Building a community around your company is hard work. Just like SEO, there are no tricks. Nothing you can buy in bulk. There really is no ‘easy’ way to do it. Even when you’re working with an agency, you can’t just put in an order for a large community at the drive thru window and expect it to happen over night. You’ve got to do the work.
Building community is about building awareness, and that involves a cohesive blend of many crucial components, including SEO, content, and social media marketing.
If you want to effectively use social media to grow your company, then you have to build a community around it. At the heart of building community is sharing and providing something of value.
What is value?
Simply put, value is something that holds worth. Something that is important to someone. Something that serves a purpose. Something that has significance to someone for one reason or another.
In the world of content and social media marketing, value can translate to a video, a photo, a blog post, a checklist, a whitepaper. With value, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you’ve got to know what constitutes value for your audience. If you’ve got music lovers on your hands, maybe that’s the latest soundbite or leaked video. If it’s engineers, maybe it’s an infographic that beautifully lays out all the data they need to quickly digest (rather than, perhaps, a narrative or a spreadsheet).
Value is something good. But if you only remember one thing about this post, make it this:
Value is not all about you.
Focusing on the customer vs. focusing on you
People like to talk about themselves, and when you’re a company who has something to sell, it’s easy to think that the more you talk about yourself (specifically on social media), the more people will see you, hear you, and want to buy from you.
I’m thinking...not so much.
There is a HUGE difference between sharing value and self-promotion.
When you’re promoting yourself 100% of the time, the focus is, of course, on you, which means you’re basically saying that you’re the most important part of the company/customer equation. That gets old. It doesn’t leave you with a whole lot to talk about or share in the social space, leaves no room for growth, and certainly doesn’t provide much value for your customer.
When you focus on the customer and you think about what their interests are, what they need, and what they’re challenged by, suddenly the opportunities and choices for sharing value and making a connection with them are much greater.
Growing your online community with value
You can grow your online community (and transform your business) simply by focusing on your customer and sharing some value with them.
Take MailChimp for example. They have developed a plethora of resources on their website that help their customers do email marketing. Their guides cover everything from getting started with their product, to managing your list and using Google Analytics with your email marketing.
These guides don’t directly make them any money, but they are focused on the customer and provide them with value. These are the perfect things for MailChimp to share on social media. Even though they are indirectly promoting their own product, they are still focused on offering tremendous value to their customer.
Simply Business is another great example. Maybe this is an easy one for them because their sole purpose is to be a source of knowledge for UK businesses, but all Simply Business does all day long is provide a whole boat load of value: from resources on business insurance and fitness tips for business owners to the Small Business Guide to Google Analytics. All focused on the customer and all focused on providing value.
But wait, there’s more
All of this high quality content that both MailChimp and Simply Business creates is awesome, but I know first hand that this stuff takes a ton of time, energy, and a good amount of budget to generate. There is one simple, additional thing that both MailChimp and Simply Business could do that would serve their own customers and grow their community, but wouldn’t cost them a thing (except for a little bit of time).
They could leverage the communities of other companies.
What the heck does that mean? Well, Simply Business was almost on to it here:
They’re asking their community if they have anything of value to share. This is a great start, but what if Simply Business took the initiative to find for themselves the valuable content that’s out there, connected with the businesses generating it, and made this a part of their normal community management routine?
In addition to asking their customers for valuable things that they’d like to share, what if every few days Simply Business shared value from other companies that they respect, trust, and believe in?
Wouldn’t this help their customers and build community?
I’m thinking...yes.
Tap into neighboring communities with value and the 80/20 rule
Now this is where we get to the good part. You can try a new routine that will do several things:
- Save you from always having to originate quality content.
- Provide your customers with additional (and diverse) value.
- Cultivate and grow your online community and your relationships with other awesome people and businesses.
Win. Win. Aaaaand more win.
Here’s how you do it:
80% of the time, share value that you did not actually generate
That’s right. The deal with this is that if you’re spending 80% of your time on social media working to share other people’s value, you’ll end up building relationships, a more satisfied community, more fans, and bigger brand advocates. That means more supporters and more people who want to spread the word (i.e. do the work) about you (for free!).
Your quest is to find other people or companies online that you like, that may hold similar values or have a similar approach, and that produce good content. Get to know them. Read what they write. Share their stuff. Become their friend. It's not what's in it for you, it's what's in it for your customer and your community.
Even if the companies and people you are seeking out are a so-called competitor, if they align with your personal and company values (and have valuable content to share), they will appreciate you featuring their stuff, your customers will benefit from it, and they will want to become friends too (which means eventually they will return the favor). You can help each other learn and grow each other’s communities.
It’s real easy to do on Twitter:
And even more beneficial (for SEO reasons) on Google+:
But in order to do this and make it work, you’ve got to read. A lot.
Sharing value means you’ve got to be reading and learning. All the time. In addition to making friends with other companies, putting them on your radar and reading their blogs, make sure you’re following people on Twitter who are continually sharing value, or circle in people on Google+ who share good stuff. Find all of the useful information that you can get your hands on (the stuff that you know your community would love).
The benefit of this, of course, is that you will always have something useful (and valuable) to share with your community, and you will discover new niches and opportunities (i.e. other neighboring communities to tap into).
If you don’t have time to read the stuff you’re collecting during your day, use Pocket and save it for later. Then, make sure you’re setting time aside at least a couple times a week to read all the good stuff that you’re collecting so that you can then share that valuable content with your community on social media.
Bottom line, just make it part of your routine to share other people's valuable content approximately 80% of the time.
20% of the time, share stuff that you yourself created
When you’re focusing on sharing your own content, make sure it’s good. Real good. And remember, the stuff that you originate and share on your own blog and social media outlets should serve your community, not you.
And here’s a great tip that I stole from Rob Ousbey that will make an even bigger impact in your community and reach more people with your value: before you even create it, try asking for feedback. Interview your customers, survey them, ask them questions about their challenges, anxieties, and pain points. This helps you to get buy-in even before the effort is spent, and you’re ensuring that you’re developing something that really matters to them.
Then, once the content you’ve been working on is ready, show those people who provided you with feedback what you created. Now you have fostered trust because they were a part of the process. So when you go to do outreach and get the word out on social media, you’ve already got someone who is personally invested and wants to help you with outreach.
It's not that you want to avoid promoting your company or helping people understand what you do. It's that blatant self-promotion won't get you anywhere, and it certainly won't help build a community. When you are promoting yourself, make sure it's backed by value.
Always bring it back to value
No matter what, make the commitment to share value (and again, not just your own). Maybe your ratio isn’t 80% other people’s stuff and 20% your own (though that’s been the ratio that has worked best for us). Maybe it’s 60/40 or 70/30. Whatever the balance is, always share value and try (seriously, try hard, kids) not to make it all about you (at least a little bit of the time). Play around with it. Test it out and find the right mix for your customers and your community.
When in doubt, think about your customer first. How can you really be of service to them? If you can’t, refer them to someone else who can. They may not become your customer, but they will always be your fan, support your community, and refer you to their friends. That’s what cultivating community with value is all about.
Take the 80/20 challenge
People like to share. When you focus on other companies (and people) and not always on yourself, it will naturally catch on and those people and companies will start sharing your stuff. But the ‘trick’ to this whole thing is that you have to start with value.
So try it out for yourself and see what happens. Chances are, you’re going to become a lot smarter (with all of that hard core reading you're gonna do), you’re going to help others, and you’re going to grow your business (with a seriously awesome community).
Thanks Mack, I really enjoyed the post! You know me, I'm always a fan of Community and adding value is the main way to do that. I completely agree with you that one of the best ways to add value is to not focus on yourself. I do think that this isn't always the case, it works well for some communities to focus on themselves. But as you said, you have to test what's right for you! :)
I know the 80/20 rule isn't anything new, but I bet you get folks out there counting their tweets and at the end of the day trying to figure out how many more "non me" tweets they need to add by the end of the day to reach 80%. :) I've found that marketers really take those numbers quite literally! haha
I wanted to also add, that a big part of that 80% shouldn't just be sharing content from other companies, but promoting your community members specifically. Whether that happens on social networks, within the community site itself, inside of an app using gamification, or whatever... you want to be focused on adding value to the community. And often times that means showing off the people (or the things that the people are doing) within the community itself.
By the way, one of my all time favorite examples to show off a great Twitter community is to follow @ThinkGeek. Carrie Gouldin, the Community Manager over there does a fabulous job of finding content to tweet about that is geeky, but not pushing their products. :)
Thanks again for the great post!
Hey Jen!
Thanks very much for your thoughtful comment. I appreciate you pointing out that there is no exact science to the ratio of the 80/20. It needs to be a mix that helps companies serve their customers and community, and meet their business objectives.
I also appreciate the clarification about the sharing valuable content not only from other companies and individuals but from members of the community. What better way to foster appreciation, support, and a feeling of belonging than valuing your own community members.
I will take a look at @ThinkGeek. I would also love to connect offline and capitalize on your knowledge in this area.
Thanks again.
Mack, you're steadily becoming a haven for great SEO strategies that Agencies, In-House SEOs, and SEO companies can act upon for great results. You continue to exceed expectations with your blog posts and I don't know why you aren't in this list. Though I'm extremely busy at this time, I'm going to take your 80/20 challenge because, as you say, it is easy and I just need to make it part of my routine. Thanks for the post!
You're so kind George. I really appreciate your support.
I think you'll find that the 80/20 challenge is pretty rewarding. Even though you have to find more time to read, you learn so much, AND you get to share that value with your audience. Plus, as you know, pulling those people you are sharing into your community is a great way to make friends and build relationships.
Let me know how it goes. I'm happy to share a suggested routine, so let me know if you get stuck and need a push.
Thank you. Thank you. I argue with so many users trying about how to find value for your visitors want or appreciate. Most site owners are too busy trying to look like a site they like rather then thinking about their visitors, their demographics and web analytics results. You need to test more. Don't be afraid to ask your user or visitors what they want and value when visiting a site like yours.
Mackenzie, I'm so grateful for your post today *THANKYOU!* Critical advice for every single team at a company to embrace, not just a community manager. I see this as a live branch of a bigger tree, because this sets the stage for a company's customer experience design.
Nothing like a broken brand promise which goes something like this:
Community Manager: "Here's genuine care and awesomely relevant content just for you, special person, it's all about you :)"
Target: "I feel cared for, not sold - how awesome is that?! I am falling in love (with this brand) I'm going to call that company and get their new gizmo!"
Company Sales/Marketing/Tech Support/Reception: "I'm going to treat you in the exact opposite way the CM did and contradict as much as possible on this call."
Target: "Dissapoint. The marriage is off."
The Me-Me-Me Opera is SO OVER! Touch control and interactions are up to the customer at long last :) We darn well better be earning our relationships collectively throughout the company.
Again, Mackenzie, very well done!
That's a great point Jeanie. Cultivation of a community needs to happen everywhere. It's kind of like pinning your value statements to the wall and then not exemplifying them in your day-to-day actions.
Great article, and technique.
"But in order to do this and make it work, you’ve got to read. A lot."
I think you incidentally hit on one of the real reasons why many who try stop this approach. The sheer amount of time needed to research and read the various topics to make it work. Tends to be hard to justify as being productive to the business, and therein is why I think many small businesses fail at social.
Spending four+ hours a day reading twitter, Google+ and blogs doesn't feel particularly productive to the day job of selling blue widgets. Which is why I hear time and again that a small business doesn't have time or see the point of doing social...
I hear you. A common issue that our clients have is that they try to tack this approach on top of their other important daily tasks and then it never happens. You've got to re-think your daily routine and figure out when you can make time to read and then share value if you want to make it work.
There are many tools that can assist in the process. I keep Tweetdeck open all day and pull down posts that I think may be valuable, stick them in my Pocket, and make time to read them later. Sometimes it takes a week to get around to reading, but I'd rather have gaps of time in between shares than just sharing nothing that is useful to anyone.
If you read after work hours at night and on the weekends, you can schedule your value to be tweeted out by using Hootsuite or other similar tools.
What I'm trying to say is that there will always be other things that are 'more important' than spending the time to read and share value. Making the commitment will do more than grow your community, it will transform your business.
To add to what Mack said, at some point you may realize that you do need/want to focus on Community and sharing other people's content/information but that you personally do not have the time. That may be the time to hire someone who focuses on doing this kind of work even part-time at first. Just by having someone focused on doing it. can be a huge help. The biggest thing to remember, is that it doesn't have to be you.
Thanks for your comment Jen. A Community Manager is a definite must for every company who can afford to dedicate the resources.
Distilled had a great post on this here: https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/link-building-seo/your-best-link-building-tool-in-2013-community-manager/
Mack Web's Courtney Brown and June Macon teamed up to write this post: https://mackwebsolutions.com/blog/2012/12/hats-fiends-choosing-a-community-manager/
It's important to choose wisely.
Hope that helps!
Mack I love this post!
Building a community around your brand and actively seeking to engage via social media rather than simply seeing it as a channel to push content and messaging is something which isn't written about enough in my opinion.
Social Media doesn't exist for brands, it exists for the people who interact there; and ultimately they are the ones who'll decide whether or not that brand's content or messaging will spread.
tl;dr - It's a channel for conversation, not broadcast :)
Thanks Hannah! There are so many misconceptions about how to effectively use social media. At the root of misconceptions is that you've got to be everywhere and always focus on promoting your brand. What I like about this approach is it takes the focus off of you, and puts it where it belongs: on your audience.
When you've got value to share, there are so many conversations to be had. You never know what is going to engage your audience, and this helps to iterate and figure that out.
This is a very important post for understanding the values of a community. I also thought the Mailchimp example was well chosen. I've always thought those useful guides as well as their light-hearted branding make them stand out against all the other Email Marketing providers.
You mentioned "But in order to do this and make it work, you’ve got to read. A lot." and "Pocket" (a very useful tool) was mentioned. I would like to add "RSS feeds" as an essential tool of keeping up to date as well. I'm sure most of us use them already, but I still see a lot of Blogs that don't have an RSS feed available, or it isn't visible anywhere. It's a vital tool for keeping people in the loop easily.
Thanks Nick. Yes, RSS feeds are very useful. I'm partial to Tweetdeck and Pocket. That's what I use as my 'feed'. Certainly I have a standard set of blogs that I make sure I read, but I get the most knowledge from the people I'm following on twitter. Just a preference.
Ah yes. Very good point. In fact Twitter itself can be a very good feed for receiving new updates, particularly using Lists. I use "Pocket" a lot an really like it, but I haven't yet used Tweetdeck. Speaking of which, I've just spotted a news story that you may be interested in about Tweetdeck:
https://news.sky.com/story/1036914/tweetdeck-twitters-uk-firm-risks-closure
Thanks Nick. I'll take a look.
Wow! Thanks. There are so many new useful and valuable guides here... Appreciate your post MacKenzie!
Great, thank you. Let me know how it goes when you implement.
I loved your tag post:- Focusing on the customer vs. focusing on you.The more one becomes obsessed with its product and brand, bigger the difference between producer and user. And, oppositely, the better one thinks about the users and followers, the better the product pans out and stronger the relationship grows.
Completely agree. It's a small shift in perspective, but an important one. Many companies don't realize they're not focused on their customer, so it's definitely worth an analysis.
I really enjoyed this article and completely agree with your statement "There is a HUGE difference between sharing value and self-promotion.". Working at an agency I often find myself trying to communicate this to clients when they ask about content creation. I also remember to ask myself if I am creating value for their audience every time I work on content for a client's site.
I really like the idea of asking followers to share resources that they find valuable as a way of understanding the type of content and topics that interest them. Related to that, what are your tips for answering the question "what issues, topics & content are valuable to my audience(s)?"
Hey Katie-
Thanks for your comment, can you clarify your question a bit? Would love to provide you with some feedback.
Great post, Mackenzie! I particularly like your comment, "There is a HUGE difference between sharing value and self-promotion." Do we really fool ourselves if we try to mask a blatant self-promo as a social engagement opportunity? People can read through that in a heartbeat and they don't like it. Someone above mentioned that the 80/20 rule isn't new, and that is very true...the game continues to change in that really developing YOUR community through the Golden Rule approach is key. Are You Just Building Links, or Establishing Relationships? THanks for a thoughtful piece.
Nice post Mackenzie. I agree on all points, especially about the hard work with no easy shortcuts (i.e. no buying fans or followers for $.10 each!). Our agency uses the 80/20 rule and find that this value creation ratio works well. The hard part for many is the "its not all about you" which is the best advice you provide. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your kind words Rick. Sounds like you've got it down. Good on ya ;)
Hi Mackenzie, I always read you, but I never commented until today. My first comment it's to congratulate you for you article.
I write for latin people in my blog https://seo-posicionamiento-web.com, and articles like this, always have important information to share.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading Pedro and for taking the time to comment. Cheers.
I agreed that these certainly are principles that I value and would like to see more frequently. Decisions such as class rules and expectations of each other certainly involve what we value as individuals and as a developing community. I thought some values that appeared in our class were patience, timeliness, fairness, respect for others, productivity, and responsibility, but probably what was most intriguing to me was the rule about interacting more with the teachers. Some of the kids said that they missed talking to the ESL teachers and that they like to talk to them about what is going on in their lives and get help with schoolwork. I saw this as an indication that many of our kids probably value interaction with adults.
I think adding value really comes down to two things: saving people time or saving them money. You can branch out from there but people should focus their content on those two things.
The 80/20 facebook rule is very usefull. I`ve tested it like this 2 post from somebody else and 1 from me and it raised my total reach about 30%. Thank you for your help.
So many people just throw together Facebnook groups, Google+ pages, ect and just hope people follow them without really providing anything important or of value to the reader. I really believe getting people involved with these types of pages with high-quality content can create a very deep and committed community. I think a huge problem is not getting people to the site to like, or follow- it is getting them to come back. I can't tell you how many things I've "liked" on Facebook, yet have never clicked on one link or post on my timeless. The reason why? Because it was random, boring, or just looked like spam. Time for people to step up the game and build communities their fans or customers are proud to be a part of.
Hi Mackenzie,
Awesome post that resonates 100% with what we're trying to do here at our online travel company.
Best find in this post for me: the link to getpocket.com - been looking for something like that for ages!
Thanks - Andre
Hi Mackenzie,
Awesome post! I think that the main reason why so many struggle to leverage the power of facebook marketing by means of having a fan page is because they don't understand how to actually deliver a high value that's inevitably important for them to build their community of fans.
So, I think that one of the most important things for those who are currently failing to build their desired online communities is to understand that delivering that high value content in the first place is absolutely worth their time because it's going to eventually be very rewarding and profitable for their online businesses longterm.
And, the beauty of putting in all the initial time and efforts in building that value rests in the power of viral marketing that gets more and more unstoppable as we continue delivering our own as well as sharing other people's high value content the smart ways that you've brilliantly presented here.
Thank you.
Bruno Babic
Thank you Bruno. Not sure if you caught the Q&A that Rand Fishkin did yesterday on inbound.org but he was asked this question:
"As of present, what would you say is the "Holy Grail" of SEO and SMO?"
And Rand replied:
"Being wholly remarkable, and having a great brand."
All of this stuff is hard. That's why it's so rewarding when it finally starts working. It just takes time. You've got to have a strong vision, strategy, and be committed to doing the work. If you can get lost in that, you'll look back and realize it is actually working and you just have to keep going :)
Thanks for using us in your post. It takes a lot of time to produce content that ads value to our UK small business community. We've used your feedback in our content meeting yesterday so thanks!
Our community team have build a network of small business champions such as Smarta, Federation of Small Businesses and many others. Sharing their content that suits our community shouldn't be difficult. We just needed a wake up call from you. So thanks!
Jasper
Thanks for being such a stellar example! You guys do great work and certainly are always curating valuable content for your customers with the resources you put together (like the Small Business GA guide). Really, it's just transferring that concept to your daily social media habits and you're all set. :)
Totally understand what you're saying, but I'm going to guess this isn't feasible for most agency workers who are responsible for 5-15 clients at one time. Great for in-house workers though if they can sell the 'promoting your competitors' bit.
A step in the right direction is to allow guest posts on your blog. Big brands have big juice. People will want to guest post for you. Put the words 'guest post' and 'write for us' somewhere on your site and watch the e-mails roll in. You can speed up the process by doing some outreach.
Good post.
Hi David. This is actually ideal for agency workers, but the culture of the agency that you work for must support the initiative. In other words, if your agency supports its consultants learning and growing, then they are going to appreciate you taking the time to do so. Again, some of this may need to happen after hours. That's entirely your choice and what you want for your career.
You can certainly allow guest posts on your blog, but this is not advocating that strategy. This is meant to cultivate value from reliable sources on the web and then share that with your community through social media. You could certainly curate a post for your blog with original content if that would provide value for your customer.
How is this ideal for agency workers? Are you talking about an agency that supports its consultants learning clients' businesses (after hours) or learning and growing in the marketing field?
I said 'step in the right direction' with the guest post comment, which means getting upper management comfortable with the idea of mentioning competitors on the blog / social media.
Hey David-
I'm referring to an agency supporting its consultants in learning and growing in the marketing field (and yes, that is in addition to client work). Certainly if you are helping a client to do this, you need to be reading blogs in their industry as well. We focus on a select list of blogs, and make the time for this 2-3 days a week. Doing so allows the team to learn more about the client's industry, and also recommend where clients could be engaging (and how). This is all part of a pretty involved process that we have developed and works well for the services that we provide. Your agency may be very different.
If you're working with 5-15 clients and all of the community building is on you, that's definitely going to be a heavy load. Maybe internally your team can talk about ways to come together and help each other. Maybe there are like industries that you can find efficiencies in. Maybe there are team members whose sole responsibility is reading the blogs to find valuable info to share in those clients' communities.
As for competitors, you would want to be selective about this and certainly you would need to have established trust with these types of partners.
Cool post Mackenzie, as I started reading through I was thinking "no way have I got the time for that". Then I got to thinking that as I tend post once a week on each account, finding 4-5 other things to share is less than one per day!
Great tips, I'll let you know how the 80/20 baseline works for me.
Hey Luke. Yeah, I won't lie. This is a lot of work. But it's not as much as always having to originate the content on your own. Plus the benefits of sharing other people's value definitely outweighs the solo content generation efforts. You make friends and learn SO MUCH that you forget you're helping other people because there's so many benefits for yourself.
I'd love to hear how it goes. Let me know if I can provide further guidance.
Thx for your comprehensive analysis 20/80 hold true
Really great post, reminds me of Chris Brogran's book, "Trust Agents," where he advocates a similar social strategy. I think his stated ratio of preference was 9 to 1- promote others 9x as often as promoting yourself.
Thanks for writing/sharing your insights.
Thanks Frank. I will have to go get Chris' book (I have not yet read it). This has been something that we have been working on teaching our clients so that they can also play a role in their community building. For me personally (and for Mack Web) it has proven to be very effective.
Nice intro to community building. I hadn't thought about sharing someone else's content 80% of the time, but that's an interesting approach.
Thanks very much. Give it a try. It definitely will change your perspective.
love the freakn' transformer!
your pal
Chenzo
Thanks Chenzo. Pinterest is the place for this stuff!
https://pinterest.com/pin/124060164706971973/
Thanks for the post. But don't you think sharing someone else resource will provide a push to your competitors? I always spend time on reading, but only to gain an eye on the dark horses.
Although its a nice idea to ask for the feedback before writing anything.
Hi Venus-
Thanks for your question. There seems to be a little confusion about sharing content from people or companies who could be considered competitors. Perhaps an example would work well to clarify:
So, to use an example in our industry, there are many companies that offer the same services and could be considered competitors, but who share each other's content and respect each other greatly. Distilled, SEER, Outspoken Media, SEO Gadget, iAcquire...all certainly could compete for the same business, but look to each other as partners, mentors, and colleagues. We like to look at it this way: https://mackwebsolutions.com/blog/2012/10/rules-reasons-for-strategic-partnerships/
As I explained in the post, sharing content from your would-be competitors is fine, so long as you know which of those competitors are the right match for your values. Do they have integrity? Do they have knowledge to share (that you respect)? Do you share a similar vision?
It's like Kris Kringle (Santa) in Miracle on 34th Street when he's telling parents to go to other department stores to meet their needs. Any of the companies that I listed above would want potential clients to find the right fit. It's reap what you sow, but in a positive way :)
So 80% of the content would come from curated content, interesting idea. It sure beats having to come up with a lot of content all by yourself. The other benefit is that if people see your stuff every day, the can get accustomed to it. But if you provide your own content in a drip-feed way, they are more eager to read it. It's kind of like what happens here in SEOMoz. When Rand publishes something, we are all over it like zombies on a bowl of brain soup, because we know he does not publish every day, so when he does, it's gonna be something amazing. Great post Mackenzie, thanks.
Well sure Roberto, that's part of it. The bigger picture is that you're not so focused on what you want for your customers, but rather what they want to learn and know. Once you start sharing other people's value, your social data will show what resonates with your community and what they really like (or don't get excited about). You can gauge this and then generate and look for content that resonates with them.
Great content. If you're starting a new site and don't have as much new content to share for the (20), can you resend the same content a few times with a different spin?
I would avoid using the word "spin" :D
Wrong choice of words, but understood. Thanks :)
If you're referring to featuring the same content on social media with a different teaser, that's fine (it's important to approach each of your social media audiences with a unique approach).
If you're referring to pushing the same content out as value over and over, I'd recommend you hold off and share other people's value until you've generated something worth sharing. You want your audience to learn that you are a credible knowledge source that they can come back to. If you never produce new content (or very seldom), they won't have anything to return for.
Recent lady CEO on NPR (Chinese, dang, can't remember name) was pressed to give advice on being an entrepreneur, she said, "you're not there to make money". The dumbfounded host asked WHAT? She said, "you're there because you HAVE value".
Just fyi and thanks for the article.
Off topic: (this is about me) I just closed up my vibrator website, which I knew almost nothing about, and started up a site about Assateague Island which is just down the creek from me. I'm a year-round resident, a refuge volunteer I have loads of valuable information. My new blog will connect to my e-commerce site later this year.
Hey Mike! Never scrape, spin content from other sites and have it on yours, If you are doing so, you will be under penguin and panda's radar. Instead if you really want to share other quality article on your site. Describe the article in your own views, quote important text as in original article, give a link to the original article as a source or inspiration to your article. Webpronews.com is a great example of this 80/20 concept. Most of the content they share are from other sites, but they really add value and make it worth reading to their readers.
Thanks Rank Watch thats great feedback. Is that also the case with sharing video? Like if you wrote a post "5 Great Ted Talks the Will Help you do ...." and attached the videos during the post? Thanks again for the advice.
Engineers? I am an engineer and I have never cared for infographics. I'd rather take raw data and analyze it myself or see more data in a spreadsheet than some fancy little graphic with little knowledge in a million pixels. I think your assumption is way off base.
I believe Mack was just trying to throw out different ideas to get people thinking of various kinds of content. I don't believe she was trying to assume that all engineers like infographics.
That 80/20 rule is interesting just because of the tremendous amount of time it would take to collect valuable content to share from other parties. I'm curious has anyone seen any conversion mentrics on when you share other peoples content vs your own content?
We don't get any less engagement on the stuff we share (that isn't ours) vs. the stuff we create. It allows us to provide an environment for engagement more often than if we were waiting until we originated new content.
And in fact, it really doesn't take much more time to cultivate other value vs. generating your own. Not to mention that you're spending time increasing your knowledge which is a huge value add.
The most important thing to remember is that this is about building relationships. This is a double win because you're building those relationships on both sides of the content (the people who created the content, and the people who would not have seen it without you). This helps to foster trust and credibility which is imperative in the scheme of the 80/20 concept.
Wow, Thanks SEOmoz for putting this on the main blog. This was really an informative post. I particularly enjoyed the 80/20 rule. I believe that building a community is so important. Communities encourage consumers. They also allow for a brand to communicate with communities in an unique way.
Mack- Thanks for the great post. You shared some nice B2B examples and was wondering if you have any examples from the SMB / B2C world. I have been using my businesses FB page in much the same way as you describe - mostly curating great content that my fans will like with some of our own content sprinkled in.
That sounds great. I'm glad it's working for you. In terms of B2C examples, it really works the same way. What is it that is valuable to the consumer? Find or generate that content. If you provide me with a specific context, I may be able to get you some examples.
Yes, the reading.....so much reading.
Sometimes I think that is all I do and it's the reason for my caffeine addictions.
I hear ya. But if you're not reading, you've got nothing of value to offer (not to mention that you're not growing your own knowledge). I highly recommend staying on the knowledge train :)
Great article Mackenzie,
But there a couple things I wanted your followers and you to know. You wrote that there was no way of building an online network overnight, when in fact I'm positive many businesses outsource this kind of activity, for this exact reason. Companies define the target market send it an outsourcing company India, leaving the company to wake up to thousands of relevant followers. This is done for roughly 4-14 dollars an hour (I recently read 4 hour work week.)
I also wanted to know what your opinion was on consolidated online marketing tools? They really seem to be emerging as a dominant force for implementing marketing strategies, especially for those that are wary towards outsourcing. I've read lots on Hubspot and Raven but all they seem very expensive, but I've also seen mention of My Viral Web and wanted to know if anyone here has heard anything on them?
I've also been using Hootsuite as well to manage all my social media platforms and it really does make the job easier.
Thank you,
Vf
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To be honest, the only mention I've seen of My Viral Web on SEOmoz has been several new accounts that are asking about it, all with link drops, all looking a tad unnatural.
Rss Feed is really helpful for Link building