Two days ago Slideshare sent me an email about my Case Study for using Twitter for Lead Gen:

Your presentation is currently being featured on the SlideShare homepage by our editorial team.

Today I received another email that said:

"Twitter: a Case for Lead Generation" is being tweeted more than any other document on SlideShare right now. So we’ve put it on the homepage of SlideShare.net (in the "Hot on Twitter" section).

It was odd because I had tweeted a link, but Twitter was quiet (or so I thought…). In looking at the stat’s on Slideshare I saw that SocialMediaToday and it’s sister site, MyVenturePad had published my blog post and were receiving a LOT of traffic. There were almost 1500 views between them. Next question, what was driving the traffic? A quick search for the phrase, “Twitter Engagement”, that’s a part of my blog title showed that there was some serious retweeting happening on Twitter!

Slideshare is an active community with great shareable features

For the past three years I’ve been studying why things happen in social networks. Then I unravel them and share the steps so that you can apply them to your situations. And this one is easy to replicate. It will work for YouTube as much as Slideshare too!

First, a quick explanation of Slideshare. Skip this if you’re familiar with it.

Slideshare is a free site where you can host your powerpoint decks. It’s a really active community. They totally understand the concept of ‘shareable’ which is so imperative for word of mouth (some call it viral). (This is one of the main principles that Andy Sernovitz asserts and I highly recommend that you read his book, Word of Mouth Marketing.)

The secret sauce is that it allows you to embed your presentation in your post and others can download it and also embed it. They also offer a nice widget that I’ve put on the side of my blog AND are integrated into Facebook and LinkedIn so my friends there can see my newest decks.  It can grow legs! and Slideshare keeps track of the number of views. The community in Slideshare can favorite presentations and comment on them. So Slideshare has done a great job of helping their users connect!

How can you make Slideshare + SocialMediaToday + Twitter = Viral

I’ll list the steps. You provide the ideas

1. Create your content and post on a shareable site such as Slideshare or YouTube
2. Write a blog post and embed the content
3. Syndicate your blog to great communities like SocialMediaToday.com, MyVenturePad.com, etc
4. They and many others tweeted the link x 180 + times!
5. Engage with the communities on Slideshare, Socialmediatoday & Twitter. Here’s an article I wrote on syndicating your blog. (That post is how I got my job at Techrigy)
6. Watch the ripple effect afterwards and thank those that blog about it and further share my content.

Here’s the stat’s on this adventure 24 hours after publishing my blog post:

On Slideshare.net (note that it’s been downloaded 48 times)

SocialMediaToday.com – 1529 views

MyVenturePad.com – 1147 views

Tonite I was asked a question. Will this work for a company and their brand? Of course! I realized yesterday that Dell had followed me on Slideshare. And their decks are quite interesting! Check out the So So Social Media Strategy. (Note that my deck is also branded & has my contact info.)

Another point is that you don’t need the reason of speaking at events to create and post slide decks. There are also people in Slideshare community that have never posted a deck (but what fun is that?!)

So what are you waiting for? Get busy, and make a slide deck. Link it up here. Need ideas? Go explore the decks in Slideshare.

Special thanks go to Beth Harte & Ann Handley for inviting us to share Techrigy’s story in Marketing Prof’s Twitter Success Case Studies and again at their virtual event! (It forced me to make the slide deck!)

And thanks to Adam Helweh @SecretSushi for his thumbs down on my first draft. You can thank him for his honesty & for pushing me to be more creative!

Now I want to see your work!

An unintentional mistake …

I’ve watched it happen over the past couple of years. The blogging community is a warm tight knit community. But as with any group the leaders are held to high standards. They’re expected to set the bar.

It’s easy to sit back & watch the kerfluffle unfold. In the past I haven’t said much out loud because it was ‘safer’ to support people in the back channel. We went thru the puppet fiasco with Shel Israel. I got to know him at a personal level by supporting him in the back channel. The puppet videos weren’t funny if you put yourself in his shoes. And there is the person on Twitter who has a parody going. I’m not interested in being on their radar.

This spring I watched when Jeremiah Owyang made a slip on his blog. We talked by phone & he told me that many of the anonymous comments were from the same IP. I was glad to be able to offer my support & suggestions for weathering the storm.

Most recently I saw a post on SocialMediaToday criticizing Gary Vaynerchuk’s PR blogger campaign to promote his book, Crush It. I received the same email & agree that there was one sentence that won’t motivate me to engage:

On your side, anything you do with him is going to get an influx of readers to your blog due to his massive and loyal following.

I was interested in participating in promoting Gary’s book because:

• as a past librarian, books are amazing
• we were invited to suggest how we wanted to share the book with our community/network (allowing creativity)

I didn’t know Gary & so his personal brand wasn’t a motivation (hence that last sentence didn’t resonate with me).

What are the ramifications: At the time I put my opinion on the post, 600 people had viewed the post. I see that 2000 have now. I understand John Cass’ intention to use examples to teach others but at what expense to Gary’s brand? We agreed that we get bad pitches every day but this one came from a social media superstar.

The conversation was taken up on Shel Holtz & Neville Hobson’s live interview on Friday. Gary apologized & said that he realizes that some things could have been done differently.

My take aways:

• I disagree that an effective blogger campaign requires reading each person’s blog to find what motivates them. It’s not scalable. (Gary was trying to grow his community – the email just didn’t describe his book to connect with the audience)
• scaling a brand & connecting with potential new audiences on a personal level is difficult. How can one connect & build relationships?
• empowering others to help you with your work has its risks. They need to understand the space because even though this email was signed by someone else, it still represented Gary’s brand.

Gary graciously expressed his apologies many times in the interview. He did say that of the 500 emails, he had a 50% response rate which is really good. What success rate do professional agencies have?

I look forward to seeing Gary’s book (and the other nine! He signed an unprecedented 10 book deal). You can read John Cass’ follow up is here & I respect his opinions. John’s intent was to use it as a learning experience. After commenting on the post Gary sent me a personal note & we are now connected. He works 19 hrs a day & I am guilty of that too. We need to support each other as we’re all going to make mistakes. Let’s speak up for what we believe in & not be too hard on each other. What will happen when you stumble?

Photo credit: gicol/Flickr

In addition to that Albert Maruggi asked, should companies be helping build personal brands? If they invest in an employee by sending them to training & workshops, then should the employee need to pay some of that equity back when they leave? (It sounds like a prenuptial agreement. If there’s a falling out, you will only leave as financially successful as when you came into this relationship.)

My question is: Does a company want to be filled with faceless, obscure beings? What if they don’t care if their employees have any passion for their profession? What if they’d prefer that their employees didn’t grow professionally? What if they’re not interested in contributing to the industry & profession at large?

I guess I’m not interested in working at that type of a company.

Beth’s post reviews traditional corporate branding. And she adds the following list in regard to the personal perspective:

What are you selling? How does your unique skill set, experience, reputation, etc. achieve corporate goals and objectives?

What’s your brand mark? Perhaps you have a personal logo or an avatar (photo). Are you distinct?

What’s your name? That’s obvious. But is it a well known name that a corporation would embrace? Is it a name recognized and established in the industry?

How much loyalty do you have banked? Can you bring ready-to-buy customers/prospects to the table upon hiring? Does the brand loyalty you’ve established help shorten the sales cycle? Do you have marketing/PR relationships that help save money or generate revenue?

What is your personal brand worth in revenue? What value does it add to the existing corporate brand? (Or does it conflict?) Does your personal brand help propel the corporate brand forward or create buzz?

Yesterday at SMB I proposed that the younger generation is going to expect certain things:

• utilize social media tools & technology
• have a personal brand that’s established on social networking sites
• to enjoy their work & be gratified in it (or they’ll move on)

My prediction is that the smart brands will value those with strong personal brands. I love the term ‘Talent Management’. It’s very similar to community management in that it’s a misnomer. But if you read about talent management the focus is on engaging talented people and ensuring that they’re challenged, it makes total sense. It’s important because they’re intrinsically motivated. My feeling is that those with strong personal brands are leaders & if they’ve taken the time to be outstanding in their own right then they’ll also take pride in doing the same for uplifting the corporate brand. What company wouldn’t want that? Does a company say, ‘Well, we’re fine with our corporate brand being mediocre.’ If a person has worked hard to ‘define’ themselves through education or life experience shouldn’t they be compensated for that?

Peter Kim asked these questions on Beth’s post:

- Personal brands seem best suited for awareness, consideration, and preference. But a different skill set takes over to drive purchase and loyalty.
- When the tangible (e.g. salary) meshes with the intangible (e.g. personal brand), objective metrics for evaluation are critical. We need to solve measurement, fast.
- With the changing nature of work, should employers even “buy” personal brands anymore? Or should they be thinking of leasing them for shorter terms for specific purposes?

I agree with Peter’s distinction that a personal brand is well suited for awareness, consideration & preference. That’s why community managers need to sparkle. I would add loyalty to that set because high level customer service is also a result of an effective community manager.

A personal brand is built over time. And I would argue that time = experience. So if that person has achieved & demonstrated an excellent skill set then shouldn’t salary be commensurate? This brings me back to the problem of companies thinking that they can bring in an experienced community manager at an entry level salary. They’ll bring their metrics & provide the deliverables to justify the cost.

Does “buy” = salary versus “lease” = contract work? For someone to contract they have to more than double their cost to offset being self employed, benefits & retirement. Does the organization get high quality consistent work over a long period of time that actually makes a difference & is adopted? In contrast to having someone on salary leading the corporation in that area.

I’m going to ask Dan Schawbel for his suggestions from the personal branding perspective. And Peter Gold who introduced me to the concept of talent management. What are your thoughts guys? And I welcome my readers to join the conversation too!

Does a personal brand have equity?

*update on this post – Beth had written a previous post. I just realized that Dan was used as an example in that post. (Dan & I have been friends for almost two years with complimentary mentorship. Hence I subscribe to the value of personal branding ideas too. They have served me well & my last two jobs have come to me.)

I will also continue to work with Network Solutions. So I like to be busy, what can I say?! For those that know me well (ie connected on IM) you know that I work seven days a week.

In regard to Techrigy, I’ve been connected to them for awhile. They’ve been syndicating my blog into their community for their customers. Their product SM2 is a monitoring & measurement tool. If you read my blog regularly you know that I focus on building brand & social networking. My philosophy is that a community manager should be actively participating in the full range of marketing, PR, awareness of competitor’s products & visibility, product development, etc.

I’m excited about SM2 for a number of reasons! I’ve been using various tools since 2006. The trick is to efficiently identify the relevant information & respond. The other aspect is the reporting & to be honest I’m a bit of a stat’s junkie. (That may be because I have majors in math, chemistry & physics. You didn’t know that huh?! I’ve always enjoyed collecting data & making sense of it. Now you know the rest of the story! I enjoy pondering ROI too.).

In addition to SM2 they also offer a Freemium version that allows 5 keyword phrases & up to 1000 results. Aaron & his team have created an amazingly robust product! There are many tools that offer the same basic features. The following features in SM2 stand out for me:

• Results are emailed to me daily – so I don’t need to use a number of monitoring sources
• In the dashboard, the results are displayed in a variety of manners allowing for easier interpretation (they’re sliced & diced in many ways!)
• The keywords define the results, but categories subdivide the results offering more in-depth interpretation
  • preset categories are available to get you started
  • you can create your own
  • you can share your categories with others & likewise use shared ones
• Access to results back to late 2007. Or you can choose specific time segments
• Demographics – this information that would be very helpful to marketing as you identify your customer segments

These are graphs from my search for the keywords of ‘Community Manager’, ‘Connie Bensen’. The 2/3 male results are as expected as is the age. All graphs are drillable to view the results that generated them.

Domain information lists the domains, along with the # of results, & an authority calculated by an algorithm (for some reason Twitter is my highest!)

Maps have pins depicting the number of search results. (As everywhere you can drill down & see results from a certain locale).

Finally each result has this powerful little tool bar:

From left to right:

• pencil/paper – you can edit the placement of that result in the categories
• magnifying glass – you can view information on a specific result. It provides considerable information on the blog & owner including author demographics, email address, traffic details & ranking. This is really helpful to quickly gather information on an identified influencer.
• mark as spam
• delete result

The last 3 each open a new window so that you can view the result in the corresponding analytic tool.

• technorati
• compete
• alexa

See why I’m loving it? My goal is to provide the community with:

• assistance in learning to use the tool so that it’s a timesaver
• workflows for utilizing the data on a daily basis & for reporting (ROI)
• ideas on how to use the search results & data to leverage their social media efforts (I hesitate to use the word ‘campaign’)
• gathering product feedback to make improvements & for feature development
• increasing brand visibility
• connecting them with others to share ideas on how they’re using the tool

If you want to check it out, sign up for the Freemium version. The trick is to use keywords that aren’t too broad. We will be glad to help with that. If it pulls the max search results, then just delete them, and make your keywords more specific.

And of course let me know if you need assistance. On Twitter I am @cbensen or send an email to:

connie@techrigy.com or support@techrigy.com

This is advanced brand building but I’ll put some links at the end if you’re just getting started. Personal branding requires planning & consistency. David Armano has the perfect graphic that shows the step I want to talk about today:

1. Social networks – Establish your brand on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
2. Internal properties – Establish your voice on your blog
3. External properties – Sites established by others

I’m going to focus on the external properties & that’s why I said this is ‘advanced’. You need to have established your brand & voice on your blog & social networks. The trick with the external properties is that it’s permission based. You could buy advertising, but that isn’t practical for personal branding.

This is about syndication. The example that you’re familiar with is the RSS feed. Wikipedia has a nice explanation of the motivation for syndication:

Syndication benefits both the websites providing information and the websites displaying it. For the receiving site, content syndication is an effective way of adding greater depth and immediacy of information to its pages, making it more attractive to users. For the transmitting site, syndication drives exposure across numerous online platforms. This generates new traffic for the transmitting site — making syndication a free and easy form of advertisement.

The goal is to give your blog legs.

1. Syndicate your material:  I have been slowly syndicating my blog to various sites as I find opportunities. It uses my RSS feed & is completely automatic once the initial set up is done. Google alerts tells me when an article is posted at a certain site & it makes me smile. Here are places where I’m syndicating my blog to:

• SocialMediaToday.com is a great example.
  • We feed in our blogs via RSS
  • An editor chooses about 40% to post
  • I get 100-500 views depending on topic (Title & first few sentences are important)
  • When my post is viewed there, I am drawn back & read
  • It’s a great place to meet knew people of like mind
  • Their newsletter is excellent with nice reminders
• MyVenturePad.com is owned by same as SocialMediaToday
  • focus on small business
  • lots of great resources
• Techrigy Community
  • my blog is on bottom left
  • Techrigy has SM2 a free listening tool
• CollegeRecruiter.com
  • who would’ve thought? but works for me!
  • Candace Arnold is doing a great job there!

Find sites in your subject area that are a mix of many authors. Chances are high that they’re aggregating content from many sites & it’s via RSS feeds. It’s easy once you start thinking about it this way & you’ll see opportunities around the web as you interact in your niche. And don’t be shy! If there is a question then ask the admin. Be bold & suggest your content if you feel it will help that site.

2. Blog on a group blog. This requires more time but you can make note on your blog: ”I have a post on <topic> at the other blog". This builds awareness that you’re blogging on that group blog & increases readership there. I’m blogging at Marketing 2.0. Three are some great conversations going on behind it including a growing community. There are also mashups & I believe that LockerGnome is like that. It appears that Chris Pirillo has created some type of compensation format.

3. Guest blogging. Guest blogging is fun because it gives you the opportunity to write for someone else’s readers. For me it’s a challenge to do my best writing. If you WANT to guest post for someone let them know & tell them why. My experience with this is that one of Chris Brogan’s posts caused me to ask if I could write a guest post. (His posts frequently motivate me to respond here, but one inspired me to want to share my ideas with his readers). My guest post on Building Brand through Building Community listed ways that I’ve found effective for building my brand. It caught Darren Rowse’s eye & he asked me to guest post on ProBlogger. I asked what topic he wanted & he chose Taking Your Blog to a Community. That was the most intimidating post I’ve ever written, but it brought me a new readership of those interested in networking, building community & brand. (This post is a sub topic of that larger post – thanks Darren for the inspiraton!). I’m excited to be attending BlogWorld next weekend & meeting Chris & Darren in person!

Branding is not flipping a switch. It’s a process over time. I have been blogging since January of 2007 & that’s when I started building my brand. But I’ve only been blogging for a year on Community related topics. Some will say that attending events is important, but I am an example of doing it online. I am proud to say that I’ve established a very strong personal brand without attending many events. Building brand is the most important thing you can do for yourself. It does take patience & determination.

As promised, here are a list of links if you’re just getting started. These people have amazing personal brands & regularly share their ideas:

• My writing & tips on Personal Branding.
• Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Magazine – I started with this & found it to be invaluable for ideas. (Disclaimer: I am the editor of it, so I may be biased but I learn many things from each issue).
• Chris Brogan – his Best Advice on Personal Branding  – make sure that you read his list of 100 ideas
• Chris Brogan’s e-book on Personal Branding & in audio format
• Jeremiah Owyang – How to get Noticed   A Must Read! including the comments

What have you found effective in building your brand? What points did I miss?

Do you have a story about how you built your brand? Please share it here or on your blog & link to this post. Our stories are the best way for others to learn & transfer to their own situation.

I had been thinking about this topic before this lichen appeared. People want to know how to do so many things – the networking, building a brand, finding a job in social media, etc. Then once they get involved the next question is how to manage it all. I try to provide answers for those things & sometimes need to pause & take a break.

This post is probably mostly advice to myself. But you may find this pause helpful too as you juggle it all. After today I will return to full speed forward.

This beautiful piece of nature grew unexpectedly in our yard. The things that struck me are:

• it is unique, there are none other like it
• it is asymmetrical, there is no pattern
• it is very fragile & soft to the touch yet is resilient to the elements
• it is flexible (spears of grass have grown up thru one of the leaves)
• it is slowly growing & the colors are becoming richer
• it is unknown what it will evolve into? My mom asked & I didn’t know.

So how is this related to working online?

• plant yourself in unexpected places & grow
• be yourself & make sure that you have a unique perspective
• there’s no reason to have a pattern
• resiliency & flexibility are essential to growth
• as frenetic as the social media world is take it at your pace
• where will you take it? (note that I didn’t say, Where will it take you?!!)

Did that translate for you? What would you add to it?

Of course you do! Send your blog thru Wordle.net

And it will give you some great tag clouds! But they are also a representation of how you’re branding yourself. Do the words & frequency surprise you? (all 3 are the same words – click on them to make them larger)

I like how the following words stand out: community, people, reputation, ideas & networking

Try yours. Is it what you expected?

Branding is a really important thing & many ponder the how & why. Chris allowed me to share my ideas on his blog.

His series on personal branding is definite must read too!

• Develop a strong personal brand online
• Part 2
• Part 3

What are your suggestions for personal branding?

When I had only 120-150 followers I checked in 3-4 times per day. And I would page back through everyone’s tweets & open links that I would read later.

But the twitterstorm that @jowyang created disrupted that & my number started growing. It took me a bit to readjust & I started using some new tools.

Now at 750 followers here is how I use Twitter:

• pop in only on breaks (It’s too disruptive to stream)
• chat with my network that is online at the moment
• if I see an interesting comment I may
  • click on the @username for context
  • follow that person
  • put their name into quotably.com to see the thread of the conversation (it works pretty well albeit it’s not perfect)
• use quotably.com to check my favorite tweeters & follow their links
• check replies & respond

My Twitter tips:

If you tweet about a broad variety of topics you’ll get followers of varied interests

Ask questions – crowdsource your followers – they love to help! (today I asked if I should get a kayak or canoe; on another day it was what to do in Paris) It’s also a great place to get tech help (my following is very geeky).

Business related tips:

• Tweetscan.com delivers an email every morning to me with a standing search for:
  • cbensen – for DM’s that are missed – Twitter is prone to hiccups)
  • cbenson (people misspelling my name)
  • acdsee – brand monitoring
  • community manager – I’m connecting with like minded people & I like reading the news as people announce their positions or talk about their work
  • take your tweetscan search & share it with others
    • Here’s an example that I saw Radian6 using
    • *update* Look at what Zappos is doing
      • Public mentions
      • Employee tweets
      • List of employees that Tweet
      • Link to follow the CEO

• • • If you use that – make sure you monitor it so there aren’t negative tweets on it
    • Get creative with it! It’s offered in an RSS feed – where can you embed it? website? blog?

Benefits:

• Networking – I’ve met a large number of people from Minnesota. After getting to know them I’m ready to attend the Twin Cities Social Media Breakfast next week & meet them in person!
• Branding -
  • repetitive – Use your photo as your avatar
  • memorable – Use a representative photo for your home page & people will see it when they check out your profile or go to DM you. This space offers the opportunity to display your brand logo multiple times. If you have questions on how to do it, let me know – I know of some software that makes it easy!

Follow me @cbensen & I’ll follow you back!

Resources

• for the beginner – Beginner’s Guide to Twitter
• more in-depth – Caroline Middlebrook has a great guide
• And there are tons of Twitter app’s out there – Lee Odden lists 5 newer ones & @jowyang has a good list too.
• Ellen has a good resource
• all things Twitter – a wiki with many, many resources!

Update – an interesting article on Twitter

Blog commenting is probably one of the easier things to accomplish when I’m traveling. I’m using Jeremiah Owyang’s tip of having blog ideas created in advance.

In my first post I listed my methodology for starting or rebuilding a blog. I’ve used it twice. There’s an aspect that’s more important than that & it bears repeating:

“It’s not all about you & your blog!

There is a much bigger world out there & you are but one voice, so you need to join the collective:

1. read other people’s blogs & comment – use a blog reader

• get involved & ask questions
• provide value & insight for them based on their writing & encourage them to grow

2. respond to their post on your blog if if your response is too long for a comment

• make sure that you reference the original post & use their static link (people appreciate the link love)
• this introduces your readers to a blog that you enjoy (a form of sharing your friend’s blog)
• sometimes it’s wise to wait a day or so if it’s an emotional response – maybe pretend that you’re writing to your boss?

3. comment on blogs that reference you & your writing

• use Google alerts & Technorati to see who’s writing about you & your blog
  • follow those links & respond to the conversation
  • it’s a great way to build brand
• allow trackbacks & follow them

4. show appreciation for the sharing of knowledge by your network

• utilize a variety of formats – Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc
• remember that it’s a group effort & we can do more together!

What ideas do you have for commenting on blogs? Have you gotten to know people through their blogs? Share your experiences.