Ian M Rountree

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7 Reasons I Don’t Care If You Tweet This Post

April 28, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

When I published 5 Ways to Make Every Blog Post Count two days ago, I knew it’d get retweeted. In fact, I believe I said this:

Linkbait: Effective Blog Writing

And it did. But I didn’t get more traffic than I normally do – for a lot of reasons. Specific to the post; I knew it was linkbait, but it was helpful as well. I truly intended to write a useful post, and I’ll be referring to it several times in upcoming work. However, as effective as the title was at getting a few extra mentions from people who don’t normally interact with my stuff, there are some reasons I’m less concerned with the effect the article – and the title – had on Twitter.

1. Not all of my traffic comes from social media.

A decreasing amount, in fact, comes from Twitter. Yet I have more followers now than I have in the past, and I’m actively working on writing better headlines. So what’s happening to the traffic that’s supposed to come with tweets?

2. Twitter is for conversation.

While a lot of people use Twitter for sending links back and forth, and information traffic control, I’ve had a better time using it as an ongoing chat. I’m a chat person, not a forum person, so this works for me. I don’t use twitter for sharing, but this might change, as my habits change; with any platform, there are bound to be reasons to use the tool one way more than another, but leaving yourself open to change is a good idea.

3. Twitter is not the only network I care about.

Lots of people consider Twitter the penultimate location for networking. However, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even other blogs, also have a lot of power. Considering I spend most of my time using Twitter for conversation, rather than linking, I’d be happier with blog comments, reactions, or other kinds of interaction than just sending another headline into the broader stream.

4. Not every post needs to be read by everyone.

Maybe you already knew how to make each blog post work harder for you. Just like you already know how to measure the effectiveness of tweets – if that’s the case, you’re not going to care what I have to say. You don’t need it. Instead, you could be reading about being awesome somewhere else. Any of this means that one more post on single-blog-post efficiency is just going to float by, and you’re not going to click. And that’s fine.

5. It’s just another list!

There are so many lists! Yes, it’s effective as linkbait, but more importantly if a list doesn’t contain actionable information (or at least informative entertainment), passing it on won’t help anyone. Granted, I do hope this list is helpful – but speaking broadly about link tweeting in general, passing nothing but links without the benefit of meta conversation or commentary only provides so much benefit to your followers. Tell me why it’s important, in a tweet, or don’t endorse it.

6. Linkbait retweets don’t work anyway.

Yes, the link mentioned above got retweeted – the trouble is that I know – and you do too, let’s be honest – that most of the time people bump articles with good titles, but don’t read the article itself. Whether it’s the headline, the tweet wrapping the link, or the person sending the tweet – there are lots of reasons to hit the “Me Too” button that don’t involve appropriately curating and endorsing things you pass on. And that’s ok. But it doesn’t make me care more about Twitter than I do already.

7. Getting a retweet isn’t my highest measurement of value in social media.

It’s really not!

There are many ways you can encourage reactions in social media, and gain traffic or further conversation. Things like:

  • Retweets (mediatrope: Me Too Button)
  • Facebook likes or comments
  • Trackbacks
  • Comments on the blog post itself, or
  • Even better off site blog reactions

… All contribute to a blog post’s effectiveness as a communication tool, beyond being just another publication. It’s up to you, as a content creator, to know – and appropriately rank – which of these is most important to your own measurements of value, and acceptance of success where you find it.

If we don’t decide on what matters before we hit publish, hindsight cannot help is.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: calls to action, lists, measurement, priorities, rant-alert, twitter

3 Steps to Mastering Any Social Network

February 7, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

Books - from Shutterhacks on FlickrGreat news! There’s a new social network, and the word is, it’s awesome!

Oh. But it’s fundamentally different than anything you’re using right now, and the first reports are that just about everyone is, as usual, doing it wrong.

Pop quiz, tough guy. Do you join the new network?

One of the biggest challenges when approaching a given platform is feeling like you’re actually getting your head around it. Are you publishing the right material? Are you making the right friends? Are you ticking anyone off?

Getting over the fear of diving in is difficult – but it doesn’t have to be.

Whenever I start making use of a new platform – whether it’s digging into Twitter, or changing my approach to Facebook or LinkedIn – there are three simple things I do before solidifying my strategy: Listen, Observe, Catalog. You might think these are similar activities, but they’re really quite different – and essential to do before actually taking any action on a new plan.

How does it work? Simple:

1) Listen to what other people are saying about locales, individuals, or artifacts on the new platform.

Granted, this is easier with open networks than closed ones – it’s easier to do sentiment research on what’s going on within Twitter, for example, than it is on LinkedIn. However, if you have any kind of network to start with, you probably have a buffer – a back channel – to help you navigate the initial onslaught of information.

Chances are there are some movers and shakers, no matter how early the days of the new network are. Who are they? Are they making splashes? Are people you follow mentioning the same things consistently? Listening, especially on purpose, can be a powerful first indication of what people are doing, why they’re doing it, and how they’re managing to get results. Listening will also let you in on what kinds of results people are actually looking for.

Now, I’m not saying this should be done before filling out that tempting, well-designed sign up form. Not a bit. But it is easy enough, with some tools like Google Blog Search, Google Alerts and (gasp) asking your friends, to get a sense of where to go next, where the movers are actually doing their shaking.

Listening should give you your first indication of whether or not a space is worth further investment of time and energy.

2) Observe what others are actually doing with their networks in the new space.

I know, radical isn’t it? Once you’ve found out what you should be looking for by listening to the noise surrounding a new space – and, bonus points, this is actually easier as the space ages; anyone listening for Facebook news would find a wealth of information these days – you’ll know what kinds of people to actually spend time watching.

Pay attention to what’s getting done. Take note of how it’s being done as well. Is auto-publishing of blog posts or Twitter feeds welcomed? Are there opportunities for leadership? Are the leaders in the space actively investing in others, or promoting themselves?

Where listening is generally outside-the-wall activity, observation is being a fly on the wall in the same room where the party is.

3) Catalog what you’ve learned and start breaking out your plan of action.

What did you learn during your listening and observation? By now, you should have an accurate sense of:

  • What gets done in this new space
  • How people are doing this work effectively
  • What kinds of behaviors are encouraged or accepted
  • What kinds of behaviors are expected, whether encouraged or invisible
  • How to get ahead easily
  • What tools are available to reduce emotional overhead and administration effort

This preemptive insider knowledge will help remove a lot of the thrash from starting out on a new network, and make even your first days there easier. When you have a sense of what’s accepted, expected and anticipated, you can live up to expectations – and manage them – far better than going in blind.

Don’t have that sense yet? Repeat steps one and two until you can hammer out at least a 14 day revolving plan.

It’s really that simple. Everything else is over-complication.

Yes, there’s detail involved. there always is. And sometimes, the new network may not be for you – or you may go for years using it in a certain way, based on your initial perception of where the value is. Above all; don’t be afraid to course-correct and make a new plan of action. But, if you’re making changes in your network navigation intentionally, I’d strongly suggest spending at least a day on each of the above activities.

Going in to any network with more information, and using aware observer skills in building your knowledge, is always a good idea.

Have you been in any situations where more information could have been helpful? Where later observation put a new spin on your initial perception? I’d love to hear about it – please do share in the comments.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: ACT, automatic comprehension training, buffer, catalogue, chat, how to, learning, listening, lists, new networks, new spaces, new toys, nostalgiamania, observation, platforms

On Being Definitive

January 10, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

We love to categorize things, don’t we?

We call people beginners, novices, experts. Gurus. Knowledge Workers. The name-calling never ends.

Or worse – the lists!

5 Ways to Rule the World

9 Things Your Mother Never Taught You

3 Simple Ways to Get Rich by Noon Online

How many of these lists have we seen? Lots, right? How many have you written? If you’re a blogger, probably half as many as you’ve seen. How do you back them up?

Have you done everything on your list? By the time you had written the first and second ways to get rich online by noon – why, you must already have been rich! How did you go about list item three? Did you bootstrap it all over again, from zero? Why? That’s kind of silly, isn’t it?

Categorization can be really helpful – it provides a means by which we can communicate effectively by allowing us to speak in groups rather than reiterating lists many times over.

However, when you’re giving advice online – or in any other public arena – please, make sure the list makes sense and isn’t recursive. Categorization and process are two very different things.

Image by Rob and Stephanie Levy.

Filed Under: Content Strategy Tagged With: 2011 themes, lists, recovery, theme 1

How to Suck at Social Media (And 3 ways to Get Better)

October 22, 2010 by Ian 1 Comment

It’s easier than you think. If you;

  • Do nothing but worry over ROI,
  • Con yourself out of trying a platform for any reason,
  • Convince yourself it’s all a load of hooey before diving in head first, (or)
  • Dive in head first, experience cold-shoulder-shock, and immediately stop…

… You might just suck at social media.

But it’s ok! You can get better at it – that part’s easier than you think.

First, stop worrying over how many followers you have, and start keeping track of how many points of interaction you create. How many blog posts are you writing per month? How many tweets are you sending per day? How many questions are you asking, answering, and participating in answering on LinkedIn groups?

Next, stop reading the stats about interactions and start counting the percentage of your interaction points which get taken advantage of. Look at your blog post-to-comment ratio and figure out how to encourage more comments and discussions. Look at your Klout score to see if you’re keeping up with the replies and long-lasting conversations over time (because a given Klout score is useless – the trend matters). Pay attention to how many questions are asked on your LinkedIn groups, and how many answers you’ve given – bonus points when your answers are not the last in the thread.

And whatever you do, don’t burn yourself out with hard sprints of activity that you can’t keep up. That’s the worst. If you can’t commit to posting on your blog five times a week, don’t do it in the first place – that’s what scheduling is for. If you can’t commit to answering every question on a group, don’t make one – join another and participate.

Participating in social media is always more straight-forward than curating it. Bonus points if you can stop worrying about building communities before you’re ready, and spend your time endeavouring to enhance the communities already in place by joining and taking active part.

And if you really don’t know where to start – you know where to find me.

Image by josh-n.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: lists, not a numbers game, not ROI, ROI not Roy, social media

6 Things Bloggers Can Learn From the FIFA World Cup

July 5, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

football on flickr! - Photo Sharing!The more of the World Cup I watch, the more I’m seeing trends in how the best of the best work – especially when we see groups of them. It’s easy to think “that’s not so hard” or “they sure aren’t scoring much” – but do we realize what we’re comparing ourselves to? Those of us who self-class as mediocre, or even slightly-less-than-the-best, perhaps expect to see greatness out of the greatest, without realizing why world class is what it is.

So what can we take from world class events like the FIFA World Cup?

Congregations of the best are deceptively flat on skill visibility.

They don’t score much because they’re all so good at defence. trade-offs in play, volleying – these things are marks of strategy, real knowledge of game mechanics, and experience. In blogging, this is the reason so few of the top ranks deviate and push for the occasional “goal-worthy” post or series; they know where the benefits of strategic consistency. The appearance of calm waters between opposing teams is a blind for the real skills that inform that calm behaviour. Thrashing is an effect of putting tactics (ie, goals) before strategy (ie, winning in the long game).

Persistence pays off.

Once you have the skill to play the long game, why would you put all your effort into blowing the opposition out of the water in the first five minutes? On the web, like in long-term timed games such as 90 minute football matches, being prepared with a long game plan is of far more benefit than a handful of short term tactics. Tactics can help in single instances, but can’t be confused with strategy. Tactics are actions; strategy is behaviour. Know the difference. Persistence is a strategy, not an action.

Strategic substitutions are a good idea. (Don’t be afraid to deviate)

Right. I just told you not to deviate. I lied. The lesson? Deviate; but deviate only when it benefits you – and know why, how, when and where to do so. It really confuses your competitors, but if you do it right, your constituency will thank you.

Good coverage is often as important as good play.

Growing a blog just by blogging is difficult. For the same reason, the World Cup wouldn’t have anywhere near the hype it does, if all we had was the game itself. Especially with the Vuvuzela going off this time around. FIFA has some of the best commentators available, a minute-by-minute feed of action on a number of sites, and a host of third-party coverage as well.

What has your blog got as its coverage support structure? A Facebook page? Twitter feed? FeedBurner? Pubsubhubbub? There are a lot of tools available for use to boost your blog’s profile in simple ways. Are you commentating on your blog? Keeping a play-by-play in more than just your comments?

Follow-up (post game show) reveals things missed during the excitement of the game.

Once you’ve made a post on your blog, what happens? Do you respond to comments? Do you welcome feedback? Or does the game just end every time, with no wrap-up?

Post-game wrap-ups are some of the most common, and popular measures sportscasters take to ensure well-rounded coverage. Highlighting the best, and worst parts of a given game can be essential to ensuring there are no problems with the play, and issues get disputed (like bad calls by officials) in an efficient and fair manner. It doesn’t always work. But it’s sure fun to watch. Sometimes better than the seventy minutes you just waited between goals.

Scoring the early goal brings massive advantages.

I don’t just mean hitting it big with your first blog post – though that can happen if you do some other things right first. Use test blogs as training – video post and podcast for cross training in your off season. Preparing for scoring big happens as much before blogs launch as it can in scooping other blogs on single events.

What else can we learn from professional sports’ biggest worldwide celebration?

photo by spacepleb.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: blogging, fifa, football, lists, soccer, world cup

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