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8 Spokes on a Social Media Dial: Spheres of Influence

By on October 30, 2011 in Blog Coach, Dialing 8, Marketing, Social Media with 3 Comments

Quick review from the introduction to the 8 Spokes on a Social Media Dial:

  1. Your blog is the hub ad foundation of your social media play
  2. The tools in the social media landscape are still launching at a frenzied pace
  3. You don’t want to get caught up in the frenzy
  4. Rather than focus on the individual tools, we focus on the 8 spokes

Clicking on the Dialing 8 image will take you to a fuller explanation of each spoke.

Our hope, our goal is to simplify things as new tools come our way. Overwhelm comes quick these days – and just wait until day after soon, because the pace will continue to rise. Some tools become yesterday’s news lickety-split.

By having a sphere at the end of each spoke, we can quickly ascertain which spheres we’ll invest most of our time. When a new tool comes out, we decide which sphere it would fit in if we use it – and go from there. No overwhelm.

Eight Spokes on a Social Media Dial.

So the dial was the bird’s eye view.  The map, but not the terrain. Here’s the side view:

To review the 8 spokes:

  • Streams – Includes Twitter, Facebook, some of what Google Plus does, a bit of LinkedIn, Blip.fm, etc
  • Video & Audio - YouTube (yours and your favorites), UStream or LiveStream, SlideShare, Blog Talk Rado, etc
  • Images – Flickr, Pinterest, Photobucket, Fotobabble, some of what Google Plus does
  • Networks - Most of LinkedIn stuff, Ning, Active Rain, some of what GooglePlus does w/ Circles
  • SoLoMo – your Mobile app, Foursquare and other LBS, Groupon, some of what Google Plus does
  • Resources – Delicious, Diigo, StumbleUpon, Google +1, RSS subscriptions, Your Kindle page
  • Bio/Hire – Your about page and your profile pages on Facebook and Google+, etc., a Hire You menu or page
  • Products – Your ebooks, whitepapers, newsletter, Speakers media kit, membership site, books, etc.

Every profession is different. Most companies within a profession are different. Goals are different. So let’s acknowledge this is a framework, not a blueprint.  A real estate agency or restaurant is probably going to invest more time into the video/audio or images spheres, whereas the accountant or business coach is going to be more text heavy.  Just as you are unique, so is your Dial of 8.

The Dialing 8 framework also relies on solid time-management within each sphere. You might invest three 12-minute chunks daily into your Streams and a just a weekly single 12-minute session into your Social/Local/Mobile (SoLoMo). Got 12 minutes?

Your blog is the centerpiece, the foundation, the core of your social media presence. It’s the one space you own. Everything else is borrowed real estate on the web. All this other stuff we do – while very important – should act as a feeder into your blogsite.

These spokes and spheres are places to engage and amplify relationships, build credibility and findability, and feed leads into your blog to generate new and better customers. This model also acts as a funnel, each sphere feeding into your blog. On the blog is where you have your products and services and events.

The reality is, change – improvements – are happening fast and the rate-of-improvement is changing. It’s getting faster. It’s not just new tools and stations, but changes to the tools and stations as well. The spheres help you keep things calm and in order.

As an example. I just heard about Flipzu, a mobile, real-time record-and-publish you voice app. As Robert Scoble said recently on Google+: “I love that I have a radio station in my pocket.” (context).

I can hardly wait to try Flipzu. Another tool? Well, I can throw it on a list with dozens (hundreds?) of other cool tools, or . . . or, I can simply place it into the Video/Audio sphere and give it a go during my time working on that sphere.

With this framework, you can bend and benefit from these rapid-fire improvements rather than break. No overwhelm. Anticipated additions.

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8 Spokes on a Social Media Dial

By on October 29, 2011 in Blog Coach, Dialing 8, Marketing, Social Media with 0 Comments

If you’re among the camp that’s thinking there’s just too much social media – you may be in the majority. If one more tool or update comes out next week . . .

Before you pull out all your hair or start deleting your accounts, let’s look at things a bit differently. (And I agree, there’s a whole lotta tools out there and it can get confusing, but we’re gonna calm this storm, okay?)

I’m of the belief that your blog is the hub and foundation of your social media toolset. Ideally, it’s on a domain and space on the web that you own. And if you’re smart, that content you’re producing elsewhere is either also being published in your blog posts or being backed up.  So, the blog is your centerpiece.

Everything else is part of the dial. And to keep things simple, eight spokes on the dial:

  1. Streams – Includes Twitter, Facebook, some of what Google Plus does, a bit of LinkedIn, Blip.fm, etc
  2. Video & Audio - YouTube (yours and your favorites), UStream or LiveStream, SlideShare, Blog Talk Rado, etc
  3. Images – Flickr, Pinterest, Photobucket, Fotobabble, some of what Google Plus does
  4. Networks - Most of LinkedIn stuff, Ning, Active Rain, some of what GooglePlus does w/ Circles
  5. SoLoMo – your Mobile app, Foursquare and other LBS, Groupon, some of what Google Plus does
  6. Resources – Delicious, Diigo, StumbleUpon, Google +1, RSS subscriptions, Your Kindle page
  7. Bio/Hire – Your about page and your profile pages on Facebook and Google+, etc., a Hire You menu or page
  8. Products – Your ebooks, whitepapers, newsletter, Speakers media kit, membership site, books, etc.

First, a bird’s eye view:

8 Spokes on the Social Media Dial

Those are the eight spokes. Of course the Streams are going to get most of your attention, and then time investment drops as you go clockwise around the dial. If one were to invest disciplined chunks of time in each of these spokes, success is much closer and we get to keep our hair.

 This is a map of your social media play – but it’s not the terrain. This is the side view of the dial.

We’ll look at the terrain of these spokes and how they stack up in the next post.

Dialing 8 – Staying Strong and Lasting Long in Social Media

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Kung Fu Panda on Social Media: There is no Secret Ingredient

By on October 28, 2011 in Blog Coach, Social Media with 1 Comment

Just be yourself.  As there is no single way to do social media . . . as there is no immutable law of social media . . .

Take the wise words of Mr. Ping in Kung Fu Panda:

Mr. Ping: The secret ingredient is… nothing!
Po: Huh?
Mr. Ping: You heard me. Nothing! There is no secret ingredient.
Po: Wait, wait… it’s just plain old noodle soup? You don’t add some kind of special sauce or something?
Mr. Ping: Don’t have to. To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.
[Po looks at the scroll again, and sees his reflection in it]
Po: There is no secret ingredient…

As an aside, guess who I’m coming to Halloween as:

Hey, wanna go get something to eat?

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Why I Nominated Triberr on Mashable (Even Though I Don’t Use Triberr)

By on October 28, 2011 in Blog Coach, Cool Tools, Social Media with 2 Comments

Mashable Awards

The first time I recognized the wide-spread use of Triberr, I was a bit annoyed. In my Twitter stream one early morning, 4 of 5 consecutive tweets were RTs of the same tweet. Word-for-word. Verbatim. By clicking on the time-stamp, I saw that each of the four were using Triberr.

I had kept up a bit on the back-and-forth on whether Triberr was a noise generator or clique, but I didn’t pay much mind because it hadn’t bothered my signal-to-noise filter. But that 4-out-of-5 thing.

So I visited the site and immediately saw many familiar faces. People I either follow or list on Twitter, and many of whom I subscribe to their blog. Credibility gained.

I clicked through a couple of the categories I have interest in. Like Hollywood Squares, a box for each person offering a headline, snippet, and link to their latest blog post. Signal delivered.

But wait, what about the noise? The automation? Two things:

  • Repetition helps the learning. Do you click on that video the first 3 or 4 times you see it? Right. I’m not watching Twitter streams all day, so Triberrs actually help me in finding signals
  • There are many who use Triberr that don’t automate (Kristi Hines shares a great practice for using Triberr)

Triberr isn’t just a join and you’re in. It’s by invitation only, though here are a few ideas on how to get an invite.

So how does one gain value from Triberr if you’re not in a tribe? A couple of ways (Full disclosure: I’m not a member of Triberr):

  • Connect: Especially if you are new to blogging or on Twitter, browsing through the categories and blogs allow you to find top-notch folks in your category of interest. Remember, these tribes are by invite only. That means everyone in that tribe has given each other a thumbs up on quality.
  • Research: If you’re writing about something outside of your normal comfort zone (e.g., for me it might be Fashion or Photography), a run-through the category listings will give you ideas and potential sites to link to in your piece.
  • Other ways are to find other Twitters that are “triberred” with someone you already follow, or simply study headlines and get ideas to burst through your writing block.

I still shake my head sometimes when I see 3 or 4 tweets bang-bang verbatim, but it’s not that often. And if it’s spreading a good article (and they usually are), it’s worth the minimal repetition.

The folks I know that use Tribber love it (Many say it allows them to engage in more and deeper conversations). And now you’ve heard from the other side of use.

While I am not a Tribber, I’m a fan and active reader.

Here’s how you can vote for Triberr to win a Mashable Award this year.

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Comparing Apples to Oranges, Google Plus is the Grocery Cart

By on October 24, 2011 in Blog Coach, Marketing, Social Media with 2 Comments

Questions and opinions are still actively volleyed around whether Google Plus or Facebook (or Twitter) is going to be the best Social Network.

Let’s not be to quick to call an Apple an Orange (sometimes our own reflection can deceive us).

I’ll go out on a limb here (after all, that’s where the fruit hangs):

If Facebook is an Orange and Twitter is an Apple, Google Plus is the Shopping Cart

Please notice that I don’t hold either Facebook or Twitter in less favor. Not in comparison to each other (Apple-to-Orange) or to Google+. From my perspective, Google Plus is a forest to a Facebook and  a Twitter tree. Granted, Facebook may be a mighty large tree, but . . .

Everyone is using Google in some form or fashion. Search or Gmail. Reader or YouTube. Analytics or AdSense. Maps or Docs . . . or Voice, or Blogger, or Chrome, or Calendar, or . . . Maybe all the “or” separators are actually “ands”.

We’ve only seen a glimpse . . . a glimpse of what’s possible.

I would suggest that folks who aren’t yet on Google+ to enter with an open-mind and find a reason for it to make meaning. Because it will.  Eventually. And then you’ll believe too.

Photo on Flickr by Automania.

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4 Steps to Getting Started with Google Plus

By on October 21, 2011 in Dialing 8, Social Media with 2 Comments

This is meant to be a nudge to getting started on Google Plus. The Dialing 8 Project will use Google Plus quite a bit.

Google Plus (or Google+ as you will often see) is building up to be just that. Google (as we’ve always known it) Plus (a whole lot more).

While many are calling it a “social network” – that may be falling short of what G+ really is and can be, especially for business use. But all that might be for a different post.  Let’s get started.

If you haven’t yet signed up for Google+, you can easily start by getting your account on the Google Plus page. If you have a Google account, “Sign In” and if not, create a Google account

And there is always the “+” link on the top left of any Google product page you are on. If you’re signed in, it will say “+Mike” (or your name in your case) and if not, simply “+You”

I’m going to share a few “HOW-TO” guides and starter kits with you in a moment, but there are some suggestions I want to make:

  • About your Profile: Be personable, but leave the Facebook-ish stuff on Facebook. (Or a Circle, but be presentable on your Profile – it may be the first impression of you people see on the web).
  • Realize that Google+ can be so much more than a “social network” – so think things out before putting things together
  • We’re all rookies here – Google+ launched a short few months ago, and just recently to the public. The closest thing to “wrong” is probably doing nothing at all.

Step 1: Fill Out Your Profile – Here’s a sectional guide in filling out your profile.

Step 2: Write a short “Public” post – Might consider your introduction.  Something short to get started is all you need.

Step 3: Create a Few Circles - Here’s a good way to think about the taxonomy of your Circles set-up.

Step 4: Populate your “Circles”  with people you know –  You can search their name in the search bar, choose people, and “Add to Your Circles”

One thing to keep in mind (here on Google+ and everywhere else too), Don’t Let it Become a Numbers Game. There’s no reason to go importing all your friends and contacts (yet).

Here are some great links to help continue your initials journey (more to come):

 

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What is The Dialing 8 Project?

By on October 15, 2011 in Blog Coach, Dialing 8, Education, Marketing, Social Media with 1 Comment

For seven years I’ve coached companies and individuals on how to use Social Media to extend their voice (and their listening eyes) so they can make better connections, amplify their relationships, and create new business.

During that time, I’ve also been writing ConverStations. With close to 1700 blog posts, but none going to in-depth in order to save time, attention, and frankly – giving away the farm, I feel it’s time to go deeper. A combination of the coaching and ConverStations.

While I plan to continue doing both coaching and ConverStations, I’m very excited about a new beginning: The Dialing 8 Project. As we gear up for its initial “soft”  launch on October 22, and a fully launched membership site on November 13, we’ve set up a Google Plus Circle just for Dialing 8 members.

This private area allows a few things to happen: The “charter” members – those who enter prior to 10/22 – receive access to:

  • premium content
  • private Dialing 8 Sessions using Google+ Hangouts
  • content creation workshop
  • measuring success discussions (no, not so much numbers of likes and followers)
  • genesis of a community that helps and profits from each others presence
  • other unique and special opportunities for the charter members (for those who gain access prior to 10/22)
  • access to discounted one-on-one coaching

On October 10th, I began slowly putting word out about the Dialing 8 Project. We started that first day with an entry free of FREE. Those who explored their way in on that first day receive lifetime memberships and all the perks we ever come up with (They didn’t know that at the time).

The investment is tiny in terms of money, only $271.00 (or about 74 cents a day).  But the work isn’t a skate. For to find success you will work – smart, not long or hard.

We’ll be building out the site Dialing8.com (right now it points right back here) and adding features and widgets and et al. By the end of the year, we’ll also have a fully functioning mobile app. Lots more info on the way.

But what about them? Who’s them? The 30% of small businesses and solopreneurs who aren’t yet on the web – those that don’t even have a web page yet, let alone a Facebook. Yep -what about them? That’s who I’m really hoping jumps all over this project.

I’ve been to Main Street USA. While some places are thriving, others are barely surviving. They can use our help in two ways:

  1. Let them know about Dialing 8. The sooner the better. Today it’s $233.00 a year. Regular Price is $271.00.
  2. Help them. Coach them within Dialing 8. There will be opportunities to co-create content and co-coach in this co-laboratory. There will be archives available – and maybe you’ll help build that library. It will be accessible to all members.
  3. (I know I said two, but let’s go an extra step). New Beginnings. Nobody is an expert. Things are changing so fast, the only constant is “people”. We all learn from each other. By our differing perspectives we can grow. In business and in life.

I’m excited about the possibilities. Looking far down the road, I envision a network of people who, as new members enter, we can match them up with experienced, caring coaches. Any coaching sessions held outside of the online community are independent of the online community. And therefore, should be invoiced or transacted as such by the coach who conducts any such session.

Wow, this may be the longest post I’ve ever written (thus far). I hope you’ll join me in building this project, and tell others about the project.

The form for entry is a click away.

Stay strong and last long. Here’s to New Beginnings.

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Horse & Buggy Social Media?

By on October 15, 2011 in Blog Coach, Social Media with 0 Comments

Same Story, Different Era.  (Didn’t I write this post in Fall of 2006? Or Spring of 2009?)

A lot of the folks panning Google Plus probably don’t see the forest just yet. It’s not that bad. Smith Corona had a goal of being the best typewriter – and they still are!

Sometimes folks can’t see past their headlights at some of the possibilities. A lot of this reminds me (again) of the horse & buggy salesman:

A guy goes to a horse and buggy lot to get a new buggy for his horse.

Web10

They start talking about the new craze going around, auto mobiles. More comfort, easier to handle, more power. The salesman wasn’t too enthused about the whole thing. Thought it was a fad. Just more Buzz. The customer heard otherwise and was quite excited.

Web15

The salesman, wanting to keep up with today’s marketplace — not to mention keep the customer — said he could fix him up with one of these auto mobiles. After all, whatever the customer wants, right?

Before the customer left the lot, the salesman told him not to get his hopes up. Sometimes these fads just fade away. After all, even the salesman still used a buggy (one of the new redesigned ones).

Without seeing the big picture, he had fixed his customer up. Same thing only different. Oops.

Web25

After the horse died, the customer went back to the salesman, who graciously agreed to build a new buggy for half-price. “I warned ya, but I take care of my customers.”

~~~

I see a trend happening where social mediatologists are predicting the demise of Google Plus (which launched, what – a few months ago?). Rather than looking into what might make Google Plus different, they are treating it the same.

They are trying to shove a jet engine into a horse’s backside and say giddyup.

Be open to the possibility that Google Plus – as powerful as it already can be – can be a suite of tools that takes your business and your message to another level – and a whole new audience of customers (more than followers).

If you’re a social mediacator that doesn’t Plus – either start plussing or collaborate with someone who does. The horse – and the relationship with your customer – will live longer and stronger.

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Folks I Follow (and you should too)

By on October 15, 2011 in Blog Coach, RSS Feeds, Social Media with 2 Comments

I’ve had a few post-its with names hanging on my office wall in grid-like fashion for awhile now.

While my plan was to do an elaborate post on why I follow them, I need the wall for a different grid of post-its (and the time to do that project). So, here’s a scaled back version of . . .

Folks I Follow (people I read daily and follow their words in multiple networks). I believe you’d find a lot of value by doing the same:

The Pro-Site

The Digi-Magazines (Google+ is only for individuals at this time)

The Marketeers

The Inspiration

Others that happen to be Men

Others that happen to be Women

There are many more (With close to 1,800 feed subscriptions, I don’t read them all. I Skim- Scan-Save), but here’s a start if you want to get real smart, real good, real fast.  Really.

For members of Dialing 8 Project, I’ll share the Circle, Twitter List, and an OPML (all the RSSs) sometime this weekend.

Big thanks to the above folks for doing what they do!

Image found at State of the Bit

Google Plus Search: A Small Business Customer Finder

By on October 14, 2011 in Blog Coach, Marketing, Social Media with 0 Comments

Between appointments I checked Google Plus on my iPhone and noticed something new (to me). At the top there was a menu and one of the choices was Nearby.

I clicked on it and saw several entries of  ”what I’m doing” or photos with a Google Places pin. What a great find!

I know, you might be thinking “Why on earth would I need to know what people are doing and where?” Let’s remember part of the “alternative” to Overwhelm in yesterday’s post

Ask yourself a few questions – How will this new tool benefit my target audience? Will it help me reach my business goals?

My first question when I found the Nearby stream on Google + mobile, “What does this look like on a web browser?” When I got back to a computer, I checked out the G+ Search and was impressed!

I had already seen the results for Omaha on my mobile, so I checked out my hometown of Monterey, CA, searching both by city name and by zip code (93940).

Finding search results of Google + posts  from tourists taking pictures, people going out to dinner, someone looking for a shoe repair, an update on traffic . . .

Let’s combine this search with how we can “Save the Search” and that G+ now has Real-Time Search for Google+ Posts and we’re growing business.

Put on our SmallBiz thinking caps. We could:

  • Comment on the person looking for the shoe repair sending them the shoe boutique owner we met at BNI the other day
  • Compliment the great photos and alert them to a great hideaway few tourists know about
  • Recommend a great appetizer to those folks going out to dinner
  • Give the traffic update post a word of thanks and a “stay safe” message . . .

Social – Local – Mobile

I’ll be doing up a screen cast tutorial of some other ways how to use Google + Search for business, making it available to members of the Dialing 8 Project later this weekend. Check out more information about the Dialing 8 Project.

If you want to learn more about how to use Google Plus, Media Tapper is a great online magazine geared towards news, tips, possibilities of how Google Plus is and can be used.

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