One of the most satisfying experiences is having a website take off in popularity.

People are linking to you and sharing your stuff, responding to your emails, spending time and leaving comments, and in some cases opening their wallets.

It’s a love train of feel-good moments, back-patting, fist bumps and fist pumps.

I’ve been lucky enough to be part of this a few times.

Image by Allie Caulfield

But I’ve also been on the other side of the proverbial digital media tracks. In the area where you roll your windows up, put your head down and wait for it to be over. In a ghost town on the web.

It happened again on a recent lark of a side project where I didn’t take my own advice and ended up making some stupid mistakes.

Fueled (and blinded) by my own idea, I killed my last blog before it truly had a chance to live. Here are the lessons I learned:

I made decisions too quickly, and didn’t think about their long-term impact. Fools rush in and I was right behind.  It’s best to map out ideas, wireframe concepts, storyboard the user experience and think logically about your approach.

I underestimated the amount of resources it would require. Building digital traction takes and patience. I put too much emphasis on launching and not enough on the marathon march that comes after. With a broad market to cover, I quickly became overwhelmed with trying to keep up with posting and coverage was a mile wide and an inch deep. No one was visiting because:

I failed to identify a niche. Success stories usually stem from people who looked to solve something very specific. Where they identified a niche, guarded and served it.

I jumped into a fast-growing market without thinking specifically about what the angle and voice would be. (list examples of sites that do this well). In today’s climate it’s “the nicher the richer.”

I focused on technological functionality, not content. It’s easy to buy a domain, install WordPress and a fancy theme, set up an email program and create social media profiles.

That’s because these are the known knowns. The things that are straight forward and come with instructions. The kind of things anyone can do, technically speaking. But there’s a difference between a digital presence and a digital footprint – the footprint actually leaves an impact, and takes time to develop.

I didn’t give it a face. And it had no unique brand qualities. I didn’t put my face on it and I didn’t associate myself (or any individual human) with it. People like to know who they are hearing from. The “voice of God” is dead in journalism and that is especially true online. The social media revolution was built on the idea that people want to connect with people. Trying to invent a brand out of the ether – especially one that people will connect with – is a tough exercise.

I focused too much on structure, not enough on content. Too much on the launch, not enough on the carrying-through. I didn’t have a unique perspective and I didn’t act human.

And I ended up creating just another ghost town on the web.

Last year I heard Eric Ries speak to a room of most twenty-something internet-entrepreneur-hopefuls about his book, The Lean Start-Up.  The book explains how to significantly increase the likelihood of success of a start-up by taking a series of scientifically designed steps to reduce failure.

Perhaps the most well-known example of a lean startup was Groupon, who tested the concept by handing out coupons for the pizza restaurant in the building where they worked. The book has become a phenomenon and a part of the vocabulary of legions of young programmers with the dream to create the next billion dollar IPO.

But there are two reasons why every single business needs to understand the concepts and practice the lean start-up methods:

© Andy Dean - Fotolia.com

1.  If you don’t innovate in a business environment where everything changes at lightning speed you will become obsolete.

If you have a Facebook business page you know that Facebook isn’t  kidding when they say their motto is “move fast and break things.”  They will deliver changes and you will adapt. That’s life on the web and Facebook is throwing you into the deep end of the pool to learn to swim.  It’s true of all digital marketing.  You have to keep up with technological changes and with consumers who demand increasingly better experiences in mobile and social media.

But, it’s not just about incremental chance, it’s about revolutionary change.  Adapting to technological changes is the practice game.  The industries where most of the businesses did not revolutionize include music, printing, book and magazine publishing, travel—and if it hasn’t happened yet—bricks and mortar retail. The companies that survived and will continue to survive have generally not been the established ones.  Your industry could be next. But there is no reason why you can’t be a start-up if you establish the right mindset and a system that supports innovation.

 2.  If you attempt to make major shifts in the way you do business without a rigorous system for mitigating risk, you can lose your shirt.

The lean start-up model proposes a system that is foreign to many established businesses. You don’t perform expensive research. You don’t hire a team. You don’t rent office space. You don’t create a five year plan. You don’t start coding or buying for the perfect embodiment of your vision.  Because that’s high stakes gambling.

You create the MVP—the minimum viable product.  And you’d be surprised to discover how simple that product can be.  The point of this exercise is to get a model of your business in front of real potential customers and see what happens.  You create a prototype that could be little more than a PDF.  This is critical because it is the only way to test assumptions.  There is no point in asking people what they would do if . . . . because what people really do is quite another thing than either you, or they imagine.  Think small and think “test”.  There are so many aspects of your vision that you won’t know will work until you test, from the price to the experience.  The lean start-up model allows you to find the answers with a small, private group of people. Using the MVP approach, you find out if you are creating value for consumers before you build.  And that is the point of a business—to create value for consumers.

The largest startup in the world right now is Wal Mart Labs, a small, innovative group of people, operating outside the traditional structure of Wal Mart with the idea of finding a way to reinvent the online experience and integrate the online and offline experience of the world’s largest retailer.  Their “Get On The Shelf” program allows any vendor to upload a video of their product and the decision of whether it makes it into Wal Mart is based on crowdsourcing the decision through public voting.  It is an innovative idea for such a large retailer where the longstanding tradition is to put buying power in the hands of a few individuals. But, it seems, that they didn’t test the concept with real users before launching, because while the vision was admirable, as soon as it launched, it became apparent that finding a specific type of product would be nearly impossible, in spite of the availability of general categories.  The videos are not tagged and the site is not searchable.  At  least they tried something new.

Why not experience the promise of an internet-entrepreneur and take advantage of the opportunity that exists in times of massive change to innovate within your own business?  Just because you’re big or well established doesn’t mean that you can’t innovate if you create the right environment.

So, as an established business, what do you need to understand to participate?

• Do not get comfortable. Always be generating ideas.  Not ideas that improve on what you have, but ideas rethink the way things are done. Remember, that the ones that often pay off are usually the simplest, craziest, most counterintuitive ones.
• Create an atmosphere where ideas are treated gently.  It’s typical in established businesses that when an innovative idea is proposed, the first response is to give reasons why it won’t work.  That approach would have killed a lot of successful business models including Twitter, Ikea, Zappos, and Apple.
• Know that committees don’t innovate.  If even one, or a few individuals are willing to work on an idea because they believe in it, allow some time and a shoestring budget to see if they can prove the concept.  Become a VC investor within your own company.
• Be willing to compete with your own current products.  If you don’t, some imaginative, young group of people with The Lean Start-Up in hand, will and they’ll do it in a way you haven’t been thinking of.
• Get comfortable with failure. You may have heard that failure is part of the process of successful entrepreneurial ventures but established businesses tend not to accept failure.  The lean start-up model requires you actually embrace failure.  But don’t worry because a) it’s how you learn and b) it won’t be failure on a grand and public scale.  Just know that you have to put aside your ego and your attachment to your initial strategy.  If what you learn tells you that changes are needed, be willing to “pivot.”

Do you think innovation is risky? Today the riskiest strategy is not to innovate.

Top 10 lists are like new year’s resolutions. They seem great at first, but they quickly make you feel bored, hopeless, and like you’ve wasted your time.

And that’s usually because they are filled with things you know you should do but can’t commit to doing. They’re too aspirational. Too shoot-for-the-moon-y.

Which is why I’ve kept this one bare-bones, tactical, and hopefully useful for you beyond the 4 days it typically takes us to crash and burn through our empty new year promises.

1. Check which pages on your site earned the most inbound links

Any search engine optimizer who knows her SEO clichés will tell you that inbound links count as votes in the eyes of search engines, and having links point to your content will help you rank better in search. It’s a feel-good moment that brings value to your domain. It’s a win-win.

Take a look at which of your posts attracted the most inbound links and see what they have in common. Were the headlines provocative? Were they exhaustive posts on a singular subject? Were they curated round-ups of the industry’s top events?

Figure out what type of content is earning you links (votes) and produce more of it in 2012. Also, look up to see who the human is behind a link. If this person made an editorial decision to link to your stuff they are paying attention to you and think your content is worth sharing. They’re someone you probably want to network with on Twitter if you haven’t started already.

2. Look at search terms that drove visits to your site

It may seem obvious: monitor keywords that lead traffic to your site and celebrate your SEO dominance. While it’s ok to pause and celebrate your search victory, the real opportunity is to find mediocre-performing keywords and exploit them for your purposes.

(It is way less sinister than it sounds.)

Basically, search through your top few thousand keywords and find keywords that your site ranks for somewhere on page one of the SERPs (search engine results pages) but not at the top of the page.

Identify the articles which are ranking for these terms and tweak them to more strongly target the keyphrase. Then, find opportunities in your own relevant content to link to these articles and consider sharing them in social media (if they are still relevant, of course). The idea is to find keywords you are already competitive on and try to turn a #7 ranking into a #3 ranking and earn more share of the clicks for that given search term.

3. Test your page load speed

When is the last time you’ve checked how quickly your website loads? If you’re one of the people taking advantage of Google’s Analytics pageload feature (or Google Page Speed Online, or Pingdom’s website load speed calculator), then you’re probably on top of it. If you’re not, it’s a good thing to start looking at.

Load speed is a huge factor for search engines when they are choosing what content should rank for a given phrase. Knowing what pages or elements on your site that are holding things up is the first step in addressing and fixing any issues.

Give your site a website speed audit  and prioritize fixes based on severity (the tools will tell you what is high, medium, and low importance).

4. Check for page leaks

Make a list of the pages on your site that have the highest bounce rate (i.e. pages with the highest percentage of visitors who leave your site almost immediately after arriving, without clicking through to more content).

Start with the pages that get the highest volume of traffic (and are therefore leaking the most of it away). Examine the page for possible causes:

• Is there a relevant call to action?

• Are there links to related content that users may enjoy?

• Is page load speed extra slow on this page?

• Is there an obvious issue with the layout of this page?

If the answer isn’t immediately obvious, consider setting up an experiment on fivesecondtest.com or a similar service to see how viewers are experiencing the page and try to get insight on how to improve the page’s performance.

5. Look for dead-ends

Similar to page leaks, dead-ends are places on your site where users run into a hurdle (and we all know that most people would rather avoid the hurdle on the web rather than get over it themselves).

Take note of any 404 errors you may have on your site and consider creating a more user-friendly 404 error page. Run Xenu’s Link Sleuth and see if there are broken links from your content that are frustrating users and search engines.

Fixing dead-ends will help you maximize the experience for the traffic you already have.

6. Follow top blogger actions, not advice

Top bloggers don’t always practice what they preach. And conventional wisdom isn’t always the path to success in the world of digital marketing. Best practices may prescribe a course of action that lead you in the wrong direction.

For instance, I once looked at what the top 10 blogs in content marketing were doing (as opposed to saying) and found some interesting results, like, the average blog in AdAge’s Top 10 in the Power 150 write 2.4 posts per day with an average word count of 1,278 every day and have been doing so for nearly 7 years. (Doing this is probably not the answer you’d get from them if you asked them how to be successful online. See what I mean?)

A lot of sites publish a list of “best of” content at the end of the year. Take the top posts and see what they have in common. Check word count, style of post, layout, use of images, etc., and uncover patterns.

Sometimes it’s not what people say, it’s what they do.

7. Get in tune with the right social media channel

Take an honest look at the volume and quality of traffic from popular social media. Where are you getting solid traction? Are you spending time building a presence in the right social media channels?

Ten thousand visits from StumbleUpon could be a mixed blessing if visitors only stay for a quick few seconds. Likewise, if you’re spending an inordinate amount of time hustling your content on Twitter but not seeing a return, it may be time to reevaluate your priorities and focus your efforts on other social media outposts.

Some sites I’ve been working with have had low traffic volume with high engagement from LinkedIn, and vice versa with Twitter. We now know that spending more time earning the good traffic from LinkedIn is well worth our while.

8. Conduct an old-fashioned customer survey

Magazines have been doing reader surveys with great success for years, gleaning valuable data directly from their audience. This simple but often overlooked tactic can provide mountains of business intelligence and hard to get insight, but can also help tell a more compelling story to your advertiser base. The more clearly you can define your audience, the better off you’ll be.

Nothing beats conducting customer surveys and many web services offer the ability to do this at a fraction of what the cost used to be.

9. Consult your real-life network

This is the time of year to shake the holiday lethargy and get socially active in real life. Talk to people you know that operate web sites (regardless of the niche) and attend events in your area where you can meet people also in the content marketing game.

Look through your LinkedIn connections list and find a few people to schedule coffee with in the first month of this new year. Talk to them candidly about what you’re trying to do with your site in 2012 and ask for their honest feedback.

And make sure you offer to pay for the coffee.

10. Read boring industry research

We’re in an environment of quick tips, sound bites, and real-time reactions. And who can blame us? It’s easy to feel productive if we stay on top of industry-leading blogs and skim the points they make. But how much more value could we get if the next 500 pages we read online were part of a research report or a book?

Research reports pack a lot more effort, analysis, and peer-review into what they publish and can be worth their weight in gold (or bytes, at least).

These aren’t the only places to look, but sometimes the less glamorous places have the biggest payoffs when it comes to creating a content marketing strategy for the new year.

Read your fair share of top 10 posts – they do have value – but don’t forget to look in the nooks and crannies of your own operation, too.

Where do you find your business intelligence and inspiration?

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

It’s tough not to fall victim to me-tooism in our competitive media landscape. There are oohs and ahhs to reap, awards to win, client and board expectations to exceed and egos to stroke. So we see something shiny and we chase it. We see a toy and call it a tool, and make it part of our marketing program.

And who can blame us? We’ve got boss/client/coworker/thought-leader/consultant/blogger/friend/avatar telling us we need to embrace (whatever piece of) technology before it’s too late.

But what if it’s too soon? What if there’s never a good time to adopt? What if we’re adopting a technology or approach that could fundamentally shift the relationship we have with our audience in a detrimental way?

Image by ell brown

If it seems like I’m exagerrating the issue of copycat marketing, take a look at this recent data from Pitney Bowes:

In a survey, Pitney Bowes asked small business owners for the reasoning behind marketing tactics they employed. The results?

• 30% of small businesses are using social media because their competitors are
• 29% are using QR codes for this same reason
• And 25% are doing mobile marketing because the competition is using mobile marketing

Sure, these might be signs that small businesses are in touch with the competitive landscape and they’re doing their part to stay afloat. It could also mean that these tactics are right for them and they’re ahead of the game.

But it could also mean that they were employing the strategy just because they thought “everyone else” seemed to.

To those that subscribe to the “because my competitors are doing it” logic, I present to you these questions to ask before you make your lemming leap:

1. Is my audience actually using this service or technology?

There’s no prize for beating your audience to the future.

2. Am I replacing something old and tired but incredibly useful?

If your audience digs your print magazine, you’ll ruffle a lot of feathers teling them to download their next issue with no warning.

3. Have I asked my audience what they think of this?

The amount of information available to you is incredible when you’re just willing to ask.

It’s tempting to jump on to a bandwagon (or off a bridge) just because it seems like everyone else is. But do so at your own risk.

Related articles

• Should You Jump on the “Coupon Deal Bandwagon”? (riseinteractive.com)
• Should We Be Un-Integrating Our Marketing? (socialmediaexplorer.com)

I know you’ve been busy.  Launching your new blog.  Building your brand. Exploring a new strategy.  Reading and researching the latest tool and platform. You blog, you tweet, you link and check in. You are diligent, consistent, and conscious, and yet … you still don’t feel as successful as you want to be.

In social media, success is not only attributed to what you do; it is dependent on who you are and why you do.  ”Being’ and ‘doing’ are inseparable aspects of  your presence and influence. 

Who you are comes across more strongly than what you sell or say.  This means not only investing in social media, you must also to invest in yourself to grow and to be better.

You have the ability to teach, guide, influence, activate, catalyze, transform, elevate, and make deeper connections every time you enter this space, but only if you are willing to make your  TO BE list is as high of a priority as your TO DO List.

Here’s a start, as you consider the impact you want to make:

1. Be Real.  Putting out a honest and accurate sense of who/what you are is more than a nicety; it is a necessity for your social media success.  You will not be trusted, admired or valued, if you are not real.  Even if you are representing a company or brand; the people on the receiving end of everything you put out need to know you are real.  This kind of authenticity takes commitment and dedication.  Take time to really get to know what matters to you, hone your story, and share passion in everything you do. Give people a reason to want to know more!
2. Be Generous.  In social media(and in life) we are remembered for what we give and not what we get. So, if you’ve got it, share it and spread it around generously.  Hook your audience up with juicy articles, tips, and photos/videos that satisfy their needs.  What problems do your current and potential clients have to which you can offer solutions with no expectation of reciprocity?  There are a variety of ways that you can use social media to amplify your generosity and support your community in ways that exceed their expectations.
3. Be Prepared. A common mistake that individuals and business make is to target the social media market without a plan. Create a calendar of offerings and intentions. Have a plan for sharing content,blogging,listening,responding and engaging in both formal and informal ways.
4. Be a Master Learner.  Proficiency becomes our deficiency when we stop learning.  There are many people obsessed with achieving expertise in the market. The moment you proclaim yourself to be “expert”, “guru”, or “master of of your domain”, you lose. Make learning with and from others a priority. Use this knowledge and content to move you towards your objectives; and always remember to give thanks to your “teachers” in the process!
5. Be Selective.  There are literally thousands of tools, platforms, and apps. Selectivity is a necessity. Not every new shiny toy will bring you more success than the ones you are using currently. Have a Core Toolbox and add  to it slowly and cautiously. It can be devastating financially and tactically to spend too much time looking for the next best thing.
6. Be A Great Listener.  The key to your success is your ears not your mouth. Great learning and conversations stem from your ability to be a great listener.  Listening thoughtfully gives you a better sense of what people are saying and how they are feeling. In virtual spaces where there are no visual cues, good listening skills become a powerful asset. Listening also helps you map out your current social media footprint and measure your efforts over time.
7. Be A Question Asker.  I have been teaching and writing about the importance of asking great questions for a long time.  Great questions are the best way to have a meaningful conversation, the best way to rope in a mentor  AND the best way to look like a star performer.  Make it a priority to listen to people asking great questions. Be in charge of the questions you ask and keep a list of the best questions you hear.  Use this to create a question toolbox you use and can apply to every conversation and interaction you have.
8. Be Courageous.  For those unfamiliar with technology and new to social media, I understand jumping into the world of social media can be scary.  It’s a big step, especially if you’re accustomed to “old habits.” But now is not the time to be timid.  In today’s rapid fire economy, it is imperative that you be willing to accept, learn how to use, and implement social media and new technologies.  Your competitors certainly are.  Luckily you don’t have to take the jump in alone.  There are tons of ways to find individuals to learn from and be mentored by. As long as you  take the time to plan, practice, and then execute your TO BE list; success will follow.

Humanity’s misfortune is when we don’t realize the very gifts we have, or the impact we have the opportunity to make. We don’t serve the rest of the world or ourselves by playing small.

So what are you waiting for? Embrace the now and be willing to address what is holding you back.

To Be or Not To Be?  The choice is yours!

Related articles

• Listen… are you “social” in Social Media? (3dimensionallife.wordpress.com)
• 8 Steps to a Killer Social Media Newsroom for Inbound PR (hubspot.com)
• Social Media Trouble Spots (thx4playing.blogspot.com)
• Five Social Media Myths that Can Cripple Marketing (distributedmarketing.org)
• Social Media: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (webpagefx.com)

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post written by Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR (@blogging4jobs), who is an HR consultant, new media strategist, and author who writes at Blogging4Jobs.com.

Social media is changing the way we live and work.  Technologies like smartphones, tablets, and wifi make it possible to work almost anywhere.  Organizations are beginning to add more telework strategies, social media technologies, and corporate employee engagement programs integrating these new technologies into an organization’s external as well as internal communication and engagement strategies.

Yes, the world of work is changing and for the better and yet an organization’s senior leaders and human resource professionals struggle with understanding these technologies.  They remain conflicted, and I’m not surprised.

Employment law attorneys who specialize in advising and protecting companies by mitigating risk are misinforming curious corporate leaders about the damages and the negative effect social media can have on organizations.  These legal eagles are advising their clients on the risks of social media without fully understanding how the platforms can be leveraged to protect the organizations they can potential serve.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

And it really pisses me off.

Flash back to 2007, when attorneys advise that all social media sites be blocked by corporate servers, completely ignoring a much bigger issue.  And that issue continues to grow in popularity, the Internet equalizer — the smart phone.

It’s time to take a stand.  And that means you becoming a partner, a resource, a champion working directly with your corporate HR teams.  That means you, Joe Employee working with HR to make the case for social media.

I spent the better part of the last week of June at the 2011 Annual Society for Human Resource Management Conference where corporate human resource professionals came together to learn, network, and discuss trends in hiring, employee retention and engagement, and HR development.  Think of it as the SXSW of HR.  Nearly 17,000 HR professionals invaded Las Vegas with the purpose of improving the industry, furthering their professional development, and discussing ways to better align their departments with the company’s organizational goals.

Most outside of the industry are surprised to know that the human resources and recruiting technology industries are extremely advanced in their use of social media and mobile technologies.  Companies like Rypple use social media to increase employee appreciation working with organizations like Facebook.  Or companies like find.ly are developing new technologies based on cloud computing and social media preferences to plot an employee’s future career trajectory.  Thus allowing for companies and recruiters to customize and target their message making the employee engagement experience truly one of a kind.

Technologies like these are the sexy side of human resources leveraging the latest and greatest social media and engagement tools to improve efficiency in hiring and engagement within where work or would like to work.

I sat and listened in frustration, anger, and dismay as attorney after attorney advised human resource leaders to continue to avoid social media because of its perceived risk.  This perceived risk by attorneys is based on their lack of adoption or understanding of how social media can be used to the organization’s advantage and technologies that can be leveraged.

Blatant ignorance by the majority of attorneys is more than disappointing.  In one session, I listened to an attorney advice HR pros to discourage corporate leaders from “friending” their employees on Facebook.  The attorney opened her session by announcing to the group that she had just joined Twitter.  She failed to understand the tools, particularly Facebook because otherwise, she would known that by creating lists organizational leaders can friend their employees continuing to create a culture of conversation without fear.  By restricting and customizing the level of access employees have to a manager’s personal profile. Clearly she did not.

And it didn’t stop there.  I had to physically restrain myself from leaping out of my chair and defending the tools and explaining the intricacies making the case for instead of against social media to my peers.  Social media is user driven.  It’s founded on collaboration and conversation and that’s likely something that a 5-page social media policy won’t start, stop, or discontinue.  It’s up to us to stop the advisement of avoidance and death by social media.

Are you with me?

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR (@blogging4jobs) is an HR consultant, new media strategist, and author who writes at Blogging4Jobs.com.  Her company, Xceptional HR offers social media strategies, human resources, and recruiting consulting with an eye on digital media.  Jessica is the author of “Tweet This!  Twitter for Business,” a how-to business guide for Twitter.

Related articles

• Lawyers and reporters missing the point of social media (kevin.lexblog.com)
• When Everyone’s Doing Social Media, Then What? (markevanstech.com)
• Social Media: Law and Risk (thielst.typepad.com)

It’s one thing to concoct a great social media campaign, using all the most effective tactics and best practices. It’s another to be able to integrate those strategies and tools into your existing business structure. Social media integration and execution is what drives results, so it’s important to have a solid understanding of the implementation of your social media plan.

This is why I’m excited to be kicking off the first Social Media Integration Conference Sept. 16 and 17 in Atlanta. I want you to come, too! The lineup includes kick-ass rock stars like Mack Collier, Chuck Hemann, Krista Neher, Ekaterina Walter from Intel, Michelle Brigman and Maribel Sierra from Dell and more. Friday begins with beginner and advanced social media boot camps to get your brain in gear. I’ll be doing something that day in workshop format. We’re still ironing out what. But after a day of learning, Collier will host the famous #Blogchat live from the conference that evening.

Saturday morning I’ll be kicking the day off with a No Bullshit keynote. My hope is to set the tone for the afternoon sessions which will dive deeper into the hows and how-tos. But we’re going to have a ton of fun and some great learning in the ATL.

The conference will be held at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta, Ga, Friday and Saturday, Sept. 16 and 17. The cost of all this learning and networking? Would you believe $160? I didn’t. But that’s the price. Don’t miss this! Register now and get closer to me than you’re probably comfortable with. The first 75 registrants who also register for the #BlogChat event get to participate in the live version of the chat on-site. The rest of us will have to follow along on Twitter. I’ve been there for one of Mack’s live #BlogChats. It’s neat. Sign up for it.

And big props, by the way, to Kellye Crane, who is one of the many people behind this event. She’s first-class and this event is going to rock. See you in Atlanta!

Back in January, Brian Solis and I joined forces with Social:IRL in Wichita, Kansas, to bring attendees a jam-packed day of social media learning with some interesting talks, discussions and workshop-type content. The event was called Explore and Engage. Thanks to Social:IRL organizer Ben Smith, we’re at it again on June 14, but this time in Denver, Colorado.

Explore and Engage is designed for those who are already using social media, and want to take their business or organization to the next level of engagement. The day begins with opening remarks from Brian, who will shine light on the importance of using social media to listen, lead, and engage with consumers. Then, we’ll move into a roll-up-your-sleeves workshop that will take you through the different tools, tactics, and strategies that help foster engagement between companies and customers. In addition to discovering these tools, we’ll also explore the back-end strategy of fostering social media success: measurement. Between workshops, you’ll have the opportunity to network and meet Brian and me. I’m guessing Brian will also be available to sign copies of his book, “Engage!” which is awfully good.

The event will take place at The Qwest Regional Call Center in Littleton, Colorado, just outside Denver. If you are one of the first 50 to register, you get a free copy of “Engage!” The cost of the day-long event is $245.00.

Register and learn more on the event page at the Social: IRL website.

And just in case you need a bit more convincing, you can see more about the Wichita event on the Explore and Engage Resources page. We will certainly revise and update the information we’ll be sharing, but you can get a feel for the depth we’ll go into in Littleton.

And I’m happy to report it will be my first on-the-ground trip to Colorado. I connected in Denver once and dashed from one gate to another. This time, I get to leave the airport. So come see me! We’ll have a blast and learn a ton!

I have thought for some time that the impending social media bubble will at some point burst. I am a true believer that digital marketing done right will drive sales, however folks can get sidetracked pretty fast. That, coupled with many marketers delusional perception of success, and things can get pretty murky.

One must have a keen understanding of why the business is marketing in the first place, to sell more stuff. That’s it. Most of the other yap you are doing is fluff puff marketing and both it and you could go away and no one would notice … except the person who’s job it is to do the tasks that might get eliminated.

Employees and agencies hold on ever so dearly to those tasks, and work diligently to prove their value. That became evidently clear in the over one hundred comments of Facebook Is Overrated For Businesses. (It really is, by the way.)

The ROI meter for the folks writing the checks to fund your marketing should only be interested in things that move the prospect into and down the sales funnel. I have a standard question that I ask our clients. For one such, a furniture chain, it’s “Are you selling more couches?” For our apartment clients, it’s, “Are you renting more apartments?”

If the answer is yes, then all is well and we continue doing what we are doing. If the answer is no, we change direction, swiftly. If your clients are selling more stuff, you or your agency will rarely will get fired. The point here is to ask the question and not be afraid of the answer.

What we don’t do is look for things we are doing to “prove” our value to the owner. Hey, some of those things do have value, but if sales drop or dip we all need to become much more nibble and fix things faster.

Erica Napoletano penned a post just after the first of the year titled, I Hope You Are Looking For a New Job. The post compared the real estate bubble to a predicted social media bubble.

So, if you’re a “social media consultant,” I hope you’re looking for a new job. Because the bottom is about to fall out of your market. Just like real estate, social media isn’t going anywhere. But if you’re deluding yourself and your clients into thinking that you’ve got what they need, you’re no different than the hairdressers-turned-Realtor-turned-hairdressers of the Las Vegas real estate boom.

You’re hawking overpriced real estate to anyone who can make the down payment.

Social media is a component of a comprehensive marketing strategy, not a stand-alone panacea. There are no unicorns that fart glitter or fluffy pillows. Social media campaigns aren’t islands unto themselves and boats don’t race to moor on their docks. If you’re one of those laptop-and-a-lunch hucksters, I certainly hope you’re gearing up to acquire some expanded job skills, as it’s becoming damn clear that what you’re selling isn’t going to have a market for long.

Perhaps a bit harsh, however it gets to the point. Part of the problem is that the social media echo chamber has become a support system for every “like minded” marketer telling you how good you are. Ask the client: Nothing else matters. The same sort of nonsense occurs with employees who constantly get distracted on what the true goals and strategies are.

So, get your marketing compass out and ask your client or your boss if they are selling more stuff due to your marketing efforts. The answer will make your direction much more clear.

Dear John,

I’m sorry to have to say this to you but I don’t want you to contact me any more. The last email you sent pretty much did it for me with you and your kind.  What you said  is so annoying that although I didn’t say this to you directly (because I don’t even bother to answer your calls and emails), if I were to talk to you I would say, “You don’t have the right to email or contact me.”

In case you forgot what got me so upset, here it is:

Hi

I was hoping to get a few minutes of your time this week to briefly introduce myself and  my company.  We are the industry’s  best price/performance advanced traffic manager – helping enterprises and ISPs maximize application through a high-performance and  scalable Web Application Delivery Platform.

Is there a convenient time for us to chat so I can further explain how our solution can  improve application performance? I look forward to speaking with you.

You’re not alone, John.  A lot of you guys pull this.  Here’s a voicemail  from earlier in the same day from someone just like you.

Hey

I tried reaching you today but unfortunately got your voicemail.  Are you available  sometime this week for a brief 10 minute Webex?  I’d love to show you active  campaigns  we’re running with sites similar sites  and to answer any questions you  may have.

Would this Wednesday around 12:00pm PST work with your schedule?

Look forward to your reply.

I don’t want to sound picky, but I’m not on PST, so why would you schedule a meeting that doesn’t even relate to my time zone?  Could it be because you don’t even have a clue where I am?

John, cold calling went out the door with door-to-door salesmen and mass marketing and yet, I get an average of five emails and calls from you guys every day … often double that.  The absurdity of your approach can only be compared to a stranger coming up to me on the street and asking me to go out for a cup of coffee.  Actually, since I almost always want a cup of coffee, it’s more like a stranger coming up to me on the street and asking me to buy a toaster.

Where did you go wrong, you ask? First of all, you never really tried to establish a relationship based on being helpful.  I realize this takes time, but so does building a business.  Your cold call is to selling what playing the slot machines is to earning a living.  Second, you never tried to understand anything about my business.  Maybe if I were desperate for ways to spend my time and did decide to take your call, I know that your presentation is going to be as canned as the message I hear when I am on hold at my bank.

Stop talking and pushing what you have.  You interrupt me at my office in my email and on my voicemail and the one time I did pick up the phone it turns out you barely knew who I was. Did you even look at my company’s website, Facebook page or Twitter stream?  If you did, you wouldn’t talk to me the way you talk to every other company. Why wouldn’t you do some homework and wow me with your knowledge of my business and how you’ve found some low-hanging fruit that your product would fix?  Oh, I forgot, that would require effort.

What could you have done to make this work out?  Maybe if I heard you speak at a conference, and thought you had something helpful and interesting to say I would give you my card. Maybe if you tweeted great links that helped me understand more about the issues I am dealing with in my business I would choose to follow you.  Or, perhaps you could blog on a topic I am focusing on to build my business, and I could learn to care about and respect you.  Or better yet, maybe you are so awesome at what you do that someone who used your service told me about it.  It would be a start.

Yet, even these opportunities got flubbed.  I spent a lot of money and time coming to a conference a few months ago.  I visited your booth and asked for some information. You gave me the elevator pitch in language that may as well be Latin–something about an end to end solution that helps you leverage bla bla bla.   When you talk to me maybe you could pretend that both of us are human?  Then, to top it off, when a “more important” person came into your booth you turned away.

And here’s a tip that would really win me over: when we get down the road a bit and you know more about my business and I am clear that I need what you offer, don’t just keep following up if you don’t hear from me.  Help me justify the ROI to myself and my CEO.  If you could work with me to help me to at least give a credible projection of how I could  succeed financially by connecting with you, I’d be yours.

There are things you could have done to become interesting to me; to make me trust you; to make me want to connect with you. John, a relationship takes time and effort and you weren’t willing to do what it takes.  The fact is that you never even knew if I was in the market for someone like you.

For future reference, don’t call me, I’ll call you.  And, I’ll only do that if I’m interested  and if you’ve given me a reason to think you’re different from the other guys.

P.S. From now on, whenever I or my friends have a problem with people like you, I think we’ll just send this link instead of answering.  You won’t mind the canned response will you?