Social Rock Stars, Geeks, and the Oral Tradition

Becoming a top social “maven” on a social news site is a big deal in some circles. For a marketer looking for attention, it is a windfall if handled correctly.Read about “social rock stars” and one blogger’s deep take on what it means when 40%-50% of the Digg front page is controlled by the Digg Top 100.

The article is entitled “From Geek to Gods: Why Have “Social Rock Stars” Emerged?” Pretty interesting except I am not sure how “geeky” it is to become addicted to being in the limelight by being the know-it-all.The housewife who is on the phone constantly reporting the latest gossip isn’t a geek. She’s just a busy body!

Edit: I retract the doubt I felt about labeling people at Digg “geeks.” Just under the story above I found this:

“Sex With Robots? Not so far off says author” After seeing this story get 524 Diggs in less than 24 hours, I now believe there is use for the term “flaming geek.”

—

Related Social Media Marketing Tales from the Sphere…

The Best Authority Site Building Advice On The Planet | Social Media Market..
Social Media is a Waste of Time, Part I : Ignite Social Media
How to Make A Blog Post Go Viral with Social Media
Situational Marketing: Social Media Mom Gets Ninja Status
10 Ways Twitter Can Boost Your Social News Profile - ReadWriteWeb
Fun Friday Online Marketing Links

Tags: digg top 100, social rock stars

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Are Headlines Tangling Your Readers?

Guest Post by Michel Fortin

I’m up for a challenge.

Just recently, my friend and SEO blogging expert Andy Beard posted an
article about an interesting case study.

After simply rewording the headline of a blog post, John Wesley literally
multiplied his traffic to one of his blog posts by 10 times.

With the same post!

In other words, nothing was changed except for the headline. The article was
exactly the same, word for word. But by changing the headline slightly, the
blog post drew a ton of traffic, particularly from social networking sites.

Well, now’s your chance to have me do the same thing for you — and learn a
thing or two, too. Here’s how. Let me rewire one of your own headlines for
maximum selling power. But there’s a catch…

Before I let you put me to the test, let me share with you a few tips.

I know that, with salesletters, changing the headline can increase response,
sometimes by as much as 700%. I’ve seen this in split-test after split-test.
And the reason is, while the copy may be good, the headline is often where
the bottleneck occurs.

A good indicator, if your copy is online, is to track your visits. If there’
s a wide gap between the times people stay on your site, you know the
headline is the culprit.

In other words, if a lot people hit and leave, while many stay longer to
read the copy, then you know the copy is good — and the fact it is the
headline that needs improvement.

(Those who stayed but for only a few seconds were not enticed enough by your
headline to start reading. But those who did were interested. Whether they
bought or not is a whole other ballgame. And a whole other blog post.)

Remember, the purpose of a headline is to get people to start reading. That’
s it. But if the headline is poor, generic or vague, it can deter readers
who might greatly benefit from the content — or the product being offered.

The question is, how do you do that? The best headlines I’ve seen are those
that start a story, make a shocking statement, tease a bit, offer a benefit
or prepare the reader for what’s to come.

I’ve lumped these in my “3 x 3 Headline Rule.”

That is, your headline should cater to the three greatest human goals (to
make or save time, effort or money), the three greatest human desires (lust,
greed or comfort), or the three greatest human teasers (curiosity, scarcity
or controversy).

(Or a combination of any of these.)

But aside from these, I have found that the most productive headlines have
at least five common characteristics:

1) They are clear.

No vagueness here. Headlines that are universally and easily understood,
that is they speak in plain language and cater to as wide a market as
possible, are definitely going to attract more readers. As the sarcastic
adage goes, “Eschew obfuscation.”

2) They are specific.

Most people tend to be general in their headline in an attempt to summarize
the content. A headline is not meant to summarize; it’s meant to create
readership. You’re not writing a book. You’re writing copy.

3) They are targeted.

Who, specifically, is your reader? Better yet, who is your perfect customer?
Once you know who you are targeting with your offer, your headline can both
target and qualify the reader even before they read your copy.

4) They are driven.

Headlines don’t tell. They sell. They sell the reader on the content of the
copy — not on the offer. And as such, they are action-driven, whether that
action is implied or stated.

5) They are newsworthy.

Sure, there will always be a place for benefit-oriented headlines. But some
of the most powerful headlines I’ve seen of late are those that have news
angle tied to them. They are newsy or newsworthy.

If there were a sixth one, I would say there was indeed another common
denominator. Although not found in all successful headlines, it’s the fact
that the headline creates vivid mental imagery. (Meaning, they are
picturesque.)

If the headline paints a picture in the mind of the reader, it will engage
the reader and compel them to read further. For example, “Zoom Past Your
Competitors” evokes a better picture than to simply “Surpass Your
Competition.”

OK, let’s have some fun. Shall we?

Here’s a cool way to learn how to write great headlines by actually watching
me work.

Inspired by Brian Clark who rewired post headlines on his own blog for fun,
and explained why magnetic headlines attract more readers by giving his
reasoning with each suggestion, I’m prepared to do the same.

If you have a post you’ve written and it didn’t do too well, then give me
the URL to your blog post in the comments below. I’ll pick a few of them
(time permitting, of course), and I’ll rewrite the headline.

Even more than that, I’ll explain my reasoning behind the change in a
subsequent blog post. That way, you’ll get to see the change and learn why I
made it.

Here’s the catch.

While I’m primarily a salesletter copywriter, I must limit myself to blog
posts because I will need to read the entire post — I don’t have the time to
read each and every salesletter, word for word.

Also, I can’t promise that my headline will generate a massive influx of
traffic like John Wesley’s blog mentioned at the beginning of this article.
But I would love to hear from you and the results my change might do.

Ready? OK, go ahead and let ‘er rip…

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, marketing strategy
consultant, and instrumental in some of the most lucrative online businesses
and wildly successful marketing campaigns to ever hit the web. For more
articles like this one, please visit his blog and subscribe to his RSS feed.

Tags: headlines, michel fortin, writing good headlines

Social Marketing Means Being Highly Efficient

If you have read the Authority Black Book or belong to either of my membership sites (Social Power Linking or Authority Site Center) you are now fully aware of just how much time you can spend on social marketing.

This social “thing” is bigger than you!

In no time at all you can begin to feel like you are out of control and are forgetting things left and right. Like what accounts on which sites you have to go back to weekly or monthly to put up new content, vote, and generally participate to build your “remote authority” on social news and other web 2.0 sites.

I will be coming out with tools in 2008 to help frazzled social marketers keep accounts and schedules straight in a proper social marketing campaign.

But, since I have a trike to build for my son and things to wrap, I am going to let you in on a cool tool my friend and PR expert Marc Harty just turned me onto.

If you want to see how much time you are spending on which social sites, check out “Rescue Time.”

It will tell you the cold, hard truth about which sites you are spending the most time on. Given that social marketers need to participate to build up authoritative profiles on their main sites yet move efficiently through their social marketing “chores” each day, you can see if you are in need of a kick in the pants right on your desktop.

The #1 complaint social marketers have revolves around time management and efficiency.

This little tool will help you figure out where you can save time and increase the number of social sites you can interact with and generate links from daily.

Another neat tool Marc pointed out was Wakoopa.

This one tells you how much time you spend on desktop applications. Combined you should get a good picture of where you can save precious moments to increase your efficiency and your reach with your social marketing campaign.

Tags: marc harty, rescue time, social marketing, time management, wakoopa

Your Social Media Empire in 10 Steps

I don’t know how I miss some of this stuff.  Quite frequently I trip over some incredible posts that are not “hot off the presses.”

It goes to show that there is a massive amount of information flying around and just when you just realize the post you just got sucked into actually sucks, another post goes up somewhere that you’d have much preferred reading.

I must have been reading one of those crappy posts that promised the moon in the title and delivered yesterdays news in the body when “10 Steps to Building and Online Media Empire” was written.   Sometime in September, while I was giving my precious attention to something written by a troop of monkeys on speed, Ben Yoskovitz at InstigatorBlog.com was pressing his “publish” button on one of the best posts on social media marketing of 2007.

He had help by being able to link to the thought leaders, minus moi, in the social media strategy sphere.  But he did a masterful job of gathering only the best content to link to without seeming gratuitous or desperate to get attention from the A-Listers he linked to.

i.e. - every link makes sense and it is a supporting link to his post, which was original and well-written all on its own.

The post itself is a study in the new linkbait. 

Used to be a good list of places to visit on a topic would do the trick.  Well, we are all largely “list drunk” now and looking for more meat.  Ben’s post shows you how to deliver the meat.

Study it and try something like that on your blog.  I bet you a six pack you’ll get more attention in the social news sites and from other bloggers than you are used to!

Tags: ben yoskovitz, instigator blog, linkbait, social marketing, social media

Social Power Linking Community 100 Strong in 24 Hours

Edit: SPL blew past the 200 member mark today, December 20th. Many reviews from members are posted below…

—

Without much fanfare, no months long teaser campaign, and zero hype, Social Power Linking re-launched yesterday.

Over 100 people signed up to experience something they weren’t expecting: a packed-to-the-gills training center on web 2.0 social marketing and Power Linking tactics designed to boost any site’s traffic from insignificant to major niche player in a short amount of time.

Traffic that, if you were to pay for it via Adwords or by hiring an SEO firm, would cost you tens of thousands of dollars per year. Power Linkers, of course, don’t pay for traffic we can get for free.

And our organically driven traffic is more qualified and converts higher than your average Adwords traffic.

We Might Have Done 200+ If Our Price Was Higher!

Because everyone has been trained over the last year to think that quality means paying $997.00 for a course or $197.00 per month for a membership, we had a lot of people thinking this was a hastily thrown together “side show” community.

Some figured it was just a lead in for ASC with light content to tease them to a higher priced membership.

On all counts, those folks were wrong.

What we are doing with our low price point is pricing for volume. Many gurus tell people when creating products to work up to large ticket items. Now people are simply launching formerly $20-$50/month sites at $97-$197.00. Same volume and quality of content as before, just higher priced because they see “everyone else” doing it.

Also, a lot of people know their product only appeals to a certain number of people and they have to price it high to make a profit on low sales volume. That’s natural and good.

But Social Power Linking appeals to the masses.

The market for people looking to get more free traffic to their sites is massive. Combine what people are charging hundreds or thousands per month for, with mass appeal and low price point, and you have SPL.

Our Network Must Be Big

Because we have things built into the community like content swaps, keyword swaps, and other tactics to help members network and get more valuable links, bigger is better. The more members we have, the more opportunities for individual members to pick up killer links and traffic.

So we are doing really cool stuff to ensure we hit our first benchmark at the end of January of 1000 members.

Everyone who signs up for SPL automatically gets enrolled in the affiliate program. When a member writes a review or a success story using one of our tactics with their affiliate link embedded, their site gets promoted by our staff!

When is the last time you joined an affiliate program and got promoted by the product owner’s staff of Power Linking Ninjas?

That’s just what we do. We get you links, votes in the social sites, submissions and any other links we can for you. Think what that does for your affiliate sales. Now, think what that will do for your entire domain in the engines and for list signups, sales, and direct traffic all over your domain!

We, of course, promote your review page, but we are increasing the value and link popularity of your whole domain in the process.

That’s worth $29.95 about 100 times over.

That’s a peek at how we’ll be building this membership to thousands of Power Linkers in short order. Everyone involved with the community will benefit in so many ways for so little money that it will take off like a California wildfire.

So, if you are one of the thousands who took a look yesterday but decided it was too good to be true, take another look because once in a blue moon something actually is better than advertised.

We don’t like to have massive launches and make people sick of hearing from us through our hundreds of JV partners. It’s not our style. But don’t let the fact that people aren’t lighting themselves on fire to get your attention about this fool you into thinking it’s not the place for you to be to grow your presence on the web.

Give Social Power Linking a try for 30 days.

If it isn’t paying for itself with just one good link you pick up that might otherwise cost you $50+ per month if you had to pay for it, just ask for a refund. Simple.

Social Power Linking Reviews and Stories

• Andy Beard
• Neil Shearing
• Richard Mathiason
• Rick Hendershot
• Tuesdays With Maury
• The Power Of Social Linking Illustrated by Brittany Spears
• David Lee Venters
• Give Him The Gift of Traffic
• Andrew Daum
• Sly Marketing
• Tony Zayas
• Social Power Linking - Does It Deliver?
• Internet Home Business Blog Review of Social Power Linking
• Review on Zimbio
• Generating Web 2.0 Traffic
• En Espanol: Alberto Abudara
• The Home Business Archive

Tags: getting links, getting traffic, seo, social power linking, social power linking review

TwitterFeed Puts Your Blog On Twitter

Finally a use for Twitter!

There’s a neat little beta service out called TwitterFeed.com that allows you to Twitter your RSS feed (any number of feeds really) with your current Twitter account.

Setup was funky because you have to learn about OpenID if you’ve never done that before (I hadn’t and I have over 900 logins stored in my RoboForm!) but once you get logged in, it takes about a nanosecond to get setup with your blog feed going directly to your Twitter account.

Yes, Twitter uses “TinyURL” instead of direct URLS, but people are reporting direct traffic from this.  Might be worth a look.

I set mine up for a 12 hour check, meaning it only bothers my feed once every 12 hours and posts up to 5 of the latest posts on the blog each time.

Some people might call this spam, but Twitter is spam anyway.  Permission-based spam among friends to bore you to death with their every twitch throughout the day, so don’t feel bad!  You will be “bugging” your friends with information that’s actually useful.

Make a completely useless tool useful!   Post your RSS feed to Twitter!

Here’s my pathetic little Twitter account.  According to TwitterFeed.com, it will soon be a treasure trove of information!

Tags: post rss to twitter, rss feed twitter, twitter feed, twitterfeed

Social Power Linking Re-Opens As a Social Marketing Community

Some of you know that we closed the offer for my Social Power Linking DVD set awhile back. On the domain it said we were revamping the information and creating a new community for Social Power Linkers.

That’s true, but what I left out is our big “brain fart.” You simply cannot have a product in print or on disc about Web 2.0 and social marketing and expect it to last as long as something on DVD should. While the training on the discs will be relevant for some time to come, when you start thinking about how to get people updated on the latest tactics you’ve tested, you can’t send out DVDs every time.

It became apparent to me that the only way to get (and KEEP) people up to date on the latest social marketing tactics was to re-organize and turn the thing into a community with a low monthly fee for membership.

And that’s what we’ve been working on for the last month. Today, Social Power Linking has reopened and is set up exactly the way it should be!

1. Content deliverable online, instantly

2. Reports in PDF, training in audio and video

3. A community forum to network and leverage the group power of social marketing

4. First community goal: 1000 members by the end of January ‘08.

Now we can really get down to business.

Come check out Social Power Linking and see what you think. You can take me up on my 30-Day Challenge which states that if you don’t get an impressive increase in your traffic the first month, ask for your money back!

Update:  Check out our member numbers and reviews since launch!  Crazy!

Tags: power linking, social power linking, social power linking review

Yahoo Shortcut Wordpress Plugin Review

You’ve probably noticed a lot of A-List blogs include pictures and graphics in their content. It is something that boosts the quality of the user experience, the value of the content, and the professional “feel” of a site.The problem for most bloggers is taking the time to dress up a good post with relevant graphics and information to enhance the value of the piece. We are usually in a hurry, once we are done writing, to post and get on with other things.

Yahoo has a new Wordpress plugin that makes dressing up your posts a lot easier. No more cut and paste and less reason to leave your future posts “naked.”

What Yahoo Shortcuts Plugin Does

After a simple install and no set up or configuration whatsoever, you are ready to use this plugin on your next post. While you are typing the plugin is searching Yahoo and Flickr for images, maps, stock tickers and other data to go with your post.

When you are done writing you should have some “shortcuts” to look at in a new browser added to your admin writing area that shows all the things Yahoo found to go with your post.

It can be images that match keywords in your post from Flickr or a Yahoo map if you blogged about a destination of any kind, like New York, NY.

You can choose to leave everything out if you don’t like what’s recommended or just the things you want left in and scrap the rest.

On this marketing blog, it’s been difficult at times pulling up relevant photos, maps, etc. but for other blogs in other niches the content available seems pretty rich.

Check Out Yahoo Shortcuts Wordpress Plugin

• Video Demo
• Yahoo Shortcuts Plugin Page
• Download Page

Tags: wordpress plugins, yahoo shortcuts, yahoo shortcuts plugin review

Blog Metrics Wordpress Plugin Review

There’s a neat new Wordpress Plugin out called Blog Metrics that gives you a look at some important user stats you’re probably not seeing with any of your other tracking and metrics programs.

What Blog Metrics Does

Blog Metrics shows you overall stats like the number of posts you and any authors you allow to write for your site have made, the monthly average, and the average number of comments you and/or your authors generate per post.

It also shows your top commentators and a lot of other useful, neat data.

Basically it gives you yet another “picture” of whats happening on your site in one of the most important areas that your traffic analytics programs miss: the conversation.

From this data you can analyze how good, or bad, your ability to generate comments is. If you want more interaction, go check out the posts you’ve done well with and make future posts on those types of subjects. Popular posts are popular for a reason. And it’s not just the amount of traffic you should be tracking, but the comments as well.

Download the Blog Metrics plugin for Wordpress here.

Tags: blog metrics, blog metrics review, wordpress plugins

Misconceptions on the importance of Digg

There is a good discussion going on at Sphinn surrounding a story put out by SocialNewsWatch.com. The title of the story is “SEO Spammers: Leave Social Media Sites Alone!” and it is interesting the different takes from Sphinners on the topic.

Not just that, but the folks who are upset about how the title, without reading the whole article, could back up Diggers’ opinions about SEO which are not flattering to the industry.

My take is who cares how the “industry” of SEO is viewed as by Diggers?

The point is to get them talking because all the A List bloggers in many niches care about conversations. Postive or negative.

Attention is all that matters.

Digg users are no one’s target market. Or they shouldn’t be. Digg is a star-maker, and that’s it. Everyone (in my niche and several others) reads it. Getting the the front page with a stunt, a negative piece, or whatever kind of bait is good business.

Not because you got 1000 diggers to come to your site and buy nothing, subscribe to nothing, and leave snarky comments on your post. Because influential bloggers read Digg and other social news sites. If they pickup your story for their blog, you’ve hit the big time. Maybe just for a moment in time, or maybe it really sets your site off and sends your traffic through the roof of the people who DO matter to your business.’

All the link building you’ve done by hand in the last 6 months could be eclipsed by the links, rankings, and new direct traffic one front page story on Digg or other sites like it generates for you.

Again, not because the social mavens on those sites visited and subscribed or bought anything, but because getting on the front page means getting in front of incredibly influential bloggers you could work a whole year to even get a response from otherwise.

All bloggers are news junkies.

None more than big sites that have taken off and have over a million visitors per month. They need the best scoops they can possibly get to stay cutting edge and on top. And they use the social news sites as a way to find those scoops.

So who the hell cares what the misfits at Digg think about a piece as long as they are talking it up, or down. It doesn’t matter. The attention from them breeds attention from influencers whose opinions do matter to you. If you did a good job, they’ll reward you by telling their readers (who are your best prospects) about it.

That’s all you need. Once the right people are coming to your site and they see that you are offering something they want, you have yourself a bunch of new readers/customers. Most of whom have never heard much or anything about a site called Digg and who will never see the story that launched the post that brought them to you.

Tags: digg marketing, social marketing, social media marketing, social news sites

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