Become a better manager for less than $20

Posted by: Michael Reynolds in General on Thursday, February 7, 2013

Our clients and readers tend to be really smart people who are interested in lifelong learning. They want to bring positive change to their organizations and are focused on continuous professional development.

Because of this, I'd like to take today's post to highlight a very powerful book just released by one of our clients. It's a book for managers and business leaders who are interested in helping their organizations become more entrepreneurial, more connected with the broader trends in their industry, and more willing to take smart risks.

It's called Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It. Written by bestselling authors and speakers Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson of CultureRx (creators of the Results-Only Work Environment), it's a field guide for innovative business leaders who are ready to manage work, not people.

The book covers topics and points that include:

• How to create a culture of accountability in your organization
• How to go beyond "flexibility" gimmicks like telecommuting
• How to build greater trust among your team members
• The truth about S.M.A.R.T. goals
• How to delight your customers
• How to instantly make your meetings more productive

In addition to remarks from Cali and Jody, the book also contains interviews and insight from managers who are taking these concepts and making them actionable today in their organizations. Contributors include leaders from the private sector, education, government, and non-profit and their stories will inspire you.

If any of this sounds appealing to you, grab a copy of the book in hardcover or on your favorite e-reader from one of the following sources:

• Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It on Amazon (hardcover or Kindle)
• Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It on Apple iBooks (iPad)
• Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It on Barnes & Noble (hardcover or Nook)

Let us know what you think by posting a copy of your review in the comments below!

Congratulations to Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson for continuing to lead the way in the ongoing effort to improve the modern workplace. We're proud to be working with you.

Anatomy of a well-structured social media post

Posted by: Michael Reynolds in General on Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Social media can be a great way to connect with your customers and prospects. You can post all sorts of media, ask questions, engage in conversations, and bring traffic to your website. When managed well, your social media presence can be a significant part of your inbound marketing strategy.

There are many factors that can affect your conversion rates. A conversion can be a like, a comment, a share, or a click. Ideally we want to maximize the chances that a conversion occurs, with the most desirable conversion being a click that leads to a website.

The structure of your social media posts can be a significant factor in how well your activity converts. Some of these details are a bit nit-picky but can play a big part in increasing your click-through rates, shares, and general response on social media posts.

Let's take a look at the anatomy of a well-structured social media post for some of the most common social networks.

Twitter

Twitter is short and sweet... 140 characters. This means you need to spend some extra time optimizing your message to be clear and concise. Let's take a look an example:

This tweet is short and to the point. It asks a question and offers a link for more information. It does not clutter up the message with company names or extra fluff. Here's another example of a tweet that shares a specific blog post:

Again... short and direct. When someone clicks "Tweet" on this blog post, it simply populates the tweet with the title of the article and leaves out anything unneccesary and distracting.

It can also be useful to include hashtags in your tweet to add context and help others find them. Here are a couple of tweets from one of our cleints, Elfcu, that show good use of hashtags:

The hashtags #wedding, #baby, and #family help group these tweets into a topic to help others find them if they are looking for content on that topic.

Another polite thing to do on Twitter is to warn people about the type of media you are sharing. Most links from Twitter go to articles but if you are sharing a link to a video, it's polite to place the text "[Video]" at the beginning of the tweet so that your followers know what to expect, like this:

Now for some cautionary advice. Please please please don't link your Twitter and Facebook accounts together so that all Facebook posts also push to Twitter. You end up with truncated tweets that look like this:

As you can see, the message gets truncated in the middle of the tweet. The safest... what??? Yes, I could click on the link to go to Facebook and see the rest but experienced Twitter users sometimes see the truncated tweet and the "fb.me" URL and immediately flag that Twitter user as un-engaged and will move on. Use proper software like HootSuite so manage your social accounts so you don't have to resort to lazy auto-posting from Facebook.

Another thing you want to avoid is too many hashtags. One or two can be good... five or six is just plain annoying and hard to read. Restrain yourself.

Finally, tag others appropriately. If you're sharing content from another source, be polite and give them credit by tagging their username, like this:

Facebook

Some of the same guidelines apply for Facebook but it also has the added bonus of displaying photos and videos in the previews of posts. This means that you'll want to optimize your posts to display properly for maximum impact. Let's take a look at some elements of a well-structured Facebook post from one of our clients, CultureRx:

This post promotes an ebook that offers a lot of value to organizations that are looking for ways to reduce cost on office space. It's a great ebook so feel free to go download it... I'll wait :)

The preview image is important in this post because it helps the content stand out. Images tend to get noticed more than text in a Facebook newsfeed so you'll want to make sure the image displays properly and is relevant to the content. In this case, the image of the ebook cover really ads some impact to the post.

The call to action is also effective because it invites the viewers download the ebook by explaining what it is and adds some context.

The preview blurb also adds some impact because it creates some interest in the offer. The phrase "There's a big, obvious way to save your business money" sounds pretty enticing, right? This text is controlled in the meta description area of your website content so you'll want to make sure this is optimized.

Also, don't forget to tag appropriately when posting content that involves others. Here is an example of a great photo from Massamio (a SpinWeb client):

Massamio did a contest at a recent convention and tagged two other organizations in the post. This helps ensure that your partners see your post and can also share and engage with your content.

LinkedIn

Like Facebook, LinkedIn also shows preview images and blurbs so you'll want to follow the same guidelines. Here is an example LinkedIn post:

Again, notice the preview image, blurbs, and call to action.

Google+

You guessed it! Google+ is a lot like Facebook, as well and the same guidlines are relevant here:

Make sure to include an attractive preview image and preview blurb.

Creating effective social media posts

Optimizing your social media posts is not difficult but it can lead to higher conversions and better engagement. Remember to be mindful of the details and maximize your return on your social media activities.

How to be a GoToMeeting power user

Posted by: Michael Reynolds in General on Thursday, January 31, 2013

In the Mad Men era, meetings had to happen in person in a fancy office or restaurant. All sorts of time was spent traveling around and assembling people in one location for presentations.

Thank goodness we now have the option of virtual meetings. Though many applications are available to let small groups gather together for presentations, our favorite (and one of the most popular) is GoToMeeting.

GoToMeeting is well-designed, easy to use, and fairly affordable. It allows teams to gather together and conduct presentations virtually. It also lets attendees join the meeting without special software and without creating an account on any particular social network.

GoToMeeting gives you plenty of options for virtual collaboration but we'd like to share a few tips for getting the most out of your meetings.

Use recurring meeting template

By default, GoToMeeting asks you to set up a new meeting every time you want to meet. This results in a new call-in number and code every time. However, if you set up a recurring meeting, you can re-use that same information every time –– same number and code. Then you can store the info in a text document or something like TextExpander so you can pop it into calendar invites and emails every time you want to schedule a meeting. Saves lots of time!

Avoid VoIP

GoToMeeting allows you to use your computer's microphone and speakers for audio instead of calling in but this is usually a bad idea. Even if your computer has good audio (for example, if you're on a Mac... ahem) chances are not everyone has the same audio quality. When given the choice, most people will use the default of mic ad speakers via VoIP but inevitably someone will have bad audio. Disable the VoIP option in your recurring meeting everyone will be required to call in. It will sound much better.

Record meetings for notes

GoToMeeting also gives you the option to record meetings and save them to your computer. This means you can go back and reference things from the meetings. This can come in handy if you missed some notes or need to share the meeting with someone who could not make it. Disclaimer: check your state laws on recording conversations so you know the rules.

Join from mobile devices

GoToMeeting now lets you join (and host) meetings from mobile devices like iPad and iPhone. This means you can be even more mobile and perhaps even conduct that big presentation from anywhere, like the beach or poolside (don't tell your co-workers)!

Use a headset — not speakerphone

As much as people love to use speakerphones, they usually sound terrible to the people on the other end of the line. Instead, use a bluetooth headset or headphones with mic so you can keep your hands free while preserving audio quality.

Use video sparingly

GoToMeeting offers a video conferencing option but it only works well if everyone has a fast connection and a good camera. Unless this is the case, don't worry about using video. Many people find it distracting anyway.

Use verbal cues during pauses

Unless you are using video, be sure to offer verbal cues to tell everyone what is going on if you need to pause to take notes or read something. A little feedback like "stand by... I'm taking a few notes" goes a long way toward avoiding awkward silences.

Lead with confidence

If you are the meeting organizer, run your meeting with an assertive, energetic tone so things keep moving. It takes a little more energy to keep a virtual meeting moving along so don't be afraid to take charge and run your meeting with confidence.

Now that you're a GoToMeeting power user, you can run virtual meetings that are effective and productive. This saves time and money on travel and can help you get more done.

How do you use virtual meetings?

So what's wrong with WordPress?

Posted by: Michael Reynolds in General on Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Choosing the right Content Management System, or CMS, is critical to the success of your website. The right CMS will empower your team and make content management an efficient process. Unfortunately, choosing a CMS without enough research to make a fully informed decision can lead to frustrations and problems later.

One of the most popular CMS apps available today is WordPress. It's free, flexible, and easy to install. It's used by hundreds of thousands of websites. Since Wordpress is so popular, accessible, and affordable, it's easy to see why so many organizations want to use it to power their websites.

But is WordPress the right option for you?

Ok, before going any further I need to acknowledge that I'm entering "holy war" territory here. Aside from politics, religion, and Mac vs. PC, few things stir up heated controversy more than which CMS to use. Well, at least in the marketing/technology world.

We know a lot of agencies that use WordPress for their client projects and feel that it's the best way to manage a website. That's ok. But it's important to understand when it makes sense and when you might run into problems.

Let's take a look at some facts about WordPress:

• It's open source (you can modify the code to your heart's content)
• It's "free"
• It's popular
• It's got a lot of plugins and add-ons

Sounds pretty good, right? Let's take a look at some realities.

While being able to modify the code can be a good thing, it can also be a recipe for disaster. Making custom changes to WordPress can add features that you may need but it can also open a Pandora's box of bugs and hacks that are difficult to recover from. Yes, it's true that with the right developer and a cautious approach you can go for a long time without any issues. However, we've seen too many organizations come to us with broken, cumbersome, or hard-to-manage websites that were built on a customized version of WordPress. They were fed up with trying to deal with it and just wanted to switch to a "real" CMS.

But it's free, right?! It's only free if your time (and your developer's time) is worth nothing. Yes, the install is a 5-minute process, but what then? What if you want to add additional features like calendars, membership databases, directories, or e-commerce, it's not as easy. I think Darien Kruss explains it nicely in his presentation below from a recent Accrisoft Partner Summit:

 

So does this means that WordPress is bad? Absolutely not! WordPress is a great option in many cases. The problem is that much of the time, it's mis-used and incorrectly chosen in situations that go beyond it's capabilities simply because the siren song of "free" and "flexible" are shouted by well-meaning agencies and developers without looking at the big picture.

So when does it make sense to use WordPress? It's a great option for:

• Personal blogs
• Professional blogs and individual "thought leader" websites
• Small business websites with simple needs

Right about now some of you are saying, "Reynolds, you're a big bozo... there are tons of really big companies using WordPress!" Yep... that's true. In fact, I'll happily point you to a list of big companies using WordPress right here. However, there are few details to consider here. First, these companies likely have a team of developers and/or highly paid agencies who maintain and manage their websites. With the right development team, any CMS will work just fine. Additionally, if you look closely you'll notice that many of these companies do not use WordPress for their entire website but instead use it for the blog portion of their online presence (take a look at eBay, GM, etc.).

So if these big companies know better than to use WordPress as a full website CMS, what should you be doing?

It really comes down to using the right tool for the job. I know a lot of companies using WordPress very successfully to power their websites. These organizations likely made an informed decision and had the resources to maintain it properly and/or had requirements that fit the decision.

However, we've also seen too many organizations choose WordPress because a committee or board of directors were swayed by the words "free" and "popular" (mostly "free") and failed to look much further at the big picture.

Again, WordPress is not bad -- it is an excellent tool in many situations. Other times, it make more sense to use a more robust CMS. Be sure you understand the difference and your website will function well and serve your marketing and communication needs.

Using content to convert visitors into prospects

Posted by: Michael Reynolds in General on Thursday, January 24, 2013

Modern online marketing is all about quality content. As more and more organizations jump on the content marketing bandwagon, it's becoming more and more important to cut through the noise with high-quality content.

Content marketing makes use of elements like social media, blogging, email, video, SEO, books/ebooks, case studies, and any other form of content that teaches, educates, or solves a problem.

Lorraine Ball and I recently discussed this on her podcast, More Than a Few Words. Being a guest on Lorraine's show is always a treat and we talked about the current state of content marketing (also called inbound marketing), how to integrate it into your strategy, and how to use content to convert vsitors into prospects.

Listen in by playing the full episode below using the BlogTalkRadio audio player.

Listen to internet radio with Roundpeg on Blog Talk Radio

Comments? Feedback? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!