Better get busy! Google has already grown to 25 million-plus users in only a few weeks, and it could be opening the floodgates to brands soon. (Ford is already test-driving its business page.) No one knows for sure, but I believe that, with its financial muscle and market power, Google+ will emerge as the leading social platform for business once it fully integrates its search and other tools (Gmail, Chrome, etc.).

So, you need to hedge your bets by getting involved in G+. But that doesn’t mean you need to put all your eggs in this basket or spend all your waking hours on G+. There are ways you can manage your time and use G+ selectively and strategically.

Below are seven examples of maximizing Google+ (efficiently), based on my last few weeks of working on the new platform.

1. Think rifle shot vs. shotgun: Avoid the temptation to use G+ like another broadcast medium, as many do on Twitter, or duplicate what you’re doing on other platforms. Use G+ to supplement your other channels. What are you missing from your other channels? What can Google+ provide, keeping in mind some of the unique features? What will your key audiences be looking for from G+ that they’re not getting from Facebook or Twitter?

2. Start small: Start with 100 to 200 people to follow (or fewer) instead of thousands— high quality people (the usual industry leaders and influencers, but also other people you want to connect with on deeper levels). Invite select users like potential clients and highly regarded business colleagues—even those not tech savvy. You’re going to provide them a guide or two to get started and be their shepherd into G+, which gives you an (early adopter) edge if you execute right.  Put them in select Circles, and start thinking about how you’ll share with them. (Tip: use a URL shortener and add your G+ URL to your profiles and email signature; mine is http://gplus.to/markivey)

3. Strategize your Circles: The beauty of Google+ is how easily you can add people to follow in your Circles, and manage those for maximum efficiency. You can shoot out something to a large group, select a small to midsize group of friends, or even focus on just one person. So, it’s almost like tweeting (large group), blogging (your readers) and emailing (1:1 correspondence).

Spend some time to get this right. I’d suggest 8 to 12 Circles for starters. This might include different ones for your personal interests, friends/family, close business contacts, corporate clients, early adopters, influencers, “loose ties,” and so on. You need to define the Circles that make sense for you for maximum effectiveness. You can add more as you go. Carri Bugbee, a social media consultant, says she “creates circles based upon both geography and careers/interests. Most people will be in at least 2 circles of mine, if not more.”

One note: G+ is much easier than Facebook to control who you’re posting to, so you’re not overloading your important business contacts with all your marketing or personal posts.

4. Go deep: The key is to share only relevant, segmented posts that appeal to each group. G+ people are 2 to 3 times more likely to share within specific circles than in public, so I focus on creating and working with small groups, say by reaching out with a question to key people. For example, I’m helping my wife launch a new gluten-free Asian food business, and I called on my Circles for feedback. I also queried a small group about this story. You can also launch a questionnaire or poll. Do you have a new product, or want to help a client get feedback on certain features or issues?

The point is to  forget broadcasting;  think of developing fewer, deeper relationships, using more personal, targeted approaches.

For instance, Mari Smith, a social media marketing strategist with a large following, only posts two or three times a day on G+, compared to once an hour on Twitter, and several times a day on Facebook. The result is deeper, “tremendous engagement” and, interestingly, “more immediate responses than most other social networks,” she says.

5. Manage the noise: I put “loud” posters who I still want to keep any eye on (ex: Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki) in separate circles. I also “mute” conversations that quickly get out of hand and distract me with constant email reminders. (You can also turn them off completely.)

6. Interact: I follow about 8 or 10 people very closely and keep my eye on another dozen or so people. The rest I just check on (in my “stream”) once or so a day.  When someone says something interesting, I try to leave a comment or give it a 1+ (equal to a Facebook “like”). Do this selectively to build and connect  with your community, generate new connections and get added into the right groups/Circles. The key to managing this is limiting your sources, know what you’re looking for and being able to skim quickly and cut through the noise.

7.  Schedule your time, stay organized: Avoid getting sucked into G+ like any platform, set a time limit—say 30 to 40 minutes early morning and late day. Develop an editorial calendar and stick to it. Be clear on your objectives and goals each day, so you can stay focused. About once or twice a week go through your Circles and weed out the weak players (yes, it’s a little like a garden) by uncircling them.

Evaluate your strategy once a week. If it’s not working, make changes. Smart users like brand strategist Gaynelle Grover use Chrome’s extensions (ex: G+Me and Golden View) to make it easier to skim posts.

This is basically my approach to G+, but it is changing as I delve deeper and the platform evolves. Be sure to experiment with G+ to see what’s going to work for you. Explore “Hangouts” (live video conferencing chats) and “Huddles” (group messaging features. Try different types of interactive techniques and questions, posting different times of the week and day, and so on. Schedule in a little fun. (OK, forget the “schedule. Just go for it!)

See you online!

Usually, the problem is their content. It’s weak, weak, weak. Actually, it boils down to two problems: 1.) lame content and 2.) consistently producing content.

It’s not enough to produce a blog as good as your competitors—it needs to be good enough to compete with any blog fighting for your readers’ (and customers’) attention, including the big guys. We’re competing with everybody for eyeballs.

Here’s a list of what I consider the top 7 sins of poor corporate blogs (i.e., content). It’s not exhaustive, but it’s a good starting cheat sheet for content creators.

1.) You have no content strategy goals or program goals.

You don’t have clear goals, or you’re all over the map with six or seven goals. Where are you trying to go with your blog and content? What statement do you want to make? What do you stand for?

Get really clear on your program goals and specifically content strategy goals. Are you trying to build a brand, drive sales, or build industry influence? Your choices will shape your strategy and direction. Outline a clear strategy and road map—and how you’ll communicate it internally.

2.) You haven’t aligned your internal resources.

Who will be writing, driving and managing your social media content? Do you have a team of writers and project managers, or you and an intern? Consider hiring freelance writers or a content agency to support you. Every social media program needs editorial support. Create a solid team. Meeting resistance? Start small: Test drive with a 6-month blog pilot, which is easier to sell (and manage expectations).

Also don’t forget to line up your key advocates and stakeholders for support. Build presentations, proof points, and case studies to assure corporate buy-in. Make sure stakeholders provide input so they feel some ownership in your final program.

3.) You don’t have a clear niche.

You may be all over the map or casting your net too broadly. We live in a specialized world that’s being sliced finer, so you need a clear niche. Think in terms of magazines: magazines for fly fishermen, regional gardeners, mountain bikers, and so on. Think of your targeted audience first. How can you help solve their problems? Then niche down.

4.) You’re not listening to your audience/customers.

How can you position your company as an educator or customer problem solver if you don’t know what the problems are? Listening tools like Radian6 will help you stay on top of hot trends and story topics, which in turn will generate newsy, relevant blog material (there are also plenty of free, less sophisticated tools). Sit in on executive presentations with customers (if you can). Try to connect with your sales teams— they know the customer pain points.

5.)  You’re boring.

The problem is corporate bloggers are not really writers, so bring in some editors to stimulate ideas and interesting angles. Train your bloggers on writing/blogging techniques and how to spin a story.

Think like a journalist. Look for stories under every crack (customer visits, exec presentations, your kid’s soccer game). Tie into a news event or interesting industry development—and strike fast. The early bird gets the (social media) worm. Be sure to take on a strong, clear point of view; a contrarian view is even better. And last, write a great headline. Focus on a benefit, “how to” do something, ask a blatant question (“Is Your IT Security REALLY Secure?”) or make a very direct statement (like my headline).

6.)  You’re not authentic.

Don’t populate your blog with thinly veiled press releases—it doesn’t work. Nor do “group personalities.” People want to talk to people, not robots. Try to speak from your personal experiences: “I just came out of a customer meeting, and, boy, did I get an earful … Here’s my takeaway … ”

Even better, tell personal stories. Stories break down barriers and resistance, creating emotional bond. They’re memorable. For a great example, read Steve Job’s 2005 Stanford commencement speech, which is gritty, personal—and ends with a powerful message: you won’t live forever, so make every day count.

7.) You don’t have a publishing system.

A publishing system (“content engine”) provides a framework and best practices to assure a steadier content production and even quality, tying all this together. The system starts with monitoring trending topics and relevant discussions, includes aggregation (distilling down all the noise into relevant topics) and editorial support (identifying angles, light editing) and ends with measurement. You’ll also need an editorial calendar and regular blogger meetings to drive consistent content; think WSJ or Business Week (my old employer).

And one final bonus tip: End every blog post with a powerful ending. Don’t leave your readers hanging. As the book Content Rules points out, you need to give them options on what to do next at the end of a post they’ve enjoyed, something to think about or call to action. Create momentum.

So, don’t wait. The social media world moves fast, and every reader you turn off is another reader lost. Start with one of these problems, fix it, then move on to the next. Wash, rinse, repeat. Before you know it, your blog will be rocking.

If not, your content is holding back your social media efforts—and if it’s really weak or misdirected, it could be even be damaging your business.

I’ve often wondered why most company content is still so weak. After working with many  B2B companies, I’ve come up with two simple reasons. First, most employees trying to blog aren’t writers. Secondly, they don’t have time to blog; they’re scrambling just to hold down their “day jobs.” We’ve tried to impose our egalitarian pipe dream—that everyone should blog—and it hasn’t really worked.

So about three years ago, I began doing the unthinkable (at least if you’re a social media purist). I began bringing in writers and editors to help. Turns out the old publishing model (revised for the social media age) works well.

My focus here are motivated bloggers—they can and want to blog but just aren’t up to it for the reasons I mention. There’s another group of those who can’t or won’t blog. This might be senior management or top subject matter experts who don’t have the time or want to fuss with it. These require a more one-on-one attention and hand-holding approach.

Start out by sitting down with the bloggers and social media manager to understand their goals. Are they trying to build a brand or awareness, drive sales, or something else? Conduct an audit to determine their level of skills. On a scale of 1 to 10, what are their blogging/writing skills? Subject knowledge?

You want to qualify your bloggers if you’re just starting. (Only once did I have a blogger outside the United States whose writing was so bad we couldn’t use him—but it happens.)

Then you set up your editorial support system. This would include:

• Basic research and marketing intelligence—Have them start using listening tools like Google Alerts and Radian6 to identify related blogs and conversations, so they’re well-versed.
• Story angles and suggestions—This is where you act as a sounding board and keep them on track with industry discussions. Too many times business bloggers revert back to their comfort zone subjects. In some cases, you might offer high-level outlines to provide suggested angles and structure.
• Light editing—You’re serving as another set of eyes to catch major mistakes or tweak a thought or two. Avoid heavy editing. It’s their blog, remember?

There’s a lot more but this will get you started. Other support services might include strategies for marketing the blog, along with commenting, and SEO tips and strategies.

You need to develop a framework that will keep the trains rolling, starting with an editorial calendar. Deadlines, schedules, and structure force bloggers to work with you to crank out copy systematically. You might set a schedule for starters of simply one blog per blogger per week, and build from there. I’d suggest an editorial meeting weekly initially, and then bimonthly as you develop a cadence.

The goal is to provide your social media types with the framework and resources that make it easier to blog, tweet, and so on—and do it well. But you don’t want to lose their “voice” in the process; that’s the trick.

One caveat: I’ve worked on these programs for several companies, and it’s never fast or cheap. You’ll have to balance this against budgets and resources, and figure out how to make the program scale.

You should be able to slash the blogger’s invested time at least 50% with a publishing model, with your editors picking up the slack. Do it right, and you’ll get a steadier flow of higher-quality content at a consistent cost. You’ll also sleep better at night knowing you’re not just throwing content over the wall.

It was an interesting ride. I managed a team of editors and project managers, and was lucky enough to work with bloggers and social media managers across the organization and test-drive dozens of ideas. Given the challenges, I was surprised at how much progress we made.

But still, I came away with the same question that has nagged me for five years of working with companies like Cisco and Sprint on social media programs: Why is it so hard to drive change in these companies? Why do they struggle with social media?

Most big companies admit they’re still coming up short on using social media. Only 12% in one survey say they’re using it effectively; another 43% admit they’re using it ineffectively.

Another sign is that corporate blogs (particularly B2B) are still light years behind independent bloggers in quality of content, engagement, and every other measure. How much buzz do you see being generated by your favorite corporate blog?

So I began rethinking social media earlier this year. One idea eventually dawned on me. Maybe we’re trying to do too much at once (“boiling the ocean”). We still need to walk before we start running in most companies.

Changing the Corporate DNA

Real change—like “socializing” a company’s communications—takes enormous time and effort. As GigaOm’s Om Malik points out in a wonderful post, companies develop habits, processes, and work environments that eventually come to define the company. They are like deeply ingrained “instructions” or “corporate DNA.” Changing this is no easy feat.

Rather than delude yourself into thinking you’re going to change an entire company, be smart. Start with focused, achievable goals and programs. Think small.

You can practice “being small” in many ways:

1.) Identify one strong, motivated group or organization for a carefully planned pilot program (blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) rather than launching across an entire company. Assemble a focused team. Plan, strategize, execute. Document metrics, proof points, and best practices. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

2.) Don’t force everyone to blog. Most corporate employees don’t have the time or inclination, so don’t waste your time on massive education programs. The key is to identify a few motivated enthusiasts—and support them with targeted personalized editorial resources, such as market intelligence, editorial tips and strategies, story angles, and related subject blogs. Then get out of the way.

3.) Cultivate senior management support, one at a time. Even fewer senior execs  have time to blog, so you need to identify the one mostly likely to work with you and meet with their team, starting with their communications manager (if they have one). Support them with personalized research, story angles, messaging, and an outline or rough draft. Social media purists will scream about anything that smacks of ghosting, but it’s not that much different than any other executive communications support. (Do you really think Steve Jobs writes his own speeches?)  The CEO owns the final post. They may still resist, so start with one guest blog post on a friendly industry or partner site. Think small.

4.) Find a friend in sales. Social media and sales are uneasy bed partners. Most salespeople are skeptical that it helps beyond the awareness stage of the sales cycle, and they aren’t even sure about that. Don’t worry about converting all of sales into believers. Find one hip sales team or person, and develop a social media pilot that will help you map out social media across the entire sales cycle, while providing the ammunition (proof points, metrics, best practices) you need to prove it works and broaden your program.

No Easy Ride

Small steps will eventually pave the way for bigger, more ambitious programs, but don’t expect an easy ride. Resources and employees are stretched, the workload is brutal, and social media is still unproven (particularly in the B2B space).  Then there are the intangibles. So much of succeeding inside a corporation revolves around relationships, priorities, politics, and perceptions. Social media is no different.

I remember one of Cisco’s smaller partners challenging me during a training on the value of blogging:  “If I’m not selling, I’m losing money. The rest is just noise.”

But it’s that “noise” (channeled correctly) that represents the future; it’s your customers, investors, competitors, employees.

I still believe we’ll get to the Digital Promise Land, where social media practices are accepted as the norm across the organization. But that will be in a few years. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to dream big and focus on what I do best, while keeping my attention on the “little picture.”

You should too.

Some readers may challenge this description–isn’t Twitter a wild west environment, a raging river of commentary, observations and random chitchat?
But by framing it this way–as a “place” we can relate to–author Shel Israel set the stage for what turns out to be an engaging page-turner.
Twitterville is not a hard-hitting expose of Twitter, and it’s not a step by step tutorial and/or best practices. The book, instead, is a sweeping story describing how this quirky little site –originally developed for internal company purposes–has been transformed into one of the hottest social media platforms on the planet. Israel pulls this off by weaving company case studies, human adventures and various other examples into a fascinating romp through a world few understand.
Israel came into social media after a long career in traditional communications (journalism, public relations/marketing). His earlier book (co-authored with legendary blogger Robert Scoble), Naked Conversations, explored the individual blog movement and touched on bigger trends, building on earlier books like ClueTrain Manifesto (“conversations are markets”). But those “movements” stopped short of the big corporate doors and what will eventually be even more sweeping changes (Read my Q&A with Israel to see how he compares the two book-writing experiences).
There is much to like about this book, but here are few of my highlights:
* Engaging story and history
o Israel shows vividly how Twitter was developed almost as an accident from other technologies. Back then it was known as TWTTR, and used to communicate with small, mobile work groups. Israel, as always, tells the story by weaving in personal accounts of the founders as they experimented with the new toy (Twitter Inc. was not formed until October 2006). He also covers the ample turbulence–the “fail whales”–and many growing pains.
o Israel’s personal journey through his world of technology–taking us back to his childhood days in the 50s and early advent of TV–also makes for a good read, putting new developments like Twitter into perspective.

* Great case examples
o This book is filled with great human examples spanning education, government, and business. His description of personal tweeting and news gathering from the hurricane ravaged New Orleans to Mumbai, India, where terrorists just struck, is compelling reading.
o There’s also more than 100 stories of how businesses and organizations (Dell, Comcast, Southwest Air, etc) have used Twitter to “successfully conduct marketplace conversations,” as Israel put it. Comcast, for instance, made a good dent in its negative public perception with its ComcastCares Twitter site–run by one guy. These stories alone are invaluable for business professionals who are trying to get their arms around the social media movement.
o Both midsize and large companies will find plenty of examples here (small companies–not so much). On the flip side, he shows how some companies’ ignorance of Twitter cost them. The “Motrin Moms” and Pepsi 1 calorie suicide ads both caused huge backlashes on Twitter. Corporate media types should take careful note of these lessons–Israel lays them all out neatly.
* Personal branding
This is an interesting chapter where Israel re-asserts we are in a transformational time, a new Conversational era replacing the old Broadcast era. Intrusion ads and one-direction campaigns are giving way to conversations and engagements. But while people have lost faith in corporate brands, faith in personal brands remains strong. Now everyone is basically a free agent; we’re all responsible for our own personal brands–and platforms like Twitter provide a perfect way to shape these, while accelerating the process of branding building. Israel uses personal examples like super blogger Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang to show how you can build a personal brand (again, using colorful human examples).
I could go on and on: each of these chapters has a message worth heeding. Israel talks about how Twitter allows us to converse more naturally than any other social media platform (hence, its success). In another chapter (“Braided Journalism”) he shows the massive shift we’ve had from traditional newsgathering to citizen journalists and others breaking news. This is a big deal.
If there is any fault to this book, it’s that Israel sometimes seems to bend over backwards to present a glowingly positive story, while glossing over the negative aspects. For every act of generosity (the “cult of generosity”), there are hundreds of examples of mindless chatter or shameless promotions on Twitter (There is one chapter describing the spammers and other dark forces).
I also wish he would have addressed more of the big picture and where all of this is going–this would have been a nice conclusion chapter. My feeling is Twitter, whether it’s swallowed up by a bigger fish like Google or Murdoch or not, reflects a much bigger phenomenon that is already reshaping how we communicate as individuals and businesses. This transformational shift will eventually affect all of us in the communications business and beyond–but how?
But these are small quibbles about a book that does pretty much what it set out to do, tell a fascinating story about one of the worlds most interesting companies/movements.
As I was meandering around Israel’s book launch party bash Sunday, it dawned on me that Twitter is a sort of state of mind–and people either get it or they don’t. But by localizing it–by framing it as a “place” that readers can relate to–Israel humanized it in a way that makes it digestible for people far outside the social media circles.
Twitter may come and go eventually, but people will be talking about it for many years as one of the true pioneers that launched this new age. Israel did a great job capturing the human forces and everything else in Twitter’s short but crazy roller-coaster ride. Take a break from tweeting, pick up the book and read it (Sept. 3 publishing date). You’ll be glad you did.
(To understand how Israel sees all of this playing out for communications professionals, read his Q&A).

Now I’m not so sure, and the future of another big name publication–and the lives of 190 BW editors–is in limbo.
Obviously, the golden age of print publications–and journalism–is now long over. I was lucky enough to be one of those journalists during the 1980s, writing for BusinessWeek for almost a decade (bureau chief in Houston and Denver). I departed in early 1992 to take a job a senior writer at Intel, where I eventually moved into marketing and pioneered a national educational outreach effort, becoming Intel’s “PC Dad.” That would bring TV and radio appearances, a book deal, syndicated column and later a career shift, into consulting.
I never looked back, but even today, I fully appreciate what journalism–and BW in particular–did for me.
BW provided me the skills to research, master and write about complex subjects quickly and the courage to tackle tough issues. That often meant knocking heads with CEOs (ex: Enron’s CEO Ken Lay) and PR departments. My writing became tighter, more polished, more “efficient”–and more effective. I became highly proficient in rooting out the “story” in every assignment. Ultimately I learned to become a true communicator.
But it was more than that. For almost a decade I got to work with some of the top journalists in the field, and within an efficient editorial and publishing system that, despite some glitches, worked well. Damn well.
The best examples came when I was tested.
Once, early on, I was assigned to write a news story detailing the downfall of an independent refiner in New Orleans. The story included accusations of how wreckless management doomed the company, leading to a Chapt. 11 filing. My editor complained when I handed in the first version of the story: “not tough enough” and too many holes, he barked.
I went back and reviewed all my research, which included more than a dozen interviews, and reworked the story. The next version was tougher, tighter and more solid. After two more editors reviewed, and we went over all the facts; it was approved and published two days later.
The next day I got a call from the president of the small company. He was furious and ranted on for several minutes, how he was going to “kick my ass” and hire a high-powered law firm out of DC (which had just won a well-publicized case against the Washington Post) to pursue legal action. The guy had already fired his PR manager and was now moving on to the source of his problem, me … and BusinessWeek.
He did hire the law firm, and a week or so later I was forced to turn my notes over to the lawyers of McGraw Hill, the parent company of BW. The two sides went back and forth for a few weeks but MH wasn’t budging; the law firm eventually backed off.
This was way back in the 1980s, not even a decade after Watergate broke.
That refiner might get an easier ride today. What blogger is going to tackle an investigative story or contentious subject like this –or risk a legal assault?
To be clear, I’m not arguing to hang on to an outdated business model. This IS an old, tired industry, badly in need of a revamp. It’s been weakening for years–wouldn’t it have been great if a newspaper (ala Watergate) had broken the Madoff story?
Meantime, bloggers and “citizen journalists” have brought new passion and energy into the business. Who couldn’t be impressed with the grass-roots reporting and video clips that recently came out of Iran?
But the system we are ushering in so quickly is not enough to fill the void being left by the old guard (despite all their weaknesses). Sure, anyone with a pulse and a Wordpress account can blog. But who will break the tough stories? Who will uncover the political and business corruption? Who will do the hard reporting, the hard work?
Sorry, it won’t be the Huffington Post.
I’d like to think that BusinessWeek could be completely revamped to be more interactive, more open, more fluid, starting with its online edition. Stories could be more organic, allowing for even higher levels of interaction on Businessweek.com. Citizen journalists could play a role, while even providing a platform for the business subjects. Imagine if a CEO could give us a glimpse behind the scenes of their daily routines?
The truth, though, is its editors, led by editor in chief John A. Byrne, have already launched more than a dozen blogs and are slowly moving this direction. The problem is that even these changes will not be enough to help the ailing print publication (circ 936,000), which is bleeding red ink and heavily dependent on advertising (down more than a third in 1h 09). BW’s rivals Fortune and Forbes aren’t faring much better.
Options and potential buyers appear to be few and far between, and even in the best circumstances BW would likely fetch a very modest price. They need more money and more time–and right now, both appear to be in short supply.

The first piece was on the art of digital small talk (social media discussions) in the Wall Street Journal. The second article was about the futility of selling via social media platforms, by John Dvorak.
These two articles have nothing to do with each other. But together they help me think through The Question from a little different angle. The answer revolves around the mindset in which we approach social media in corporate America; in short, we’re trying to sell and market when social media is about people, not products.
Social media is all about giving, engaging, connecting–and yes, small talk. But our typical corporate management style clashes with this. How can you fully engage with an individual when your total focus is on meeting “deliverables,” adhering to processes and showing results?
Small talk is a great example. It’s usually glossed over in most companies. Sure, we use it to break the ice in starting meetings and smooth over working relationships.But for the most part its value is far less than in the social media world, which is fueled by small talk.
That’s too bad, because as the Journal article stated:
“.. small talk is actually serious business. Small talk is a form of social insurance, explains John T. Cacioppo, the director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. “If I’m going to need to rely on you, then if we stay in touch on meaningless things, we can eventually work effectively together,” he says. “It’s like team practice …. a basketball team has to practice together to win.”
I see small talk as a sort of barometer of how far we’ve come with social media–or not come. Many companies are still trying to shoehorn social media into existing marketing paradigms. This often means “driving messages,” or trying to employ social media platforms as PR or marketing tools. In other cases, companies are trying to drive their sales using platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
There are exceptions of companies making money via social media platforms and sales models based on selling to friends and relatives are as old as the hills. But I’ve always been leery of them, and believe they actually backfire in social media.
Dvorak estimates that, out of his 55,000 followers, he’d be lucky to get more than 0.4% to buy something, or 1/5th the results of a typical direct mail campaign.
As he says, “For some reason, people always want to associate social networking with the ability to sell something when we should take all social networking at its face value. It’s about socializing, not about selling stuff to your friends.”
Of course, companies are different than individuals–or are they? Actually companies need to also walk a fine line between spamming customers, media and employees. They also need to create conversations and provide real value.
This means giving first–providing real value to your customers, employees, partners, etc.
Blogger Dosh-Dosh captures this nicely in his post on giving:
“Give them helpful free content. Give them answers to their questions. Give them a freebie. Point them to tools they need and things they should know. Give them tips they can instantly use in their lives/business. Give them pleasant surprises. Give them interaction. Give them promises you can keep. Develop a history of giving. Be known as a giver.”
Small talk, in a sense, is giving–giving advice, giving your ideas, giving your time. Ok, much of it is just chatter on Twitter and Facebook. But at its best small talk can build bridges and strengthen relationships, something most companies desperately need.
I’ve been impressed with big companies like Cisco, where CEO John Chambers has regular town-hall type meetings with employees and people are free to blog and express their views. Other companies have made strides in breaking down the walls that separates them from their customers and employees. But these examples are few and far between, and much work still needs to be done.
At the end of the day, social networking–and success in marketing going forward–will always be about people. The only difference now is they’re in the driver’s seat.
Think people. Think small.

Now we live in a new world that is no longer shaped by printing presses and information scarcity. Yet everyday I see companies that make these mistakes: they want to launch the perfect blog, create the polished video, craft the right message.
They often find out the hard way that this is not what blogging and social media is about. It’s more about conveying compelling ideas and connecting with audiences in authentic ways, not just writing beautiful prose or top-down marketing approaches.
Speed is more critical too. There’s not enough time to go through two rounds of approvals on every blog. Slick videos are meanwhile seen as advertising–they don’t ring true.
The new style–conversational, open, engaging, and fluid–just doesn’t mix with traditional marketing and communications. Think oil and water.
It’s not easy to break old habits–the curse of the corporate perfectionist–and I’m still working on it. To help, I’ve adapted a different “just good enough” approach the last year.
Just good enough (JGE) is both a mindset and operating strategy, a lense through which to view my world.
Let me clarify: this is not an excuse to get out of work or get sloppy (warning to my kids: take note). It’s a way of refocusing and balancing quality and related issues against the needs of the new social media world.
The following seven “habits” apply to blogs, but the concept cuts across social media and beyond:
1) Don’t try to cover too much. Don’t try to boil the ocean–focus on a specific theme/topic. This can be very narrow. I read social media bloggers like Louis Gray, Steve Rubel and Chris Brogan. They may veer into other areas but mainly they stick to what they know. Their writing may not match a top business magazine but their cutting edge content and conversational style more than makes up for it.
2) Don’t worry about being the most beautiful: Blogs aren’t a beauty contest, and some of the most successful platforms will make your head swim. The Drudge Report is basically just dozens of headlines and a few pics, with little thought given to graphics.
The Huffington Post is a media circus, packed with graphics–rotating story heads, screaming headlines, dancing bears. Both draw millions of viewers. I’m not advocating an intentionally bad design (my partner is a veteran graphic designer and would shoot me) but you don’t need to go overboard with graphics.
3) Learn to write fast–and often. The founder of BoingBoing said when he first started the blog in 2000, he’d left for a week only to return and find a big traffic increase. The reason: the guy pinch hitting for him was blogging 20 times a day vs once a day for him. It wasn’t exactly Hemingway, but good enough–and readers loved it..
Another example: TechCrunch would never be mistaken for Fortune or BusinessWeek but they churn out the copy– 13 posts for a recent day (June 1). Most are short, punchy, opinionated, industry focused (“Google Upgrades Custom Search Box on Blogger”)–and very well read.
4) Keep it simple: Break your ideas down to the simplest form, and make it easy for your readers to understand. Limiting your number of key points will give you focus and help you communicate more clearly.
5) Write short (if you want). Many marketers still think in terms of long articles or white papers. Think again. Look at Seth Godin, who takes one quick ideas and briefly expands upon it with a link or two. Back on my (ION) site, one of my most popular blogs was a brief piece on five powerful Twitter search engines.
6) Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Let your bloggers write in their own voices–if they screw up, you can fix it later (your readers will let you know). On a larger scale, companies that try social media experiments and fail will actually advance faster than those that sit on the sidelines for too long (“fail faster” is the new mantra).
Walmart, for one, has come back from several social media marketing debacles to start getting some traction by last year with its “Check Out” blog, according to consultant Charlene Li.
7) Listen, converse, and connect. Quit working so hard to push ideas down the readers’ throats and back off the hard messaging. Trying providing quality information in a human voice, listening and engaging with your audiences; chances are, they’ll come to you.
JGE can apply to other areas of your life, such as presentations. Highly polished professional speakers can dazzle a crowd. Yet when I attended the recent Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco recently, I was impressed with the speakers–not because of their slick speaking style, but because of their powerful content and the way they connected with their audiences. (See Lessons of the Inbound Marketing Summit).
You might be able to get even more done, and do it better, by “doing less,” according to the blog Zen Habits. This blogger talks about focusing your efforts across your work. A recent posting boiled it down to:
1) Setting one “big goal” at a time.
2) Limiting to no more than three projects.
3) Prioritizing the three most important tasks each day.
I would add:
4) Being satisfied with doing a good job and moving on.
Sure, there are times when you need the very best and “just good enough” is not good enough. But in most cases you don’t need to have the very best blog or website, no more than you need to take the very best walk in the park or see the very best sunset.
Settle for less, and do more. Give yourself a break. The next project will always be waiting.