6 Critical Steps to Take Before a Replatform

Say the word 'replatform' in front of most ecommerce experts, and they'll probably grimace.

There's no way around it: From selling the project to maintaining a timeline to ensuring third-party vendors are on the same page, there's a lot of pain in replatforming. And after investing months of time and boatloads of cash into a replatform, the result can still end up being a website that doesn't live up to expectations.

So how can you ensure your replatforming project doesn't fall short?

Brian Walker, VP & Principal Analyst, eBusiness & Channel Strategy at Forrester Research, revealed some critical steps to take before beginning a replatforming project, and some new data from a study sponsored by Monetate to prove why those steps are so important during the recent Retail Online Integration webinar, Successful Ecommerce Replatforming.

Six of Walker's recommendations:

1. Sell a program, not a project. Instead of describing replatforming as a 'project,' use the word 'program.' Research from Forrester indicates that key performance indicators (KPIs) take a hit after a replatform goes live. For example, 39% of companies surveyed by Forrester reported their conversion rates were negatively affected after a new platform was launched, while 44% saw a decrease in site load time. Walker says these numbers show that replatforming can't be sold as a once-and-done project, because odds are you'll have to continue to tweak and optimize the site post-launch. Best bet: Sell replatforming as a program that's important to the long-term capability of the site, not an immediate ROI-generator. Being clear about that upfront means expectations will be aligned, and there won't be an awkward conversation if KPIs take a dip.

2. Make sure the projected timeline and ROI are realistic. It's not just KPIs that will take a hit. It's also likely your replatforming timeline will, too. Forrester found the average replatform is delayed 4.2 months. Walker's suggestion: Sell the replatform as a three-year ROI, not a three-month ROI. After a replatform, there are sure to be usability and functionality issues that will need to be worked out, so building a cushion into your replatforming timeline is critical. And for retailers, that 4.2 month delay means that scheduling a replatform to go live in September or October could be the holiday kiss of death. So it's best to plan for a replatform to go live in Q1 or Q2 to make sure you'll have all of the tweaks worked out before the big shopping season.

3. Create a team instead of going rogue. 'As much as it might be great to go cowboy and reduce the number of dependencies across the organization [that are involved in the replatform], you'll be much better off forming a strong cross-functional team,' Walker says. From a change management standpoint, it's better to have more heads at the table so you can find out which changes will impact IT, sales, and other departments from the very beginning instead of trying to get everyone involved as the platform is about to go live.

4. Test your Customer Experience design before committing. Among the new research Forrester revealed: 63% of companies based their decisions to migrate existing and new features into a new platform on 'perceived ROI,' while 54% were motivated by a company wish list. Walker's take is that more companies have to test before a replatform. 'There's a lot of guesswork about providing the right customer experience,' Walker says. 'Much of [replatforming and redesigning sites] is going on hunch, going untested, not being examined from a quantitative standpoint. What seems like a great idea in the conference room is only great if the customer deems it so.'

5. Be clear on the tools and resources you'll need. It's critical to be clear about what you'll need to operate the site after a replatform. Here's why: If you launch a great customer experience, but can't manage the site afterwards, things can go belly up. So think about the specific resources and IT support you'll need to keep the site running post-launch, and list those upfront so nobody is surprised.

6. Do not go for the 'big bang.' One of the most common problems during a replatform is trying to do too much at once. Bundling a new site design with a new ecommerce platform and a mobile optimization project into the same replatform is just too much. Changing all of those features at once increases the chance something will go wrong. 'Develop a rational replatforming program and operations plan,' Walker says. 'Don't try to do too much at once across all of these application types and customer experiences. If you add too much scope to a replatform, you're just going to have to trim it down later anyway.'

If you want to find out more about best practices for replatforming, the full webinar featuring Walker and Eric Miller, Monetate's Director of Product Management, is available for free over at Retail Online Integration.

Effective, Ongoing Public Relations

Good public relations (PR) is a carefully planned, sustained effort to establish a corporate identity, maintain credibility and promote communication between an organization and its public. In other words, it's keeping your name and good deeds out in front of the public.

Many people think press release when thinking about PR. Press releases are good and do have their place, but one of the major functions of PR is media relations. This is maintenance of an ongoing relationship with the media. Developing an ongoing relationship with media in your industry will encourage a reporter to get in touch via phone or e-mail with the spokesperson for your company, when stories are written about your industry. It includes being mentioned and quoted in stories related to your industry, placing stories exclusively about your company and obtaining speaking engagements for appropriate people within the organization. Third party endorsement by the media sells integrity, quality and extraordinary service like no advertisement can.

Public relations is an ongoing, proactive process and hard work. It means getting the word of the positive, newsworthy item that happens at your business to the media so that they, in turn, will tell the story to their audiences ' your potential customers. When this happens successfully, the end result is publicity.

Good publicity is any news that is of potential interest to the people in your community or industry. People make news. Employee promotions and awards make news. Events make news ' business opening, special promotions, anniversary celebrations, participation in or sponsorship of a community event. Innovations are news ' a new product, a new service.

The more your customers read, see and hear about your company's accomplishments, achievements and activities, the greater the awareness of you and your business in the local community and industry, and a better image will result.

Awareness and a good image are what can set your company ahead of its competitors.

When someone makes a claim, you typically say, 'How do you know?' The reply you most likely will hear is 'I read it' not I heard it in a commercial. PR has the power to persuade the public.

Live from the Cube! How to Cover Any Event Right from Your Cubicle

If I squint really hard and blast some Flo Rida jock jams, it feels like I'm right on the Las Vegas strip!

Conferences and industry events are always a thrill.

You get to travel, schmooze and booze with peers and colleagues for a few days and you're usually put up in a pretty swanky hotel for the occasion.

So when my editorial director, Vanessa Roberts, told me that she would be the only one from our team going to Las Vegas to cover the 2012 EMC World conference, I wept a little inside. All the lights, the glamour, the slot machines, the smell of geekiness. I'd miss out on it all while I sat here at my desk in Washington D.C.

But the truth is that with social media and the Internet, I never missed a beat.

Having covered a few technology conferences from the safe confines of my office space, I've now learned the value of having people both on location at an event and back at home base for support.

I've actually become good enough at it that I had a few vendors e-mail me about stopping by their booth at the show. I didn't have the heart to tell them I was actually nowhere near Vegas but rather sitting comfortably in D.C.

Here are a few tips I've gathered from my experience in remote event coverage.

1. Follow the Hashtag

Twitter's hashtag system is a simple and easy way to keep track of any event. Most conferences will supply an official one, but sometimes, users might rebel and create their own on the fly. Before the conference, save the official hashtag as a search in your Twitter client and add any variations that you come across during the actual event.

2. Pictures and Video Tell It All

More conferences are offering official video streams in high quality these days, which makes it easy to tune into all the action on the ground. But if you can't keep up with the activity with real-time video, search for tweets with photos and video clips.

Almost everyone has a camera-equipped smartphone, which means almost everyone is an amateur reporter these days. Check Flickr and Twitter for images and search YouTube and Twitvid for any videos that may have been uploaded by users at the conference.

3. Turn to the Blogs to Fill in the Gap

Chances are you're not the only one who wasn't able to make it out to that conference you're looking for information on. Bloggers and news outlets know this, so they make an effort to provide quick updates and highlights from conferences that they cover. Do a Google search for your event and filter the results by news and blogs sources. Even better, you can set up a Google alert so that you keep up with all the latest content about the conference you're covering.

Armed with this combination of social media monitoring, crowdsourcing and media watching, I'm able to pull off conference coverage that keeps my readers in the loop and supports the overall editorial effort around the event.

This auxiliary support for event coverage is a trend that's probably only going to grow more popular as more conference organizers turn to social media to amplify their events.

So the next time everyone in the office is backslapping and high-fiving each other about the awesome time they're going to have at the Bellagio for some chic conference, console yourself with the fact that you can avoid the invasive (hello!) TSA screenings and keep up with all the action from your desk while you sip on a Slurpee.

Defining User Experience Design Requirements & Goals

User experience design (UX), interaction design (IxD), user interface (UI) design and other web/application design professionals refer to UX design as the process of planning and creating a successful, user-centered design. User centered design put's the user's own goals and enjoyment ahead of business goals, and personal assumptions.

Requirements Gathering: The First Step

The requirements gathering phase is the first step of the UX design process. During the requirements gathering phase you and your UX team will spend time determining the needs for a new or altered product design. This usually involves answering the following two questions:

1. What does it need to do?
2. How will we measure success?

Keep it Simple

Your answers don't need to be overly complex, they can be brief and informal. Don't be afraid to adjust and tweak your answers during the project process, so long as the core goals are preserved.

Focus on breadth, not depth and get final sign-off from all departments involved in the product process. Usually this is product management, interaction design, and engineering. It's also strongly recommended that you get sign-off from executives and other key stakeholders.

Write Them Down!

It's very important to physically write these down so that it's ingrained in your team's mind throughout the project. It also provides leverage down the road when it comes time to present designs to upper management. If a manager doesn't like a specific design outcome, you can refer back to the overall goals of the project to explain your motives and reasoning.

Real World Examples

It's easy to describe the process of writing requirements for a UX design project, but what do they actually look like?

Hopefully this fictional example provides you with some insight:

1. Strengthen the companies brand to provide a trustworthy, sophisticated and memorable experience.
2. Increase the registration funnel completion by 20% using AB testing against the current design.
3. Provide users with 1-click access to all major services
4. Within 2 seconds load the reservations module to allow users to view their current reservations
5. Provide quick 1-click access to Live Chat support to minimize frustrating and increase customer support quality

Notice that we've included measurements into some of our goals, this is a productive way to measure the effectiveness of our design decisions. AB or multivariate testing is often the best way to test out the effectiveness of a design.

Now that you have a solid set of UX design requirements, you can work against them to keep your experience design project productive and on track.

What's Next?

The next step in the process is to create realistic user personas, jump to the next article in the series to learn how you can create simple, effective user personas without breaking the bank.

photo by: v222000

Turn Your Static Visualization into Animated Genius

According to Parsons Professor, Liz Burow, 'short animations are one of the best tools out there for explaining ideas, but they aren't used often enough for fear they're too advanced.' Short animations are excellent ways to help explain complex stories. So, maybe you are one of those people who steers away from animations fearing they are too complex, or you've got some great static images, but are looking to get more out of them? Well look no further.

The other day I came across a great article by Liz Burow off the visualization site, Visually. In her post Liz outlines five key principles that make up a successful animation.

To animate or not to animate?

It's always a good idea to start out and learn when it is appropriate to use an animation. Burow believes that short animations are great when you are asked to use data to 'form an argument, explain a proposition or show cause and effect.' She believes this is because it forces one to think through the 'organizational structure, both in hierarchy and flow', it's very much akin to how one would approach writing an essay. However, she warns that short animations are not ideal for exploratory information, or where you need to see a lot of data at once to compare and connect relationships.

Structure, Structure, Structure

With any data visualization you are essentially telling a story. Even if you create an excellent visualization, if you fail to think through the story you want it to tell you audience will feel like it's lacking something. To fix this Burow's states, that animations 'must have an argument and a message that explains: (a) a need and an opportunity, or (b) a problem and potential solutions.' While this sounds difficult, Burow offers up three different processes to help you out:

• Question/Response: Based on quantitative or qualitative data and research, pose a question. Explain why this question is worth asking and why it matters. Supply the response, or answer to this question.
• Problem/ Solution: Introduce a problem. Explain the 'who, what, where, when, and why' surrounding this problem. Offer solution(s) and explain how it changes or affects the problem statement. Make the solutions tangible and actionable.
• Myth Buster: Introduce and explain the history a myth or an urban legend. Bust the myth with the support of facts, figures and data.

Start Static & slowly Animate Layers

While static and animated visualizations may hold the same content, the medium can greatly affect the way people perceive the information. Burow advises that 'before jumping into an animated data explanation, it is useful to create a static version. This lets you gather, organize and visualize the content all in one space'Only after you have gathered your thoughts, does it make sense to start imagining the explanation 'as a series of built-up layers of hierarchical information.'

Storyboard to develop focus

Holding your audience's attention often depends on having finely tuned graphic design skills, including visual hierarchy, compositions and data ink design. 'Animations also require these skills, plus an understanding of pacing, sequencing, structure and rhythm,' says Burow. Storyboarding is a great way to put it all together to see what you have and how it all flows. Storyboarding can be done in a number of different ways that include 'using templates, index cards, or post-it notes, but it is best done when the 'frames' can be rearranged multiple times to best configure sequencing and explanation structure.' Oddly enough, storyboarding is pretty helpful when it comes to project management as well. Once the project is laid out it becomes pretty easy to see how labor-intensive building an animation can become based on the storyboard visual and narrative complexity.

Constrain it!

To make sure you don't let your animations get the better of you, it's always a good idea to add some constraints to help manage expectation and set clear goals for delivery. If you place some constraints around the project, it will make for better edits and decisions by the designer.

There ya have it. Explore, be creative and while creating a short animation may be more complex than a powerpoint, it's important to remember that the real reward come when you let the audience hit play.

Content Marketing and the Solopreneur

It's always great to see a business doing really impressive things with its content marketing. It goes to another level entirely when one person can single-handedly build something like that up on his own.

Don Cooper, the Sales Heretic, is that person.

Don's got some great content strategy in place between his website and social media efforts. Let's have a look, shall we?

Content Segmentation

As soon as you land on Don Cooper's site, the content segmentation is right in front of you. It's neither too loud, nor too quiet. Once you identify your purpose, you're presented with several options for content that might be of interest for you.

In browsing through this content (across all of the segmented pages), something that I really enjoyed was the subtle sense of humor. For example, there are pages such as 'Who IS This Guy?' and 'Things Don Won't Say' that let you know that Don Cooper doesn't mess around; he gets down to it. At the same time, he doesn't take himself so seriously that his content is going to be dry and uninteresting.

In fact, that couldn't be further from the truth.

Takeaway: Whether you're a business or a party of one, your website can benefit from content segmentation. It helps people to streamline their experience on your site, which means they feel like it was custom-created for them. That's a feeling that customers and clients like to have, and it keeps them coming back.

Blog

Don's blog is full of content that's relevant to his industry. It's well thought out and serves the additional purpose of giving you an idea of what you can expect if you hire Don for a speaking engagement.

Takeaway: Write what's relevant to your industry and let your work speak for your knowledge on a particular subject. This lets your potential customers know that you know what's going on around you and you have something to contribute to the conversation.

Twitter

Twitter is where Don shines. He's very active on the platform and well-rounded as Twitter users go. What do I mean by that? Well, he doesn't constantly promote his own posts. He's promoting content from others just as much, if not more. He's interacting with his followers and he's gracious ' always thanking those who have re-tweeted or otherwise promoted him.

Takeaway: Get to know your following and build relationships with them. Use Twitter as a way to network, and you never know what kind of opportunities will arise.

Conclusion

Overall, as a solopreneur, Don Cooper is doing a wonderful job of marketing himself through high quality, informative content. He's active on Twitter and building relationships that way, as well. This goes to show that content marketing isn't just for big brands or even small businesses. It can be for the individual, as well.

What other solopreneurs are rocking content marketing? Who else would you like to see featured in this space?

Once Upon a Time: Crafting a Masterful Story

Before we talk about crafting a masterful story, I'd like to tell a quick one:

Once there was a marketing expert who suggested to the head of sales, 'Hey, we should change our approach to presentations and actually tell a story instead of putting the prospect to sleep with 100 powerpoint slides.' The head of sales quickly responded, 'That's exactly what we should do. We should tell a story!' The marketing expert was surprised but energized by the philosophical victory. Finally, no more slide crimes! So he went to work on crafting the perfect story, a tale that would have prospects jumping to do business with the firm.

Once completed, he shared the masterpiece with the head of sales. At first, his audience of one praised him for the good work. And then the feedback began. 'We're missing that slide I like about the 7 ways we're different.' The marketing expert sighed as he died a little inside. The head of sales continued, 'What about our quality process? We need that in there. Oh, and we need a slide that shows our global locations, and one on our technology investments. We probably should add in a slide with logos of all our clients too.'

One by one slides were stuffed into the story, until the slide count was once again pushing 100. The marketing expert stared at the train wreck of a presentation and felt the crushing weight of defeat. Meanwhile, the head of sales was as enthusiastic as ever, once again congratulating the marketer on his grand idea of telling a story. Just a few hours later, another promising prospect would suffer death by powerpoint.

We've all been there. I'm picking on the sales guy but truth be told, sometimes the marketers in the room are just as guilty of killing a good story. Human nature makes us want to say everything to everyone at every opportunity. That's why we just can't help ourselves when we go into presentation mode. There's always one more slide to add.

An easy way to combat this, of course, is to stop using powerpoint. I'll pause for applause, and laughter, and eye rolling. Because we all know it will never happen. And yes, I'll admit there is a time and place for powerpoint, but again, most of us are not disciplined enough to use it appropriately. But this is both a soapbox and a tangent (something I'm going to caution you against in just a few paragraphs. Oops.)

Storytelling is an age-old art form. And it's been growing in popularity in marketing circles for several years now. But I still encounter a lot of 100-slide powerpoint decks without a story in sight. So I thought I would share some of the collective wisdom I've come across on the art of storytelling to help guide you the next time you have the opportunity to ditch the slides and tell a story.

We'll organize the insight with a simple formula for success. Connect ' Engage ' Excite.

Connect

To initially connect with your audience and capture their attention, you have to be relevant. The content must be put into the context of your audience's wants and needs. How does your story reflect your audience's reality? How can your audience be the hero of your story?

Marketing Guru Seth Godin once said that, 'The best stories don't teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place.'

It would be helpful before you start writing your story to make sure you have a clear picture of your target audience, what they're like, what their emotional drivers are, what problems they are trying to solve, and so on. Don't make the mistake of discounting this step and assuming you 'know your customer' because the truth is, you probably don't have as firm as grasp on what makes them tick as you think you do.

Engage

Once you have your audience's attention, you must keep it. To do that, you need to deploy all the usual tricks of the trade in storytelling. Drama. Plot. Suspense. Humor. Conflict. You have to map your story strategically to make sure you keep the audience informed and entertained. There's a great simplification on the shapes of stories by author Kurt Vonnegut that you can watch. While very much tongue in cheek, he does offer a valuable lesson. Stories have shapes that are familiar to people. Tap into one that fits your content.

Additional advice on keeping the audience engaged'

Openings and closings are very important. Spend the majority of your energy making them perfect. Get to the point quickly. The longer it takes you to get there, the less likely it is that you have one. Beware of tangents: if something goes too far astray, you will probably lose your audience's attention. Be visual. You must paint a picture. It's worth 1,000 words and/or 100 slides. Keep it simple. Our minds get overloaded very easily. Telling a story should help you simplify your messages and make them more memorable.

Excite

It's not enough to keep an audience with you. Before your story ends, you have to transcend attention and interest and propel them into action. Friar Pedro Arrupe said that 'What seizes your imagination will affect everything.'

We all make decisions based on emotion over rational thought. You have to make an audience think 'what if' and daydream with you. Before your call to action, you have to move them from the world they know, to a place where their problems are solved and they have saved the day. If your entire strategy is not centered on building toward the seminal moment when imagination takes hold, you're missing the true power of story.

Bonus Tip:

Be a student of storytelling. Closely examine the structure of some of your favorite books, songs, movies, etc. Try to understand the critical elements that make these stories come to life for you. Dissect examples of stories in pop culture, whether it's a do-good company like Warby Parker, an insightful Ted Talk or a social media phenomenon such as Invisible Children/Kony2012, study it closely to see how it connects, engages and excites you.

And if you are a brave marketer, who is trying to bring the power of story to your organization, I urge you not to get discouraged. Keep fighting against slide crimes. Keep educating your stakeholders. And in honor of the late, great motivational giant Jimmy Valvano, 'Don't give up. Don't ever give up.'

7 Questions to Measure the Value of Your Network

Ruler © by Scott Akerman (2010)

For the introverted, socially awkward, or shyster-averse, networking can be a major challenge. On one hand, we know that effective networking is essential to any flourishing career or business. I have literally witnessed quantum leaps in my business and in others that can be attributed to having strong relationships with the right people. Just this year alone, I've developed relationships with international partners, landed significant press, and grown Inspired Life Media Group's bottom line because of my relationships with the right people.

Because of this, I often get asked about networking. Admittedly, I am a lover of people. I legitimately like to meet new people, learn about them, and stay connected to them. This makes networking easier and more intuitive for me, but it certainly doesn't mean that networking effectively can't be learned or practiced.

In a recent episode of Inspired Living with Lisa Nicole Bell, I gave away one of my best secrets for growing my network. An expanding network is usually a good thing, but it's important to periodically evaluate your network to determine which relationships are deserving of your limited time and energy.

The most important traits for a fruitful relationship will depend on your industry and goals. To get you started, I'm sharing 7 guidelines I use to evaluate business relationships:

1. What have they accomplished? What are they currently creating? As an outcome-oriented professional, I examine what a person has accomplished or what the individual is currently building. I work in the media/entertainment, social entrepreneurship, and women's issues spaces, so I'm especially interested in people who are creating interesting things in those areas. I'm also a total tech groupie, so I get giddy about connecting with those types.
2. What is their reach? How many people do they influence? Is this person considered a leader in their field? What are the indicators of leadership for their industry?
3. How do they spend their time and money? Nothing tells me more about a person's value system than a scan of their date book and their check book. Show me how you spend your time and money, and I'll tell you who you are.
4. Do they have a positive, progressive attitude? I firmly believe that if you aren't growing, you're falling behind. Because of that, I like to keep smart, creative, forward-thinking people around me. Additionally, a positive attitude is a must. I'm as sarcastic as the next person, but cynics and chronic complainers are a definite no-go.
5. Are they interested in collaboration? If I see an opportunity to team up, I want to know if they're at least open to exploring it. Are they interested in achieving greater good with their work or do they just want to shine and take credit? I like to work with people (again, I'm a lover of people), and I know that so much more can be accomplished when smart people put their egos aside in order to accomplish something meaningful.
6. Are they responsive? It irks me to wait three weeks for a response to an email barring extenuating circumstances. Some people just aren't responsive. When I decide to build a relationship, I want to know that my calls and emails will be returned. No matter how awesome, successful or smart someone is, they're no good to you if they won't respond when you reach out.
7. What is their Work? Work is capitalized to indicate the highest form of work ' our life's work. I like to inquire about a person's lofty ideals and broad vision to gain an understanding of what motivates them and what they're working toward.

What are your metrics for evaluating relationships? How do you know whether you need to build a relationship, terminate it or leave it be?

Lisa Nicole Bell is equal parts artist, businesswoman and motivator. Lisa is the CEO of Inspired Life Media Group where she and her team meld art, social change, and commerce to create economically viable media properties.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

The Transformational Power of Walking Through the Door

'May you have the vision to recognize the door that is yours, courage to open it, and wisdom to walk through.' ~ Pat L. Richardson

Vision. Courage. Wisdom.

I can sum up the most transformational times in my life with one or all of those words. I suspect you can too.

During times of great change and growth in our lives we rely on our clear vision to direct us, and our courage to persevere when change becomes scary and uncomfortable, as it often does. And while you might think it's courage that also empowers us to finally 'walk through' the door, it's actually the wisdom that comes from our inner knowing that it's not just our door, it's our journey. Sometimes we just know we are meant to walk through that door.

On Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 I walked through a new door with my friend Steve Woodruff as we launched Leadership Chat.

I had approached Steve with the idea of creating Leadership Chat about a month prior, when my Visionary Leadership Blog was still in its infancy and I was embarking on a new leg of my career journey. I had run the idea by one man who has endearingly encouraged me in all my online endeavors during the last few years, including the creation of my blog, my friend Mack Collier. I told Mack I thought Steve and I would make a great team, and he absolutely agreed.

Steve was not only willing to try something new, he was willing to commit to spending an hour every single Tuesday night working with me'which qualifies him as legally insane! Getting to know Steve and collaborating closely with him has been a true blessing, one I will be forever grateful for. He is one of the greatest and most remarkable gentlemen I have the pleasure to know.

I can't thank Mack enough for the encouragement and Steve enough for walking through the 'Leadership Chat door' with me those many months ago, and for the vision, courage and wisdom he has shared with me during this entire experience. I know as we both walk out this door, we will be energized by the new paths we've each found and are truly passionate about. Of course, I am hopeful we'll find new ways to collaborate in the future!

The Power of Letting Go; the Disempowerment of Attachment

I wrote a few weeks ago about the true power in knowing when it's time to let something go ' like Leadership Chat, which has been so important to me, and the power of doing so with purpose. I was reminded of this message a few days ago in a letter my new business partner wrote for our team about happiness. The letter reminded me that in virtually every spiritual philosophy attachment is synonymous with suffering, but happiness without reason is the ultimate freedom. You can let go of whatever it is you are attached to and still make a choice to be happy.

For me, it's very easy to become attached ' to people, to experiences, to the success of certain initiatives and desired outcomes. What the letter went on to say that I found so impactful was:

'If we attach ourselves and cling on to relationships in fear of losing them, or hold onto money with fear of loss or lack, if we lose sight of faith when we Know we have the power within to change it all, we not only risk being imprisoned by deception, we will always feel apprehensive and live in the shadows of fear.'

But we do have a choice. To acknowledge our attachment, release it, and choose happiness. To, 'Ask if you loved and appreciated those moments with that someone or that something. If yes, bank it into your Happy Bank, if not, choose to change that next time.'

I absolutely loved every moment I was able to spend working on Leadership Chat and co-leading the chat each week. It has been an honor and privilege to meet and share insights with so many brilliant leaders and guest hosts from around the world. We talked about topics as far-reaching as vulnerability and courage, to the differences between how men and women lead. Every week was unique, and every week I was enriched by the presence of amazing people and the wisdom that was shared.

So, although I have become wildly attached to Leadership Chat, I know in my heart it is time to let it go. It is time to appreciate all the moments whilst I walk through the door and onto new paths.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to those of you who were there with us from the very beginning, those who just found us last week, and all those in between. Everyone contributed in their own way and added to the richness of the Leadership Chat Community! I mean it when I say you have each touched my life and made it better. I am forever grateful.

Please join me and Steve on Tuesday evening, May 29th at 8:00 pm Eastern Time on Twitter as we host our Grand Finale ' the farewell edition of Leadership Chat. It won't be the same without you ' we hope to see you there!

~

The Introvert's Guide to Success in Business and Leadership

Are you an introvert looking to use your introversion to your advantage in business & leadership or an extrovert interested in leading introverts more effectively? I wrote this eBook for you'

'The Introvert's Guide to Success in Business and Leadership' eBook is NOW Available! Now an Amazon Best Seller & Hot New Release, Featured on Huffington Post, and the inspiration behind my Harvard Business Review article!

BUY Now on Amazon for Kindle or Buy it at B&N for Nook!

Click here to DOWNLOAD in PDF format. Thank you!

Being an introvert is truly an advantage in business and leadership if you know how to leverage it, and if you remain true to yourself.

Photo of The Open Door by mRio.

5 Steps to Achieve Content Marketing Success [Slides]

#ContentMarketing: The Hottest Marketing Buzzword of 2012

Why? Because as consumers are tuning out marketing messages at all stages of the buying process, conversion rates are starting to plummet.

And the cost per lead of many marketing programs is starting to soar. This is all at a time when marketing budgets are feeling the strain of sales' expectations that marketing will produce more leads and better leads. So marketing leaders, marketers with a clue and the host of consultants and agencies are all talking about how to attract new customers with content.

In a perfect example of content marketing itself, Rebecca Lieb (@lieblink) with support from Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) from Altimeter have delivered a Content Marketing ebook, webcast, blog post, book and slideshare presentation on what they call 'The New Marketing Equation. Why Organizations Must Rebalance.'

In this post, I will highlight the key points Rebecca and Jeremiah present and define the 5 steps to achieve content marketing success. I also have embedded the slides from their powerpoint for your own review.

Shifting from Push to Pull

We're tuning out the noise. And not just some of us. The majority of internet users tune out advertising. Rebecca cited a Pew study that states that 77% of internet users never engage in online advertising.

So she interviewed 56 content experts at 38 companies, 19 brands and 23 service providers between October and December of 2011 to understand ho they are dealing with this seismic shift. And the answer was that marketers were realizing they needed to move from primarily push to primarily pull-marketing tactics.

But Shifting from push to pull is antithetical to corporate culture. You need new resources in staff, budgets and training. You need to differentiate between tools vs. strategy and you need to integrate your advertising into pull-marketing tactics.

How are marketers re-balancing to face these challenges?

Marketers need continual content initiatives that tell stories over time. This is putting new demands on marketing departments skills and resources.

There are new technologies that enables any brand to become like a publisher but with 178 average social media accounts, Jeremiah stated that we need to determine who will be enabled as publishers.

Rebecca believes that organizations that rebalance now will have a significant advantage. Marketing is shifting to storytelling and content. Consumers are expecting engaging content and marketers need to be able to deliver it.

Benefits of Content Marketing

Content marketing is the marketing of attraction. Attracting consumers means pulling them in when they are receptive to being pulled in. Sometimes this means education or even entertaining.

It builds stronger brands up and down the marketing funnel and well beyond the sale. Ultimately this is about lower cost of customer acquisition.

Content marketing starts with owned media delivering great content and then moves into earning customer attention.

It is longer term and it requires new storytelling skills and a solid content strategy. Content strategy may literally save marketing through an understanding of what, why and how you're going to deploy 3 distinct types of content: entertaining content, educational content and utility content (like apps) that help customers.

5 Steps to Achieve Content Marketing Success

1. Determine a content strategy leader with empowered authority who can work outside of marketing with customer-facing experts. Some companies have even named a 'Chief Content Officer:' a customer-centric marketer who also has multi-channel publishing experience.
2. Identify other content roles such as editors, writers, designers, response managers, channel managers who are responsible for creating and disseminating content.
3. Audit existing content. You cannot know where you are going until you know where you are. Determine what content by type, by segment and is it search-engine optimized. The key question is if the content is easily found (SEO) and if it is being used at all.
4. Create an editorial calendar that maps out the content that is to be produced and when it will be published. It helps to inform content consumers what is coming and it helps the production process.
5. Repeat, re-use and re-purpose your content into various formats and into all available channels. This extension is the best way to extract the highest level of value from content marketing costs.

How To Achieve Content Maturity?

Companies that do this well will be recognized as leaders in their field. They will be the sources where consumers turn for information and solution. They will have achieved 'trusted adviser' status and will have affinity for their solutions.

5 Stages of Content Maturity

1. Curious and considering but not really doing anything.
2. Advocacy and Experimentation usually occurs when a leader emerges and pushes the organization into content marketing.
3. Strategy and Process: Identification of a Head of Content Strategt, such as Joe Chernov (@jchernov) at Eloqua, who can set clear objectives, process and measurable KPIs.
4. Content Culture: The entire organization has a sense of the importance of content, an understanding of how to employ keyword research and how to deliver customer-focused stories.
5. Monetizing Content: very few companies can achieve this state where marketing is a profit center. Content becomes monetized and a product of the company.

Top-Level Takeaways

• Content Marketing is not free (same as social media!). Content can be much more cost-effective than outbound efforts like trade shows and advertising.
• Content marketing requires significant cultural change in the traditional marketing organization
• Content and advertising should be integrated within existing channels
• Content Marketing will permeate organizations (not just marketing)

Marketing Cloud: Winning Content Strategies Marketing Webinar

View more PowerPoint from Rebecca Lieb Photo Source

The Power of Listening

I am sure that you all know the feeling: you arrive at a networking event where you see at least some familiar faces. You happily approach somebody you know and start talking but the person you are addressing seems to be looking above you or past you searching for somebody of higher importance than yourself or simply being distracted by other attendees walking by. Well, how does this make you feel? Do you feel valued, understood and appreciated as a human being? Certainly not!

I get the impression that the more we are all connected through various digital means, the more people forget or unlearn ' or maybe they never knew the secrets of it ' how to really apply the one crucial thing when encountering somebody else: listening. It seems to be stupid and so common that we don't even need to talk about it.

When you read professional contributions or articles around coaching, leadership, management skills etc., this one simple 'ingredient' is very often simply omitted. What then happens is actually very sad: either the person you are talking to repeats the same question over and over again, showing obviously that he or she is somewhere else in his/her mind but not with you; or even worse: your interlocutor doesn't let you finish one single sentence but instead drives the conversation to himself/herself, clearly indicating complete disinterest in the messages or the story you are trying to convey. Some people even continue staring at their PCs or other devices or are still typing when others come to speak to them. Not only is this highly impolite (especially the latter) but it also expresses one thing: that the basis of communication and dialogue between two people is not functioning. When we look at a simplified model of the process of communication we see the following:

In order for you, the sender, to transmit a message or a story to your interlocutor, the process needs to be 'noise-free' meaning that there should be no disturbance. So, if your counterpart is not listening, there is 'noise' and hence no possible communication.

The good news is that listening is a skill that you can learn. As every other skill, it requires practice and attention. Try it out for yourself:

-       Pay attention to the person in front of you and avoid any kind of distraction;

-       Show that you are interested in what the person has to say and that you are actively listening, by asking questions, smiling, nodding etc. Your whole body language has to show that you are fully there and the more empathy you are showing, the better;

-       Provide feedback and let the other person finish his/her thoughts;

-       Try not to put yourself in the foreground by providing too many examples of your own experience (seen that, done that), defer judgements;

-       Show respect and be very open with your body language and through what you say.

You will see that your interlocutor will feel appreciated and valued and that the more you will do that, the more people will come to you for advice, discussion, leadership and direction.

And at networking events, well, simply forget the people who are not listening and find the ones who do' these are the 'real' connections you would want to make and for whom coming to such an event is very much worthwhile!

Tip #4 for the Business Writer

Avoid Imprecise Pronouns
Part 4 of a 5-part series on writing well.

If clarity is the aim of your prose, you miss the mark when you use imprecise pronouns. In particular, this and that.

These pronouns work only when clearly tied to a previous reference.

If used otherwise, they destroy clarity.

Here's an example (from Winterthur Technology Group) of an imprecise pronoun:

For the Winterthur group, the term 'engineering' covers the complete consulting, support and training program. This helps customers to optimize the quality and efficiency of their grinding processes and achieve added value.

The pronoun this always refers to one thing.

So, Winterthur, exactly what helps customers? Is it the term 'engineering?' Consulting? Support? Or the training program?
The writer might have achieved clarity by saying:

For the Winterthur group, 'engineering' means three things: consulting, support and training. Our three-pronged approach helps customers to optimize the quality and efficiency of their grinding processes and achieve added value.

Or the writer might say:

'Engineering' at Winterthur encompasses consulting, support and training, so you can optimize your grinding processes and get added value.

2 Advantages To Using Pay-Per-Click Advertising

In the world of online marketing, pay-per-click campaigns are an advertising medium that marketers use on a regular basis. This method of marketing can provide a number of benefits to webmasters that you can't find elsewhere. If you haven't considered getting involved with this strategy, there are two advantages for using pay-per-click advertising. Before we get into these two advantages of this medium, lets explore what PPC is.

What is Pay-Per-Click?

Pay-per-click is a marketing method that is primarily offered by search engines like Google. With this strategy, you sign-up for an account as an advertiser and then create an ad campaign. You come up with an ad, a link to your site and keywords that trigger the ad. You set the amount that you are willing to pay for each click on your ad. Then when someone types in a keyword that you have listed in your campaign, your ad will show up in the advertising section of the search engine results. If someone clicks on the ad, they are taken to your website. You then pay a fee for each person who clicks on one of the ads.

1. Pay-per-click works with your branding strategy by increasing traffic

One way that you could effectively use pay-per-click marketing is to increase the overall traffic to your website. Pay-per-click marketing can be a highly effective way to bring targeted traffic to your site. Depending on the niche that you are targeting, it may not be that expensive to get visitors to your site. The best part is that the people who come to your site from these ad campaigns are actively seeking what you have to offer. This means that you're not just throwing money away to get people to your site who may or may not be interested in what you have to offer. This makes it more likely that you will be able to increase sales or conversions. However, the positive takeaway you can count on is the brand awareness associated with starting a pay per click campaign.

2. Pay-per-click is effective for conversion testing that increase sales

Another advantage when it comes to taking advantage of pay-per-click marketing is to use the traffic to test your regular site pages or sales pages. If you are building a new site, it probably doesn't have much weight with the search engines yet. This makes it difficult to get any traffic to the site. Without traffic, it can be difficult to tell if what you are doing is actually working or even something that people will purchase. By purchasing some traffic for the site with pay-per-click marketing, you can get a lot of people there quickly, so you can see if your design actually works and whether your market is actively seeking to purchase your product or service.

Something Important To Consider

When it comes to using pay-per-click marketing, you can definitely get results quickly. However, you have to be careful that you don't spend too much money with this technique. If you set your daily budget too high, you could end up paying a very big bill for all of the traffic that you get. Make sure and set a spending daily spending limit to your campaign. And remember, Google may go above that limit in any given day but it will offset the over spending less in another given day. Google does this in order to try and maximize your click through ratio.

Ken Burns And Ira Glass On Story And Storytelling

Celebrated documentary filmmaker Ken Burns talks about what makes for an interesting story in this short film, 'Ken Burns On Story' (via Alltop HolyKaw via Kottke).

It's always interesting to see what storytellers see as the building blocks of story, or even the X Factor for what separates an ordinary story from a great story.

This video reminded me of an old favorite ' Ira Glass from 'This American Life' explaining how he approaches story in this series of videos we posted a while back. Check them out if you're interested in the art and structure of story.

22 Ways to Create Compelling Content [Infographic] And Content Marketing Case Study

Not all of these are really content creation ideas. Some are just smart activities to kick yourself in the seat of the pants, and open you to fresh ideas. They are all good and worth reading.

Content Marketing Case Study

However, the reason I wanted to share this is because it is actually a case study of great content marketing. Brian Clark at Copyblogger, one of the blogs I read and tweet regularly, and you should to, served up a big pile of his own dog food and lapped it up with a spoon. Yum. (Not really sure what that means, but just go with it, okay?)

Reimagining Old Content In New Ways

Almost a year before the infographic was created Brian had Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing as a guest blogger. Danny wrote 21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don't Have a Clue. Now, what Brian did was go back to that older post and turn it into an infographic, and add a 22nd idea about exactly what they did: Recycle good content.

Think Bigger

This is a stellar example of thinking bigger. Looking at your content and recreating it in interesting new formats. You could call it repurposing, but I wouldn't. Let's just call it reenvisioning. Is that worse? Probably, but I kind of hate repurposing as a word. It just makes me think of copy and paste content marketing. Yuck!

Spinning Digital Assets Into Gold

Take a read, but really take away the big lesson here: think how can you slice your own digital content up and turn it in to tasty morsels.

Your Turn To Put On Your Thinking Cap

If Danny wrote the original post for you, how might you reimagine it for other formats? Please leave your content marketing ideas in the comments here.

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

Is Your Web Content Boring?

Your website has the potential to help you build very valuable customer relationships. But it won't do that for you if it your site's content is boring. Writing engaging and valuable content isn't always easy, but if you can achieve the right balance between interesting and effective your content can help you attract customers in a number of different ways.

• People who find your content interesting are more likely to dig deeper into your website for more information about what you do.
• People who find your content valuable are more likely to trust what you say (trust can translate to a sale).
• Those who find your content interesting and valuable are more likely to share it with others. Social sharing can be extremely beneficial, helping you with your marketing and new customer acquisition.
• When people are intrigued with what you have to say and the way you present it, they're more likely to be open to dealing with you in the future.
• Well-received content will translate to an increase in online popularity. This will lead to increased search engine rankings and more traffic potential.

Interesting content can lead to a big spike in site conversion rates.
A conversion equals someone following your desired call to action. Not every page of your site needs to be designed to try to close the a sale. Some pages could be designed to start to build a relationship.

Blog posts, for example, can be designed to get people to subscribe to an RSS feed so that they become a regular part of your audience. A call to action doesn't have to be a sale. A conversion could be someone filling out a form to receive a newsletter or signing up to be added into your database to receive a free consultation.

Remember this when you write your content and study your conversion rates. Converting can encompass many different activities and the culmination of those activities can translate to profit.

How do you know if your web content is boring?

It's important to analyze your traffic levels. Not only can you find out which pages of your site are the least and most popular but you can also find out which pages of your site have the right reactions.

Do visitors dig deeper or do pages have a high bounce rate (the visitor leaves the same page they enter on)? Do certain articles or blog posts have a high level of comments or social media activities? This information can be very telling and can help you shape future content creation strategies.

Here are some strategies to remember when you craft your content:

• Write for the audience, not for self-serving purposes alone. By writing content for the audience you seek, you will naturally build relationships in that space.
• Write content that's user-friendly. Think about your audience's wants and needs.
• Make sure your content is easily digestible. One long block of text might have great content in it but it will appear to be too much to digest for many of your readers. Break things up with shorter paragraphs, subheadings, and bullet points.
• Make your content interactive. Comments can really engage readers and involve them. This can make for the most successful and the most viral types of content.
• Consider adding photos, videos, diagrams, slideshows, or charts, and other material that will help bring life to your text.

Not all industries are exciting to everyone and that can make it a bit more difficult to succeed with your content. Consider writing content that addresses your audience's problems and informs readers. Simplify your highly technical content if your audience is not familiar with the technology or terminology. Get creative with interviews, videos, descriptive infographics, and other content beyond typical articles to help you maximize the potential of getting your content read by potential and existing customers.

The New Sirius Decisions Waterfall (and New B2B Marketing Acronyms)

If you measure or benchmark B2B demand generation activity across sales and marketing, one of the best benchmark resources just received a major facelift and a number of improvements.

Recently Sirius Decisions unveiled their new demand waterfall at the annual Sirius Decisions Summit. The new waterfall (or funnel, to most of us) provides a framework for measuring and benchmarking demand generation from initial inquiry to close and across sales and marketing.

The new funnel directly acknowledges the different roles inbound marketing, marketing automation and telemarketing (or teleprospecting) play in demand generation. To keep it all in order, it also introduces a stack of new acronyms.

The New Demand Generation Funnel

Here are the biggest changes in the new Sirius Decisions funnel.

1. Inquiries Are Split Between Inbound and Outbound Sources
Since inbound marketing drives higher quality inquiries that convert into marketing qualified leads more quickly, this is an important distinction. Benchmark conversion rates for each source provide an additional support point for marketers moving towards inbound marketing.

2. Marketing Qualification Is Significantly Expanded
Sirius Decisions is recognizing three distinct sources of qualified leads now:

• Automation qualified leads. In a nod to the rise of marketing automation, Sirius Decisions has recognized that some firms will qualify purely through their website and marketing automation program.
• Teleprospecting qualified leads. Inquiries that are not scored through behavior can be routed through telequalification, providing more traditional BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) qualification.
• Teleprospecting generated leads. Outbound teleprospecting, either through direct calling or through referrals from marketing inquiries, will discover and qualify additional leads.

This is a significant improvement over the previous inquiry to marketing qualified lead benchmark, which blended conversion rates from firms qualifying through automation and through teleprospecting.

3. Sales Is Finally Integrated
Sirius Decisions has championed integrating sales and marketing but until now the Sirius Decisions waterfall has been focused on the fraction of leads that come in through marketing. By incorporating Sales Generated Leads, the Sirius Decisions funnel now aligns with an organization's full direct sales pipeline.

As Sirius Decisions breaks down the benchmark conversion rates for each of the various stages in the funnel, B2B marketers will have another way to evaluate shifting their approach around inbound, outbound and teleprospecting.

One key sales element that is excluded is indirect channels. Although channel sales, conceptually, can be a copy of the Sales Qualification box in the new funnel (channel both accepts leads from marketing and generates their own leads), the benchmark conversion rates will be different and there are different elements involved in improving the conversion rates. Maybe this is an expansion we will see next year (or one that will be explained later in the event).

New B2B Marketing Acronyms

The new funnel also introduces a number of new TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms, in case you don't already have enough TLAs). Here are the new acronyms you will need to know:

Marketing Qualification

• AQL: Automation Qualified Lead
• TAL: Teleprospecting Accepted Lead
• TQL: Teleprospecting Qualified Lead
• TGL: Teleprospecting Generated Lead

Sales Qualification

• SGL: Sales Generated Lead
• SAL: Sales Accepted Lead
• SQL: Sales Qualified Lead

Your Turn

What do you think of this view of a demand generation funnel and what do you believe is missing? Share your comments below or with me on Twitter (@wittlake).

Image posted by Emma Battle (@eMusing) on Twitter.

Are you ready for the EU cookie law? [INFOGRAPHIC]

With the deadline for compliance with the EU e-Privacy Directive approaching, how prepared are marketers and consumers to face the challenges of the so-called EU cookie law?

The guys over at Econsultancy, who have been covering the topic in detail over the past two months, sum up existing attitudes of consumers, retailers and marketers, while providing a quick five-step guide to compliance, in this handy infographic.

Have you got your cookie policy ready for 26 May? How are you dealing with the issue? Let us know in the comments.

Four Ways Content Marketing Builds on Thought Leadership

Content marketing is now an integral element of public relations and is an extension of the notion of thought leadership. It varies the thought leadership approach in four ways:

1. It includes content not generated by the organisation

2. It can include content that is not necessarily 'insightful' or 'high-end'

3. It broadens the range of issues an organisation might offer content on

4. It increases the number of organisational employees who might speak, or represent the organisation, on certain topics.

Whether these aspects manifest themselves in an organisation's approach to content marketing will be entirely dependent on its communication and marketing strategies, especially its reputation management and branding dimensions.

The C word in content marketing

C = content. What's it all about?

Beyond thought leadership, or not? The answer is yes. Not all content needs to be cutting edge, ground breaking etc. But it should provide value to the target audience.

It can help organisations cover the broad ground of their remit (or their brand) that might otherwise have not been possible due to resources. For instance, providing an insightful, helpful comment on valuable content relevant to target audiences and then sharing it can be a worthwhile activity.

By choosing some core pillars to provide original content on, then having a 'satellite' of secondary topics where a content curation aesthetic is applied, can offer organisations the opportunity to have their cake and eat it too.

Certainly, it can help communicate and engage with secondary target audiences where marketing and communication resources are not normally expended. A 'reverse-flow' positive impact on primary target audiences can be instigated, as the secondary target audiences become sharers and advocates of that curated information that received the imprimatur of the organisation.

And as word-of-mouth (WOM) now has social media through which to accelerate its 'virality', this momentum of sharing has even greater potential than it once did. Especially since the digital age has cultivated the behaviour of social sharing (digital gossip) amongst its netizens.

Just remember: 'Your story travels further the less you mention your brand.'

Branding and positioning in content marketing

The social infinity does not seem to have canvassed the aspect of content marketing that relates to positioning and branding in great depth. Important elements in this dialectic are the sorts of content that are embraced by an organisation and who, from the organisation, does the 'speaking'.

Further elements include what role does content (and content curation) play in the broader content marketing context, are there any dimensions that are 'off-limits' and what is the rationale driving the content marketing plan?

Firstly, in regard to the content itself, each element of content that emanates from an organisational employee contributes to an organisation's branding, positioning and, to a lesser but still potentially significant degree, its differentiation. Choosing these topics should be driven by the strategy; content topics should not be picked up randomly simply because they are 'topics du jour' and of immediate interest to target audiences (i.e. how do these topics relate to brand-target audience relationships?).

Secondly, in traditional command-and-control organisations and those that apply a similar authoritarian approach to their communication, it has been a CEO-and-damn-the-troops mentality. I don't espouse this approach but, regardless of this, whatever approach an organisation takes will impact on how much content it can feasibly generate and curate.

From a pure practicality perspective, whilst thought leadership can be applied in a limited but still quite effective manner when adopting this antediluvian approach, it is simply not viable to apply it to content marketing:

' A primary reason for this is that content curation is more than just retweeting or otherwise sharing. There needs to be a qualitative value-add from the organisation to some degree some of the time (actually a lot of the time, but I'm taking the low [expectation] road here)

' Involving employees in content creation educates employees on their industry which, one would think, helps them contextualise their work efforts and give them information to get better at their job, increasing productivity

' Employee involvement increases commitment to their organisation ' likely to increase productivity ' and helps them become a stronger organisational advocate

' Utilising normal (non-marketing Martians?) minimises the need to hire additional marketing employees and can optimise financial investment into the program ' increasing productivity.

The most interesting and challenging aspect of this dimension, however, relates back to who are those doing the curating and how is this contextalised within an organisation's branding?

' What are they commenting on?

' What is the nature of their value add?

' Is there a comms or marketing employee facilitating all this curation, or is it the relevant individual doing it solo after, perhaps, some initial briefing and some guidelines have been set? This relates to the third point I flagged above.

Fourthly, and this is perhaps the most fundamental aspect, the rationales driving the strategy will determine all of those issues noted above.

The 'personality' of content marketing

One of the interesting questions about both content strategy and thought leadership is should it be refined and targeted to within an inch of its focus group-tested life, or should it be sprawling, multi-faceted and reflective of the tumultuous, fast moving environment in which most organisations exist ' and which, in fact, mirror target audiences' existences?

I suggest it probably all goes back to overarching communication strategy:

' the drivers of communication strategy

' what market research tells us what will engage target audiences and prompt them to enact required behaviour (e.g. purchase, whisper sweet reputation-enhancing nothings in their contacts' ears et al)

' perhaps, too, there is a unique emphasis or shading in the content that is delivered via various communication mechanisms

' branding/positioning/differentiation

' and what of the impact on content for each organisational spokesperson due to their own interests, preferences, knowledge, passions and the customer/target audience segment they are responsible for?

Whilst it will be the organisation's brand/personality that dictates the answers to these points and queries, in general I believe there is room for both schools of thought ' the refined and the rambling (i.e. humanistic) ' to work hand-in-hand.

A focus on topics and messaging that is relevant to the organisation and engaging for target audiences seems a prerequisite. But, and this is important, to rein in thought leadership or any other content to within a narrow set of parameters risks the organisation being perceived as cold, calculating, self-centred and predictable.

This post is an edited version of an article in a free white paper, The Holy Trinity of public relations. The white paper is available as a free download for all email subscribers to his blog, Public relations and managing reputation. The white paper provides an overview of the strategic dimensions of, and practical implementation tips on, thought leadership, 3rd party credibility and strategic alliances.

Illustration by guydownes.com.au ©]

'Call Me, Maybe' ' Lessons for your Call-to-Action

I don't know about you, but Carly Rae Jepsen's viral smash, 'Call Me, Maybe' has been stuck in my head for days. DAYS. (Please, see below if you have no idea about what I am talking). With all the parodies also out, there is almost no escaping it.

Having had the lyrics stuck in my head for so long, it has me thinking about the important Call you should be including with every piece of content you create: the Call-to-action.

Call Me'

So here's the story. Carly Rae has met this dreamboat of a guy and wants him to call her. So, she says 'Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number, so call me, maybe?' (and then repeats the request over and over again.)

It's a great thing that Carly Rae has made the request for a phone call in the first place. There's something she wants to happen, for this boy to call her, so she's asked.

That's the first step to a good call-to-action: actually making the request. You would think it doesn't need to be said, but all too often it does: Make sure you actually offer your visitors or readers a next step. Without it, you may be providing a compelling argument, but what do you then expect them to do about it? You should be offering up more content and continue to nurture their interest in what you have to say.

I mean, let's face it, if Carly Rae only said 'Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy.', her shot of getting any kind of follow up or next step out of that boy would be pretty slim. But she doesn't! She tells him to 'Call me!'Maybe.'

'Maybe?

That maybe is where I get hung up on her whole effort, and you should, too, as a marketing extraordinaire! In the world of online marketing, if you want someone to do something, you shouldn't just make your request, but make it an imperative!

Call me Now!
Call me or Miss out!
Call me and Make All your Hopes and Dreams come true!

While 'Call Me, Maybe' is perhaps the more appropriate thing for a girl to say when she is handing out her number (as The Rules indicate one should never give out their number, but only be asked for it), on your website or blog, you should want to entice people to deliberately do what you have asked of them. You want to compel them to stay on your site and keep moving forward or learning more, ultimately completely some sort of conversion action. The strength of your imperative may make the difference.

High Click-through Rates and Conversion Rates are the prize of every inbound marketer and the key to those is in the Call-to-action.

When going forward and designing your calls-to-action, remember the lessons of Carly Rae:

• Make the Request! but,
• Make it more compelling than 'Maybe'. (even with the video being viral :)

Watch the video the world is talking about:

10 Ways to Get More Responses to Your Next Survey

Surveys are a great way of collecting valuable marketing intelligence.

The only problem is that countless companies know this and send out surveys endlessly. Due to this, many recipients are 'fatigued' and no longer complete surveys.

But, you can break through the clutter! In this post I'm going to share with you some tips on how to achieve the highest possible response rates. I'll also provide some tips about post-survey activities that are great for fostering ongoing engagement.

1. Reward participants: Let's start with the obvious, reward your participants. They have taken the time out of their day to help you with your business. Say thank you with a discount or other incentive.
2. Set expectations: Tell people how long it will take to complete your survey. There is nothing worse than starting what you think is a two minute survey only to be confronted with a 'never ending' questionnaire.
3. Grow your sample size: If you need as many responses as possible (and they don't need to come from your existing client base) make it easy for participants to share the survey. Also remember to put it on your website, social media pages and promote it via email.

   

4. Short and painless: Only ask participants for information that you actually intend to use for a specific purpose. If you can't use the information collected by a particular question maybe it's not worth asking.
5. Explain why: Tell participants how you are going to use their information so they understand why it's important. It's also a good idea to include a link to your privacy policy.
6. STRONG call to action: If your aim is to get recipients to fill in your survey you need to make this call to action very strong and enticing. You can do this by using action orientated words, images, layout, buttons, fonts and colours.

   

7. Correct fields:Make sure that you use the correct field format for each question. For example use a date field for a date of birth, a text field for names and when you only want a participant to choose one option use radio buttons. This makes it very easy for participant to complete the survey and also preserves the accuracy and integrity of the data.

   

8. Post survey updates: People like to know that their feedback had an impact and if you tell them what improvements resulted from their feedback they are much more likely to participate in your next survey as well.
9. Breaking it down: Think about collecting information in stages. Realistically how much can you do in response to your findings? Collect some information starting with the most important, make improvements then collect more.
10. Attention: By the time participants reach the end of a survey you generally have their complete attention. This is a good time to ask participants to tell a friend, subscribe to a new offering or check out your social media.

So there you have it. Follow these tips and you will set your survey up for a great response.

The Price of Free

There are tons of great things out in the tech world right now that are free. Social networking sites, productivity apps, games, and music sites are all jumping on the bandwagon. But, what exactly is freemium, and how does a business plan like this ever expect to make money? Freemium is a combining of 'free' and 'premium,' and is a marketing term model based on the idea of charging absolutely nothing for a basic product or service ' and the App store is filled with them.

Some of your favorite apps for your smartphone or tablet device are based upon the freemium model. Facebook, Skype, Dropbox, Evernote, and Angry Birds all have free versions of their product; but then you begin to wonder: How do any of these products make money if they're completely free? They make money by offering a premium or full version of the product with advanced functionality, and people will pay for the upgrade.

'The easiest way to get 1 million people paying is to get 1 billion people using.'

' Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote

Check out the infographic below, or a full version, here.

via: Mavenlink

7 Personalities of a Social Executive

What exactly is a 'Social Executive'?

What exactly is a social executive, and what traits do they exhibit that other businesses looking to jump into the digital bazaar would be wise to emulate? Fortunately, thanks to Mark Fidelman's recent piece 'The 7 Personality Types of Extremely Anti-Social Executives,' we have a very strong idea of what the Social Executive is not.

In Fidelman's piece, he used the example of Captain Edward Smith'who helmed the Titanic for its famously doomed maiden voyage'to illustrate what a bad executive looks like. As Fidelman put it, 'Most experts agree that although the Captain went down with the ship, he wasn't a hero. In fact, he was the architect of the situation and due to his ineffectual management the ship sank.' But for every stubborn or misguided manager, we can also find examples of stalwart leaders, astute decision makers and trusty commanders.

In the business world, one good example would be Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Computers. In her recent article 'Connect with Business Leaders: LinkedIn is the Fortune 500 Exception,' Lori Ruff already went a long way in singing Dell's praises: 'Michael Dell has taken the virtues of LinkedIn and used them to propel forward. His own extensive network (around 20,000 first level connections) allows him to stay connected with partners and clients around the world. He can update them instantly and simultaneously with statuses, access crucial information at the drop of a hat, and organize meetings based on travel schedules with ease.'

To put it another way, Michael Dell simply gets it. He understands that businesses can no longer afford to rest on their laurels while the digital bazaar transforms the world around them. More importantly, however, Dell understands that in order to promote change he must lead by example. No executive has all the solutions to the many questions surrounding the shifting corporate landscape, but at least Dell isn't afraid to look for the answers.

Using Dell as our model of forward-thinking leadership, I offer these seven traits of what it takes to be an affective social executive. Fidelman has expertly identified the traits of those executives unafraid or incapable of changing with the times, but now it's time to seek out the antidote.

#1 The Malleable Mind

Think of the 'Malleable Mind' as the counter to Fidelman's 'Short Sleeve Fat Tie Executive.' Whereas Fat Tie Execs expect to be sole originators of all ideas, cruelly dictating company agenda from the confines of their office, Malleable Minds value the input of their employees. They aren't threatened by change'in fact they're often excited by it, and actively encourage an environment of new ideas and approaches. Malleable Minds recognize that employee initiative and collaboration are essential cornerstones of the social business, and they encourage their workers to utilize social media and discuss new ideas that might improve day-to-day operations. Malleable Minds know that you can't keep a good idea down for long, and see it as their job to absorb information and help put ideas into motion.

Identifiable Traits ' Malleable Minds understand that they're not the only ones with good ideas. They are unburdened by ego, actively seek feedback on their own initiatives and welcome the opinions of others. They understand that respect is earned not through an iron fist, but through and open mind. They may be the boss, but they do not take their positions for granted.

#2 The Multilateral Boss

Multilateral bosses know that it's not just what they know, but what everybody else knows as well. Successful social businesses rely on the collective brainpower of their employees. Airtight branding can only be achieved through a unified, multilateral effort on all fronts, and Multilateral Bosses do everything in their power to facilitate this. As opposed to Fidelman's 'Unilateral Boss,' Multilateral Bosses view silos as obstacles that inhibit effective communication. They stay connected, give and receive feedback across departments, and make sure they understand what roles each department plays. Further, Multilateral Bosses understand that social media allows them to communicate directly with their employees, other departments and even (especially) their customer base.

Identifiable Traits ' Social executives understand that brands cannot communicate externally unless they communicate internally. They ask questions, forward updates from other departments and offer to jump in and get their hands dirty if any unexpected complications arise. It's never about passing the blame and always about facilitating success.

#3 The First-Hand Exec

In another post titled 'These are the 25 Most Social CIOs in the Fortune 250,' Fidelman went straight to the CIOs themselves to learn what they thought being a social executive meant. Here's what Wayne Shurts, CIO of SuperValu had to say: 'I want to understand it, I want to know it, I want to see what's happening in that media, and I want to see that first hand. Being on Facebook and Twitter, and being active. That is how I learn the media. And that's way better than getting a consultant's PowerPoint on the topic. The best way to know and understand the media is to be in the middle of it.'

Already in these first three categories, a trend is emerging: successful social executives like to roll up their sleeves and dive right in. Sure, they could get a basic understanding of the changes in the digital bazaar of social media by asking for a report, but those reports are going to lack the subtle nuances of interacting on social platforms that can only be gained through direct, first-hand experience. As Nigel M. de S. Cameron, President and CEO of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies, elaborated in my upcoming post at AT&T, 'You can't engage in social at second hand,' Cameron says. 'The socially credentialed exec ' will be a participant in the global social community'or sooner rather than later will cease to have an office in the C suite. There really is no alternative.'

Identifiable Traits ' The First-Hand Exec jumps right in. Even if they don't yet understand the possibilities (or even the basic protocols) of a new social platform, they don't let that get the best of their curiosity. The First-hand Exec sees inherent value in new media and knows that'just like when learning a new language'the best way to adapt is to just throw yourself into the deep end and learn how to swim.

#4 Sticking Their Neck Out: The Giraffe

In Fidelman's article, we learned all about 'The Ostrich,' the executive afraid to communicate simply because they are afraid of what they might hear. Giraffes, on the other hand, are happy to stick their necks out. They understand that as executives they are a very visible part of their company, and that they must represent their businesses with transparency, regardless of whether they are responding to positive or negative criticism. Giraffes understand that social media is a level playing field. Even with shining business credentials, executives engaging in social media have to earn their followers' trust, provide reliable insights and drive conversations concerning the ever-shifting digital landscape with authority.

Identifiable Traits ' Giraffes are approachable, available, and visible. Most importantly though, they're vulnerable. Giraffes don't hide their heads in the ground at the first sign of trouble. They allow all feedback to reach them'whether positive or negative. They take this feedback seriously, and are happy to offer thoughtful, considerate responses both to employees and customers, and to modify course if an employee calls a problem to their attention.

#5 Master of the Ripple Effect

Effective social executives are masters of the 'ripple effect.' They know the power of their own voices. They know that their priorities echo throughout the entire workforce. Good or bad, if they demand a culture change, things will happen. As Fidelman said in his 'These are the 25 Most Social CIOs in the Fortune 250' article, 'A recent study by PulsePoint Group in collaboration with The Economist Intelligence Unit titled, 'The Economics of A Fully Engaged Enterprise' found that in the most companies where social business is a priority, the CEO and other executives are the vital advocates for cultural change that drives deeper levels of engagement within the organization.'

By implementing (and being the first one to master) a new policy of social branding, these actions will quickly ripple out to all departments, who will not only have a mandate for pursuing best practices for social business, but also a model for what those practices look like. President Truman famously said 'the buck stops here,' but Masters of the Ripple Effect know that it starts with them as well.

Identifiable Traits ' Masters of the Ripple Effect take initiative. They are unafraid of driving change, but they understand that real change has to come from the top down. It's one thing to mandate that employees begin to integrate social business practices, but it's another thing entirely to model those practices and pave the way for real change in company culture.

#6 The Outside-In Exec

The social executive understands that a successful social business must operate in a way that mirrors the outside world. Standing in opposition to outside trends in social interaction or best business practices won't get anyone anywhere. Executives who turn the outside in use social media channels to bring the world to them, to learn about new changes and how those changes might improve their day-to-day operations. They understand that branding is about engaging the client base by being authentic. Business can't guard themselves against the outside world on one hand and try to engage in social branding on the other. Social executives understand this, and know that they can't be authentic unless they're properly engaged in the same information sharing culture as the rest of the world.

Identifiable Traits ' The executive who turns the outside in always has one ear to the ground. They want to know what other businesses are doing and how people are using social media. They cherry-pick the best new ideas and practices, and find ways to incorporate them into their own business.

#7 The Information Circuit

The Information Circuit values brainpower. Sure, they contribute their own good ideas when the moment calls for it, but they don't privilege their own ideas over others'. Brainpower isn't about one person's abilities to solve every problem on their own. The Information Circuit understands that they are surrounded by intelligent, engaged workers who are usually quite eager to add their two cents to a conversation. Knowing this, the Information Circuit is happy to put a question out there to the workforce and let the idea bounce around until a solution has been found. The Circuit facilitates this by monitoring the conversations, forwarding ideas they find useful to the right channels and providing as much information on the issue as they can. Unlike Fidelman's 'Information Hoarder,' the Information Circuit knows that good ideas need to be heard, and that it doesn't matter where they come from.

Identifiable Traits ' The Information Circuit is always asking questions and posing problems. They want information in all its forms'not because they want credit for it, but because they want to make sure it reaches the right people. Although the Information Circuit is unafraid of criticizing less productive ideas, they won't block the idea from being debated.

Helping the Crew to Stay Alert and Informed

As Mark Fidelman put it in his 'The 7 Personality Types of Extremely Anti-Social Executives' article, 'The real reason the passengers didn't panic or rush to take action to save themselves on the Titanic was because the crew offered no social cues that the ship was at risk. They went on as if nothing serious was going to happen.' While it's important for executives to have a proven track record of success and the ability to draw from past experiences, successful social executives must always keep one eye on the horizon as well.

Leaders such as Michael Dell are successful because they intimately understand this dynamic. As the very nature of doing business in the digital age continues to shift, social executives must never be content to rest on their laurels. They must drive the conversation forward, seek help when necessary and discover new solutions for old problems.

But they can't do it alone. It takes an entire crew to sail a ship, not just a captain. Social media can facilitate this kind of mass communication in ways never before dreamed. As Lori Ruff put it, 'LinkedIn is the only place in social media that you'll see business leaders like Michael Dell and Vint Cerf rubbing elbows with the grunts from the mail room.'

The crew will always follow the example of their greatest leaders. More and more executives are coming to understand that they are not islands unto themselves. Success in modern business means fostering a spirit of collaboration and transparency at every level. The organization that embraces this spirit of social integration should have no problem detecting any hazards that might appear over the horizon.

The following infographic presents the most successful 25 Top Social CIOs in the country.