Disqus - Latest Comments for Charles Heflin

Re: The Social Media Landscape - Defined!

Charles Heflin — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:46:43 -0000

The social media landscape consists of hundreds of thousands of individual pieces of technology. Most people make the mistake of focusing on the technology and this is a mistake.

Technology like Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon and this site are important to understand but the real social media landscape consists of "relationships" ... Focus on the relationships and you are closer to defining it.

The technology always shifts and changes but one thing that will never change are relationships. In order to understand the technology as it applies to marketing in this relationship channel consider reading this...

http://www.seo2020.com/smm/formula.pdf

Re: In the battle to replace Twitter, no winners emerge

Charles Heflin — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:45:23 -0000

Hi Jim,

Great post ... I love statistics like these... They confirm my theory about the social media technology bubble that is about to burst.

In servicing our own business as well as clients we have a strong need to streamline our effort and then leverage that effort as effectively as possible.

In my experience, one micro-blogging site is enough because Twitter dominates. Most micro-bloggers are already on Twitter so the need to reach out to the same users on other platforms is redundant. The effort to squeeze a few new followers in smaller platforms is equal to the effort expended on other networks (with higher market share) yet it is less effective... What's the point?

Much like there is no need to optimize for any search engine other than Google, the same is true for much of the social technologies. If 80% of your market uses Facebook then why use another?

There is a need to reach out on niche networks, of course, but I suggest paying attention to why you are really using the networks you participate in... Here's the big question...

Are you networking with people or are you just trying to "build a friends list"?

If it is the latter then you are going to grow very fatigued and will see little result from your effort.

Charles Heflin
Twitter @CharlesHeflin

Re: A Quiet Technological Boom RSS to SMS

Charles Heflin — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:48:06 -0000

P.S.

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:32:25 -0000

@Binky ... Not sure what is going on with the image on your end... It is loading fine on mine... Is anyone else having this issue?

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:33:35 -0000

@Geroge - Thank you for the props... Stay focused in 2008 and most importantly create a day-by-day plan and stick to it no matter what.

Great to see you here.

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:47:24 -0000

I just moved the graphic to this domain... do a refresh and let me know if you can see it.

Thanks,

Charles

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:21:14 -0000

Hi Catalin,

Theming a site is just one part in the bigger picture. With SMM you can gain the deep links you need to gain high SERPs while gaining social popularity at the same time. This is just another piece of the pie.

I hope we never move into tasting and smelling the Internet... that just sounds terrible :-)

Re: Welcome to my Internet Marketing Brain Dump…

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:24:25 -0000

@Rochelle and @Catalin...

Thank you for stopping by and commenting. Things are going to get really exciting around here and over at SEO20/20... This blog is a case study in SMM.

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:03:46 -0000

Hey Rebel,

Thanks for stopping by... You will be amazed at how many people will be interested in what you say... For every one person that likes what you say, there are probably 10,000 more somewhere... Now social media makes it easy to find you.

Re: A Quiet Technological Boom RSS to SMS

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:05:43 -0000

Hi Peter,

It's not going anywhere, in fact I am already making a bit of money from my mobile RSS feed. FeedM8 is pretty neat... Not a ton of money, just a few pennies here and there but it's "found" money.

- Charles

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:22:02 -0000

Hi Davin,

Thank you for the feedback... I will make sure to cover these networks and I hope to show you how to generate the $1400 for stomper training all by yourself :-)

My SMM Primer will be released soon.. I am directly in the middle of writing it.

Talk soon,

Charles

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:51:13 -0000

Hi Myra,

Thank you for dropping by and thank you for the props.

- Charles

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:36:17 -0000

I have a list of quite a few sites but truth be known... There really is not a magic combination here... It's all about adopting a system of social sites that YOU enjoy & then consistently following your own model.

Now there are specific SM sites that you should definitely work in that will achieve results faster than others... I will be covering the best ones first.

Thank you for your comments.

- Charles

Re: Welcome to my Internet Marketing Brain Dump…

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:50:06 -0000

Thank you Paul,

Yes, the biggest lesson new Internet marketers need to learn is to quit chasing the "make money" illusion and start chasing their personal passions and interests instead... Then offer a product or service that enhances the lives of those that share your interests and passions.

This is a simple and very regurgitated saying but it is VERY true.

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:56:15 -0000

Hey Leanne,

Yes, good ol' Twitter... It almost seems like some kind of nervous tick where you constantly Tweet what you're currently up to... There is a way to market yourself using Twitter and I will be covering it.

Just to get an idea... I am starting to use Twitter so that my members can see what I'm doing "right now" and they can follow my actions. You can also drop links in your tweets.

This is kind of link being a fly on my wall or having a peek inside my head at any given moment. See the box at the bottom right of this blog that says "What am I Doing Right Now?" ... Those are my tweets, or twitters (sounds like a nervous tick).

You can watch me on Twitter and you'll be updated on what I am doing up-to-the-minute.

More details coming...

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:57:57 -0000

@Ray ... all of those are AWESOME questions and I look forward to delivering that content not only for everyone here (and you) but for myself.

The more I teach this stuff, the better I get at it...

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:04:02 -0000

@Guru Bob - Thanks for stopping by...

@Chris Guthrie - I did way more than 4 forum posts... I only participated in 4 forums to achieve the result.

@Robert - Thank you for your comments and pointing us to that awesome resource. SMM is a HUGE topic and I'm trying to whittle it down to one cohesive understanding... This is my challenge and it is not going to be easy.

Any input anyone has for resources or social sites is welcome to post them here.

@Erik O. - Thanks for stopping by and commenting... I would prefer if you reserve your comments to the blog post at hand. If you have a specific question on other things that I teach then drop me a line at charlesheflin AT gmail DOT com.

Your requests about Hubpages and Scribd are on the schedule to be covered and I will provide a wealth of sites where you can build links for SEO as well as social purposes at the same time.

@Business Inclined - I certainly understand how you see that... I too had a problem with this perspective until I started digging in a bit further... I will show you what I mean in my free SMM Report (coming soon)...

On finding the right keywords... have you done any PPC testing to discover them?

Re: A Quiet Technological Boom RSS to SMS

Charles Heflin — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:07:04 -0000

Glen,

It is actually a Revver plugin for WordPress that Revver provides.

http://revver.com/go/wp/

Re: Welcome to my Internet Marketing Brain Dump…

Charles Heflin — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:09:15 -0000

Glen,

To post video comment here you simply upload your comment to Revver and then pop the Revver ID in the Revver Video ID box right below your comment.

Revver will then display your comment here...

You can also upload your video right here as well and then it will display automatically after Revver gets done working their magic with it.

All these options are available right below the comment box...

Re: Welcome to my Internet Marketing Brain Dump…

Charles Heflin — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:10:31 -0000

Hi Adam,

That's just proof that social media works. Twitter is useful though highly shrouded in mystery and doubt.

Thank you for the comment.

Re: Even Mini Electric Guitar Players Have a Niche In Social Marketing

Charles Heflin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:09:50 -0000

Leave a video comment, it's easy...

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:38:56 -0000

@Valentina - I am not sure on facebook... look at their terms of service. My initial reaction is to say yes... You can be BooBoo Barkley if you want to be I am pretty sure but be sure to check their terms of service first.

http://www.facebook.com/terms.php

I did a quick scan and it looks like it is acceptable but double check behind me.

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:24:21 -0000

Well said Adam,

With SMM you build a following based on a concept that may be directly or indirectly related to things that you may sell on the back end. The concept is what attracts people to you.

You then carry and brand that concept again and again...

The popular "elf yourself" was a social interaction on a massive scale and guess who was branded during this wildly viral social event? .... Office Max

Next year during the holidays, people will remember Elf Yourself and the traffic will start all over again... OfficeMax has some "outside the box" thinkers to come up with this legendary social media marketing event.

How much traffic and sales did OfficeMax get from this promotion? ... well if you look at their Alexa traffic you can see that their traffic was more or less doubled while Elf Yourself was running... Do you think they sold more office supplies online with more traffic?

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:30:05 -0000

Hey Adam...

Thank you for the awesome brain dump ... I have learned a great deal of insight from your post and am investigating a few of your sources to add to my arsenal.

Re: A Quiet Technological Boom RSS to SMS

Charles Heflin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:44:42 -0000

@Rob ...

I didn't create a mobile version of this blog... I simply mobilized my RSS feed with FeedM8... As far as making the site itself more accessible to mobile devices, I haven't got that far yet.

One thing that should be done to ensure that search engine spiders would not index the mobile version of a site is to "disallow" (in robots.txt) robots from accessing the directory in which the mobile version of your site resides... Just a thought.

I haven't dug into FeedM8 too deeply... All I have is a link going from my header to their site for members to subscribe to my mobile RSS feed... I have made no other changes to this site that would jeopardize SE rankings.

I'll keep everyone posted if I choose to "mobilize" this blog by showing how I protect my rankings.

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:43:00 -0000

John,

Thank you for your thoughtful response based on a position of frustration that is common in the SMM space.

I intend to address your concerns in my upcoming report... As you know SMM is a huge topic and social sites are rising and falling all the time. My goal is to build a timeless solution based on solid principles that can be applied no matter where the social platforms evolve.

This is not proving to be an easy task as you may well understand... What I am discovering is... because every business is different, everyone will have to choose their own model for social impact using a solid guide and a proper resource through which to investigate solutions that "fit" the personality of the marketer and the business they are promoting.

Wish me luck :-)

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:57:52 -0000

@Valentina -

There is not much difference between branding and a persona if the persona is to become your "hook" into the social space then you will use it often to move people to your message. The people that like you (or your persona) will follow you away from your areas of promotion to arrive at your website or blog.

Once they get there then you promote your products but you have to be "forever aware" of why that visitor came to your space or they will run. You can't come across as a bait and switch operation... Your integrity must carry through all the way through to the sale and after the sale.

Always remember you visitors arrived because they like you. Much like a guest arriving at your home, you wouldn't bombard them with advertising... instead you would make them feel welcome and then offer them more of you.

Once people trust you then they will buy from you by simply suggesting things.

I know this goes beyond what you asked but I just had to get this out.

Re: A Quiet Technological Boom RSS to SMS

Charles Heflin — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:08:47 -0000

Glen,

The answer depends on what blogging platform you are using.

Blogger needs no optimization but WordPress does... I am not sure on the other platforms.

What platform do you use?

Re: A Quiet Technological Boom RSS to SMS

Charles Heflin — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:19:46 -0000

Here is a good starting point:
http://theblogjoint.com/2006/09/21/best-seo-plu...

I would also suggest Googling: seo plugins wordpress

Also remember to only assign a new post to ONE category. Your categories should also be well themed to the overall content of your blog. If you assign a post to more than one category then you may get slapped with a duplicate content penalty... I am not sure if WordPress has addressed this issue so you may want to do further research on your own.

I hope this helps...

Re: Headline Failure and Some Skull Juice

Charles Heflin — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:53:33 -0000

@Jansie - Thank you for stopping by. I agree it isn't the greatest but it could spawn an idea.

@Mari - Thank you for dropping that link. That is a cool tool for evaluating the proposed effectiveness of a headline.

@Chris - Always good advice... Thank you.

Re: The Twitter Movement

Charles Heflin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:00:07 -0000

Dr. Mani... That was a great article on Twitter... Thanks for sharing it.

- Charles

Re: Welcome to my Internet Marketing Brain Dump…

Charles Heflin — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:53:24 -0000

@ Julia & @ GuruBob - Thank you for your comments.

@ Julia - I am working to flip the script on the way that newcomers seek and understand IM. Not an easy task but definitely doable over time.

Re: Absolutely Hilarious … My Game Day Short Post

Charles Heflin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:12:28 -0000

Yeah ... I think I laughed harder the second time I watched it.

Re: Absolutely Hilarious … My Game Day Short Post

Charles Heflin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:53:49 -0000

Hey Ermin,

I was trying to add info to the post and accidentally zapped it... I will re post it as soon as I get some free time.

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:56:06 -0000

Hi Franck,

What you say is VERY true. Most marketers don't understand the value of a high traffic forum if you step in and contribute.

Re: A Quiet Technological Boom RSS to SMS

Charles Heflin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:57:35 -0000

Hey Mike,

Thanks for stopping by and I'm glad you like the class.

Re: The Social Marketing Blueprint Formula is Unleashed

Charles Heflin — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:08:17 -0000

This formula will work for websites or blogs... It doesn't matter.

- Charles

Re: VIDEO: A Social Marketing Blueprint is an Asset

Charles Heflin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:29:04 -0000

I am glad that you are all liking the report. Your feedback is very important to me.

Thank you,

Charles

Re: Headline Failure and Some Skull Juice

Charles Heflin — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:56:54 -0000

Hi Susan,

That's absolutely correct... You should spend considerable time on your headline to draw the clicks or you shouldn't even bother writing the article ... waste of time without a good headline.

Re: You Targeted Your Message, Now Target Your Products

Charles Heflin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:05:46 -0000

Hi Catalin ... thanks for stopping by and posting.

Re: Providing Quality Link Bait Takes Time

Charles Heflin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:08:21 -0000

Hi Catalin,

That would be Feedburner doing that ... hmm... I am trying to fix it... think I got it.

Let me know if all is good.

Thanks,

Charles

Re: Wikipedia and Your Credibility

Charles Heflin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:38:10 -0000

That is where we are heading. Internet marketing is fundamentally changing as a result of social interaction and smarter consumers.

Re: Getting Your News Read on Social Media News Sites

Charles Heflin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:41:59 -0000

Gina ... If you take time to involve yourself in the community, learn how it works and then build a following then it becomes less and less like winning the lottery and more and more like a systematic approach.

The key to Digg for instance is gaining respect from the community by posting good quality stuff. You should use other people's stuff for a while in an attempt to get the good stuff Dugg.

Your profile will advance because you become known for submitting quality stuff then your friends and followers will digg your submissions... It's all about relationship building.

Re: Beware of Potential Drawbacks of Social Media Marketing

Charles Heflin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:44:49 -0000

Anna... The slow roll is ok but there is also power in working 5 - 10 networks at once because many of the networks interact with each other in useful and time saving kind of ways... This will also allow you to get a feel for the differences in communities and how a community on one may be more beneficial to your purposes than another.

Re: Beware of Potential Drawbacks of Social Media Marketing

Charles Heflin — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:47:19 -0000

@Anna ... I include everything... what is important is to focus on the networks where your target audience is socializing.

Read my report: http://www.seo2020.com/smm/

This will help you to choose the networks that are right for you.

Re: Beware of Potential Drawbacks of Social Media Marketing

Charles Heflin — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:48:33 -0000

@Melissa ... social networking is very different from traditional Internet marketing and many, many times more powerful. You can't use IM techniques in social media sites... It requires a different approach.

Re: Social Media is Booming… Are You?

Charles Heflin — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:51:56 -0000

Anna ... you will not see good results using software like that in social media sites. You need to drop all of your traditional Internet marketing knowledge in this space.

Re: I am testing a Wordpress Plugin for Ping.fm

Charles Heflin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:36:05 -0000

No Ping.fm aggregates content to social platforms like twitter, plurk and facebook just to name a few. I have friends/followers in those communities so it is convenient to be able to update my social platforms with new blog posts so that my friends/followers can see it.

Re: Is there any return on investment in social media?

Charles Heflin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:28:03 -0000

@Derrick - I agree... patience is the name if the game in social media. Another important point is that with patience comes reward. The reward is the compounding effect that social media interaction has... It grows over time as you make more and more people aware of your message. The reward is greater though the results coming in may be very slow at first.

Slow is good though because that means you reached some people... Where you can reach some, you can reach many... just rinse and repeat.

@Jay and @itayi - thank you for reading and commenting.

Re: Is there any return on investment in social media?

Charles Heflin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:38:49 -0000

@James - it's the "not so obvious" parts of the obvious that took us a long time to decipher... We basically spent all that time categorizing and dismissing 18 different types of social platforms looking through the lens of Internet marketing, SEO and pure social interaction to determine where the roads meet to form an actionable and effective process.

We needed to learn how to teach traditional Internet marketers and marketing firms to move their thinking in regard to social media. The approach is totally awkward to marketers.

Furthermore, we had to categorize the social networks so their purpose in regard to business application could be understood by marketers.

There is a lot behind the scenes and it does seem that we have come up with some obvious or common sense conclusions... but we had to test from a marketer's perspective in order to show them how to shift their gears.

I agree ... Being real should be one of the statements above ... I knew I missed one!

Re: Is there any return on investment in social media?

Charles Heflin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:44:12 -0000

@Rita Wilhelm - yes, I am happy to see that the Internet has become a mirror reflection of people in the offline world ... just at a faster pace.

@John Austwick - Thank you for the insightful comment

Re: Is there any return on investment in social media?

Charles Heflin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:14:20 -0000

@Erika - Thank you for stopping by, your comments are always insightful and appreciated.

@Peter Konig - No disrespect meant re: item#5 sorry it came across that way.

@Steve @Caroline T - Thank you

@Anna - You're right... All the social networks out there are dizzying and you really only need to be involved in a few to be effective.

@Marc Meyer - Thank you for the insightful comment... I will be reading your take shortly after I post this comment.

Re: Is there any return on investment in social media?

Charles Heflin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:36:17 -0000

We have evidence that Google is paying attention to the level of “community” and “friendship” and “voting” that occurs within accounts that list your website link.

– would you be able to elaborate that statement — prefereably with some kind of documentation? Is it based on somebody else’s analysis or is it in-house generated knowledge?

@Bergholt - I will elaborate on this statement ... We do have evidence and I cannot share the evidence that we have shown for our clients but I can share my own. Anticipating this question I began monitoring the phrase "return on investment in social media" immediately after I posted this. Following are points to noto:

1. Indexing on new blog posts usually happens within 5 - 15 minutes on Google (on this blog). We came in at position 40 for the term this morning.
2. At this moment we are holding at position 4
3. I watched the position rise as the content was crowdsourced and linked to from several blogs (thanks to everyone).

This is not an isolated event ... I/we have been observing this trend for the past several months. With Google courting Digg for a buyout (and acquiring other social platforms and filing several relevant patents) among other things we see strong evidence that Google is paying attention to user voted content.

All we have is the evidence and we are not the only ones seeing this. This is what I call The New SEO. There was never a focus on SEO yet there is strong SEO benefit to creating good content that is favored by communities... A by product if you will.

Re: Clocking the speed of content indexing

Charles Heflin — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:48:56 -0000

Hi Les,

The pings on both blogs are identical.

After further research into this it is actually quite common to see fast indexing as a result of the pings ... This may be a good case for hosting a blog ... Fast indexing for target keywords is always a good thing.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting

Re: Is there any return on investment in social media?

Charles Heflin — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:53:01 -0000

@Robert,

Thank you for your excellent contribution to this thread.

Re: Is there any return on investment in social media?

Charles Heflin — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:56:31 -0000

@Dave and @James - There is such thing as social media advertising, I have used Facebook ads as an example. The funny thing about social media is ... It IS what we make it to be so there is no single correct answer. Social media can be used for more than just social interaction without question.

Re: Is there any return on investment in social media?

Charles Heflin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:03:01 -0000

Thank you Robert,

Your comment adds a great deal of clarification to the overall point of this post.

- Charles

Re: Why does ROI in social media suck?

Charles Heflin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:54:30 -0000

@Real unlocked phones - Using social media for the purpose of building links to your website is the wrong outlook and is dying a slow and miserable death. Success in social media is derived from community building and empowering your communities to crowdsource your content through the law of reciprocity.

The SEO value of gaining inbound links from the "mention of others" on social platforms with "no follow" is of little to no consequence. I have evidence that the crowdsourcing effect has almost immediate influence on search engine rankings. Does this do away with the "nofollow" theory? (it is a theory) ... I am not sure. All I know is that quality social media interaction does increase search engine visibility... bottom line.

Re: Why does ROI in social media suck?

Charles Heflin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:56:50 -0000

@Dexter Babcock - thank you for the comment and the phone call. Sorry about the terrible cell phone reception I had :-) ... too many "can you hear me nows" but a good conversation in any case.

Thanks,

Charles

Re: Why does ROI in social media suck?

Charles Heflin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:29:36 -0000

@Hiram - this does not apply directly to websites but can lead to the overall success of your website by building communities of trusting friends and followers who will contribute to or buy from your website.

Re: Why does ROI in social media suck?

Charles Heflin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:30:43 -0000

@CrustyAdmin - If your take on this is to be "fake" then you have missed the entire point.

Re: BONUS VIDEOS: Corporate Social Media in Action

Charles Heflin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:05:02 -0000

This is a good resource that we will be making reference to in the future... Thank you Aaron.

Charles Heflin
Twitter @CharlesHeflin

Re: 2008/08/14/wuala/

Charles Heflin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:12:46 -0000

Thanks for the heads up... I will check it out an see how if fares against other services.

Charles Heflin
Twitter @CharlesHeflin

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk - Content and Community: How to build a good show on...

Charles Heflin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:50:42 -0000

When I heard you say the 2 C's ... Content and Community I immediately knew that you know your stuff... Funny, it takes people a long time to come to this one simple revelation (me included) ... you can test, test, test until you're blue in the face and you will find that the 2 C's always prevail.

Great, to the point... you're on my watch list.

Charles Heflin
Twitter @CharlesHeflin

Re: Got Punk’d On TechCrunch

Charles Heflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:21:23 -0000

I quit the desktop computer 2 years ago... Now I am strictly lap top and WiFi.

Nobody would be impressed with my office

Re: Social Media Strategy- The Planning Stage

Charles Heflin — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:04:35 -0000

I would also add that choosing the appropriate social media properties based on the type of content you will publish is crucial in the planning stage.

What social media properties contain your target audience and which social media properties are useful for syndicating your messages and what is the proper social etiquette within those properties? ... In other words what is acceptable by the communities you may choose and which networks are worth the time?

Training would be a huge factor here. Do you find someone experienced or do you train someone from the start? This person must understand the technologies (functions within specific social networks) while focusing on community relationships not promotions.

Thanks for this planning list. It is very helpful.

- Charles Heflin

Re: My Best Advice About Personal Branding

Charles Heflin — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:51:50 -0000

Hi Chris,

Thank you for putting all of this together in one place. Very useful, thought out and actionable.

Kudos to you... Your branding tactics are a case study for others to follow.

- Charles

Re: Etiquette in the Age of Social Media

Charles Heflin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:12:19 -0000

All good points Chris... I would like to add that social media is a tool for networking with humans. If you focus on building honest relationships you will achieve trust. Once you are trusted people will look for an opt-in form, join your RSS feed and/or your product offerings.

So many traditional Internet marketers try to classify social media as yet another marketing vehicle. They don't understand that Social etiquette is the missing link.

Re: Google Launches AdSense for Feeds- Breaks My Subscriber Count

Charles Heflin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:55:23 -0000

Oh no ... this is not good. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this. I for one will not put AdSense on my feeds. I think that many people will be annoyed with them.

You must be getting slammed with traffic. Took forever for your blog to load.

Charles Heflin
Twitter @CharlesHeflin

Re: Google Launches AdSense for Feeds- Breaks My Subscriber Count

Charles Heflin — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:07:51 -0000

We did not implement AdSense on our feeds. Hate 'em.

I checked our subscriber counts this morning on 5 blogs ... all show ZERO subscribers ... we lost em all.

This has to be a glitch because though we show zero subscribers I still receive our feeds and so does a few other people that I spot checked with.

Charles Heflin
Twitter @CharlesHeflin

Re: Social Media Events Are Fragmenting

Charles Heflin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 06:45:57 -0000

I believe that that everything is atomizing because of mass confusion. Bloggers that have dispersed their efforts into lifestreaming instead of blogging are leaving their social focal points by the wayside in favor of more direct communication technologies like Twitter. I believe this is a mistake. Much like giving up on your real estate to live in the street.

Similar, there are so many micro events in the industry that a similar confusion is arising. It seems that people are chasing their tails to stay in the game. They seem confused (and rightfully so) about what even to attend to enhance their business.

I for one will sit right here in the comfort of my office, read reports, network with people and make my own personal business decisions without moving around or chasing my tail.

There is something to be said for consistency. Fragmenting your effort is not the answer. Don't become atomized, stay the course, do what has always worked while seeking to implement new technologies and strategies where they make sense.

Charles Heflin
Twitter @CharlesHeflin

Re: Workflow- Social Media for Marketers

Charles Heflin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:53:03 -0000

Your post depicts a realistic scenario that touches on a small tangent of possibilities that are open to marketers who use social media.

The main point of confusion for marketers is going to be accepting that results from social media as a marketing tool is going to yield results in indirect ways that may be hard to measure unless they are aware of the possibilities.

Social media as a conversation analysis tool, as depicted above, is not direct marketing but does spread a message of focus on customer satisfaction which may yield results that are not directly measurable.

Social media marketers need to understand that results are gained from increased search engine visibility, word of mouth (crowdsourcing) and branding through community building and interaction... Traditional metrics and tracking are an issue that I am sure will get better as this space continues to develop.

For now marketers have to accept that social media is mainly a branding / search engine visibility enhancer that will lead to traffic, action and sales but not directly unless you simply run ads on social networks. Traditionally the direct traffic that comes from social networks converts poorly and is rarely worth the effort unless you have built a community of supporters around your brand. In most cases the benefit for marketers is indirect as stated above.

Marketers that use social media have to take the time to learn this medium before jumping in. All to often I see marketing professionals that misuse social platforms because they don't know what they are doing... They try to view marketing in social media through traditional Internet marketing goggles.

Re: Noise Reduction

Charles Heflin — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:26:10 -0000

This is the single biggest question that I get from individuals and companies looking to enter the social space.

What can I do to get noticed among the crowd?

Social media effort can easily be wasted unless you are setting yourself apart from the normal tone of the market. If you sound like a hundred other people and deliver all the same information then you will never rise up and be noticed and you will spin off a bunch of content, spend a bunch of time and get nowhere... Social media = waste of time.

Your social media engagement and content strategy should be planned well in advance. Chris gives us a good example of doing this... He set out to write 100 useful blog posts on social media and did it exceedingly well.

We have been watching how he rose to fame in this space, he literally jumped off the page going from unheard of to an industry leader inside of a few months. I never knew of Chris until the crowd started mentioning him in the past 3 months... Planned content based on community needs.

We have logged all the networks that Chris participated in and how he engaged them... Chris Brogan and this blog can and should be back engineered as a case study in a successful "content driven" approach to social media success.

Great post Chris! ... You have proven yourself to be a valuable asset to this industry ... keep 'em coming.

Charles Heflin

Re: Selling Blog Content the Clean Way

Charles Heflin — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:40:49 -0000

This is a great idea... It is a great model if you are selling information.

Show the prospect quality for free and then when value is perceived and trusted by someone who needs to dig further then they will buy.

Good one!

Re: The most important Google Tool for businesses (that you probably have never used)

Charles Heflin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:46:18 -0000

The Google AdWords Keyword tool coupled with Google Insights (http://www.google.com/insights/search/) are two of the most powerful keyword research tools available to the public at large. If you are not using them then you are probably guessing.

Charles Heflin
Twitter @CharlesHeflin

Re: Google Can & Will Shut Off Your Account Without Warning

Charles Heflin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:17:01 -0000

This is scary ... Is there any indication at all of what may have caused this action or was it a total shocker?

In other words this Saber do something that triggered this action or was it an action by an unknown 3rd party that shut Saber down?

Hmmmm...

Charles Heflin's last blog post..I am testing a Wordpress Plugin for Ping.fm

Re: Do Nofollow Links Count - Redux

Charles Heflin — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:46:44 -0000

Running this test on a non competitive phrase is not going to be an accurate snapshot of the overall picture here.

Google ranks sites differently based on how popular the search term is. To make a complex story short, Google makes it harder to rank for keywords (or phrases) that carry a PPC cost of $.50 or higher. The higher the cost, the harder to rank.

The higher you have to bid on a term on the PPC side the harder it is to rank for that keyword organically. The algorithm shifts based on the real dollar value of the keyword. Google's PPC system does talk to the organic ranking algorithm.

This has been verified by myself, Jerry West and Russell Wright.

On keywords with no activity Google will rank you at the top just because you are fresh and new. It probably had nothing to do with no-follow links passing link love.

It would be interesting to see this study conducted on a competitive phrase to be able to better assess the theory.

- Charles Heflin
SEO20/20

Re: Do Nofollow Links Count - Redux

Charles Heflin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:15:34 -0000

@Greg Parsons - I am glad to see your comment. So very VERY true.

Thank you