fair game.

3  Experience

Let’s face it most people are reading your blog because they respect what you have done as much as anything else. Feel free to share your experience with your readers especially if you can draw conclusions or a lesson or two that people can take away. The best lessons are learned on the playing field not in the classroom.

4  Stories

Everybody loves a story. If you can spin a yarn that people can relate to, especially if it’s true, you can engage your readers like nothing else. Follow this up with a message or lesson and you will have delivered a great blog post to your readers. It doesn’t even have to be your story although “true” is good.

5  Reviews

Aim to summarise a book, paper, article, video clip, presentation or seminar without plagiarism but in a way that informs and enlightens your readership. Many people don’t have time to experience the source themselves so you will be providing a valuable service if you can do it on their behalf.

6  Knowledge

You know loads of stuff (if you didn’t you wouldn’t be thinking of writing a blog now would you) and what better place to share it than a well-crafted blog post. You can write this as a structured argument but a more popular approach is the “10 ways to ….” which is proven to attract readers.

7  Lateral

Every now and then it is nice to toss in a left-fielder: something that is nothing to do with your normal material. This could be a personal reflection on a subject that you think your audience would be interested in or maybe just a personal rant. So long as you don’t break the rules of decency and you don’t do it very often it will make a welcome change to your blog roll.

8  Ideas and thought leadership

This is your big chance to demonstrate how different you are and how you a leader not a follower in  your chosen field. New ideas, challenging stances and provocative opinions are all very compelling. Obviously if you aren’t big on original thought you should probably steer clear of this one.

9  Research

If you have conducted a credible research project or perhaps run an on-line survey provided they are on a subject that your readers are interested in and you have been rigorous in your preparation you could have a blogging goldmine on your hands. Everybody loves information gathered from the masses and insightfully analysed. Also not many bloggers regularly publish research they have conducted themselves so it’s worth doing it for that reason alone.

10  Events

If you attend any kind of event that you can draw some useful information or messages from then this has to be a rich source of posts. If you attend the right kind of events there are bound to be some interesting speakers with some juicy messages of their own. You are just the conduit.

11  Guest

Of course we all know the benefit of asking another blogger if you can swap posts but I really like inviting people who have a skill or experience that my readers would like to hear about but do not blog themselves. I have had some great posts by doing this as well as adding a little value to my guest blogger – deep down everybody likes to have their message heard.

12  How to….

If you can write a post that explains how to do something that your readers would value this has to be a powerful piece. Again, the old “10 steps to be able to…” format works but in truth anything that helps people to achieve an outcome will work.

13  Promotion

Occasionally it’s OK to write a blog post that promotes what you do. Broadly speaking the blogging community frowns upon those who blatantly sell their wares but I think if you selflessly write post after post every now and then it’s OK to bang on about what you do – don’t make it too often though eh?

14  Posers

If you can ask your readers for help answer a relevant question or for their opinions on one subject or another you will not only engage your readers but will get a fresh source of ideas as well. I don’t do this enough, unfortunately, but when done properly it will create a great post so and generate some “noise” to boot!

7 behavioural traits you need if you want to be a social media wow!

Where shall I be famous today?

I was talking to a friend recently who also happens to be a dab hand at all this “social media malarkey”. She said that social media could be a fantastic business tool or a massive drain on your personal resources depending on who you talk to.

And that got me thinking, why is there a difference? What is it that separates the rousing success story from the dismal waste of time?

 And more importantly could we find a list of characteristics we could simply check ourselves against to predict the value of dipping our toes into the world of tweets, pokes and diggs (sounds painful, doesn’t it)?

Now, I’m no SM guru. Only about 10% of my revenue stems from social media channels and in truth I have no real wish to change that, but I am fascinated by success. And there is no doubt there are some titans of the SM territory who have found success, so it is to them I have looked for inspiration.

Before I go further I will say that this is an on-going project for me, and that I would love your input, but so far my research suggests the following are key qualities successful SMer’s possess: -

• Generosity – in the truest sense of the word. Will you give to your followers, without any thought of “what’s in it for me”?
• Interested - not just in your field, and definitely not in the sound of your own voice, but rather in the wide-ranging interests of your followers. Do you love what they love and follow what they follow?
• Interesting - this is a key aspect of SM usage as it doesn’t matter how clever you are, if you’re not interesting to the people you want to serve you will die on your arse.
• Genuine - people can spot pretence and ingenuity within five words of a sentence and they do not like it. Will you be yourself and follow your values rather than the quick buck?
• Innovative – If you can throw out new ideas, tools and approaches at the drop of a hat then you have a very powerful currency to add value to your tribe. Question is, can you?
• Brave - If you toe the line and voice the status quo then your followers can get that anywhere.  Can you be brave with your opinions; your ideas and your stance on the topics close to their heart and so give your tribe something they can’t get anywhere else?
• Focused –despite saying you should be interested in many things will you then have the self-control to stay focused on the people you serve and the messages they find valuable? This is a key element of success and never more so than on social media.

Of course this list is just from the start of my research so may change with time, but as it stands I see an interesting element to this list. All of these qualities are necessary in any successful business developer, regardless of medium.

So, what do you think? Is success in SM just reliant on the same skills as those of any other business developer or is there something above and beyond that I have missed? I would love to hear what you all think on the topic.

5 reasons why people won’t write blog posts and what to do about them.

Don't die with your song still inside you - blog it out!

So there you are. You’ve managed to put together a Blog for your company or your department and you’ve written a few posts and got them out there. Everybody is saying positive things and what a great idea it all is to be a part of the social media revolution and then you have to go and spoil it all by asking other people to write posts as well.

At first there are some vocal, if not a little muted, noises of ascent but nothing appears so you turn up the heat and confront people about their lack of post-like deliverables. Apart from a lot of toe-shuffling and navel-gazing nothing much happens as a result.

But why the hell not?

It’s soooo easy and beneficial and useful and full of lovely Google-juice surely people would be biting your hand off to get their fanatical ravings out there ahead of Tompkins in Corporate Finance. Well I have been conducting a little straw poll of late and these are the most common reasons for people not putting finger to key-board and what you can do to lessen or eradicate each one.

• Not enough time: to begin with limit the number of words to about 250 which is the size of an average email. The chances are they will surpass this but just providing the boundaries makes it seem easier.
• I’m not sure what to write: publish a list of topics and subjects you would like posts on. Also make it clear that it’s best to keep the message simple; a blog post is not meant to be a Ph.D. thesis!
• My writing isn’t very good: make it clear that you will edit every post that is submitted so that any grammatical and speling erors will be picked up before being published.
• I don’t know how to go about it: get them to email their copy to you which you can then publish on their behalf. After a while they can do it themselves provided you don’t mind losing control >:-{
• I feel a bit embarrassed: allow them to publish anonymously – big girl’s blouses!

Once people get into the habit it should be easy to maintain their flow – well that’s the theory anyway.

I wonder if you’ve encountered any other excuses – I’d love to hear about them and what you are doing to sort the 19th century-dwellers out.

Still not started to blog your way to business development heaven yet?

So. You have read my previous blog on using blogging to help in your business development activities but you still haven’t taken the plunge yet. I wonder why? Here are a few guesses…..

1. I might blog something that will make me look foolish. Well, in the first instance deal with it. Secondly, from time to time we all say things we regret but unlike the spoken word you can always delete a blog post and besides part of being in the new world is saying what’s on your mind and not just producing so much middle-of-the-road pap.
2. Despite what you say I will not have enough material. You will I promise. Here’s a test for you to try out over the coming few days. Everytime you have a conversation, read something or watch something ask yourself “is there a single 300 word message in that?” Stop when you reach double figures.
3. I don’t have time. Yes you do. When you settle down you will find that something will occur to you; you will take a little time to cogitate and then a quick flourish of fingers and keys and shazam! It’s ready to post. Also, the more you post the faster you’ll get.
4. Everything I write has to be earth-shattering. No it doesn’t. Anything that makes people think a little differently or gives them one simple thing to take away and experiment with is more than good enough.

So remember: establish your credentials, make yourself stand out, get discovered, become a recognised expert, make contact and add value to the people that matter to you  - all of these things can be achieved though a half decent blog.

Using blogs to help in business development

Quite often I am asked by young lawyers or accountants or other professionals how they can stand out from their competitors for business development purposes. They seem to think it is next to impossible to achieve this but I take a different view.

Let me introduce you to Ben who works for my company. He is a good analyst programmer but then we employ lots of good analyst programmers. He specialises in CRM but he isn’t the only one who has a niche subject in our firm. If you meet him he is a very friendly and normal person but what makes Ben stand out is he writes a blog on CRM which gets over 200 hits a day. Within his world is very well known and respected. Behold the power of blogging!

When I mention blogs as a way of standing out from the crowd and making business development easier I tend to get the same two objections: no time and not enough material. I hold no truck with either answer I’m afraid.

Time: This blog entry was triggered by an email I received from Ben on Friday. On the way home I began to think about what his blog had done for him and by the time I arrived home this entry had pretty much formed itself. It then took me about 20 minutes to write it down and another 10 minutes to knock up the graphics. Done!

To start with if you committed half an hour a week to produce one blog entry and dispensed with any graphics and pictures you could officially claim to be an active blogger. Welcome to the frontier world of social media.

Subject matter: I think when you enter into the spirit of blogging the problem is that you will find too many subjects to write about not too few. Take a look at the diagram below.

Starting with your area of specialisation – tons of material there. What developments and news are taking place in your sector; what books and papers could you review; what new ideas (some of which can be yours) are beginning to emerge. Really the list is endless so don’t give me the old “I’m not sure what I’d write about” excuse.

For a small investment of time every month you can raise your profile and become a recognised voice in your particular niche. Not only that but Blogging is a very useful aid in business development. No better way to establish your credentials than by pointing a prospect towards one of your blog entries on a subject that they have shown interest.

So come on. Build your brand and strengthen your business development armoury: start blogging today. You know it makes sense!