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09Aug

60 Ways to Increase Your Influence Online

Blog Psychology, List Building, Personal Branding, Persuasion, Popular No Comments

Recently, my company brought together 60 of the web’s brightest minds to speak about influence for 60 seconds each.

Yep. 60 speakers, 60 minutes total.

Who came to the party?

Well, Copyblogger’s own beloved Brian Clark, and his humorous underlord, Johnny B. Truant, to start.

We also heard from Guy Kawasaki, Gary Vaynerchuk, Robert Scoble, MarketingSherpa’s Anne Holland, MarketingProfs’ Ann Handley, David Meerman Scott, and many others.

We called it The Influencer Project, and billed it as “the shortest marketing conference ever.” The venerable HubSpot was our sponsor. Word got around.

We learned a lot, which we’ll be sharing as a case study later down the road.

But for now, I wanted to share with my fellow Copyblogger enthusiasts and Third Tribe mavens the “one thing” each speaker shared that we at ThoughtLead found unique and essential to building digital influence.

Now, without any further ado, here they are, in order of appearance:

#1. David Meerman Scott. “Stop talking about your products and services. People don’t care about products and services; they care about themselves.” -@dmscott

#2. Anne Holland. “Improve the buttons on your landing page. Can you make your button bigger?” -@anneholland55

#3. Mike Volpe. “We share lots of things that most companies would keep internal. By sharing both the good and the bad, you build digital influence.” -@mvolpe

#4. Michael Port. “Consistency. Consistency demonstrates commitment. You’re going to earn trust because you’re consistent.” -@michaelport

#5. Liz Strauss. “Know where you’re going — because who would want to follow you if you don’t know where you’re going?” -@lizstrauss

#6. Robert Scoble. “Follow better people. The better your inbound is, the better your output will be. And your output is what people follow.” -@scobleizer

#7. Carol Roth. “Align yourself with outstanding strategic partners.” -@CarolJSRoth

#8. Scott Porad. “Make connections with people online, and then go and meet them in person in the real world, offline.” -@scottporad

#9. Joe Pulizzi. “Create content that stands for something: what I call Higher Purpose Content Marketing.” -@juntajoe

#10. Laurel Touby. “Each month, on the first day of the month, assign yourself 3 digital trends you’ve been hearing about and do a test drive.” -@laureltouby

#11. Hugh MacLeod. “We use other people’s stuff or other people’s content to socialize. And your stuff’s either a social object or it’s not.” -@gapingvoid

#12. Chris Guillebeau. “Avoid incestuous blogging. Instead of sticking to one niche, think bigger: what social circles are related to yours?” -@chrisguillebeau

#13. Laura Roeder. “Just start talking to people! Don’t worry about what to tweet, just start responding.” -@lkr

#14. Michael Margolis. “People either identify and connect with your story or they don’t. Have a story that’s worth telling.” -@getstoried

#15. Dave Navarro. “Find people who have your audience already and co-create products with them.” -@rockyourday

#16. Loren Feldman. “Either be super-fake and make believe you’re friendly to everybody, or be completely honest.” -@1938media

#17. Ann Handley. “Ground your content in who you are. Don’t be afraid to have a point of view. But also give it wings to soar freely and be shared.” -@marketingprofs

#18. Jim Kukral. “Facebook advertising: you can run ads on profiles of people that work just within certain organizations!” -@jimkukral

#19. Joselin Mane. “As soon as you meet someone, introduce that individual to someone else you know.” -@joselinmane

#20. John Jantsch. “Get very good at filtering and aggregating content. Deliver it to people at the right time, the right size, the right amount.” -@ducttape

#21. Marshall Kirkpatrick. “Be early in the news cycle on any conversation of general interest. Detect early voices out in the wilderness.” -@marshallk

#22. Shama Kabani. “Create [video] content around your area of expertise and then distribute, distribute with gusto!” -@shama

#23. Terry Starbucker. “The only way to build influence is to go out and try and get it yourself, and to overcome that fear of doing so.” -@starbucker

#24. Johnny B. Truant. “Defy convention where it’s appropriate. Only a few people dare to step outside. And people take notice of that.” -@johnnybtruant

#25. Jason Falls. “Share good content consistently. That’s how I’ve done it.” -@jasonfalls

#26. Robbin Phillips. “It is not about digital. It’s about people. It’s about passion conversations, not product conversations.” -@robbinphillips

#27. Yaro Starak. “Learn how to talk more about other people. If you’re looking to influence a certain thought leader, talk about them.” -@yarostarak

#28. Michael Stelzner. “Set up a fan page on Facebook. Make a welcome tab with a video on it, and ask a poll question.” -@mike_stelzner

#29. Erica OGrady. “Make people around you more successful than you are.” -@ericaogrady

#30. Gary Vaynerchuk. “Talk about things you know. The reason Wine Library TV worked was because I knew what I was talking about.” -@garyvee

#31. Nathan Hangen. “Don’t worry about getting attention from other people. Make something worth talking about.” -@nhangen

#32. Danielle LaPorte. “Get yourself properly interviewed. Either hire a writer, or get yourself in front of a camera with a friend.” -@daniellelaporte

#33. Guy Kawasaki. “Repeat your tweets. I repeat them every eight hours.” -@guykawasaki

#34. David Bullock. “Move offline. Sometimes your market is not online. Use another media—television, radio, speaking events.” -@davidbullock

#35. Vanessa Fox. “A lot of people attract [visitors] from search. They’ve missed that big second step: solving their problems.” -@vanessafox

#36. Lewis Howes. “Find one specific niche and master that niche.” -@lewishowes

#37. Valeria Maltoni. “Do a weekly chat on Twitter. I’m a business strategist, so we use the principle of kaizen to help people at #kaizenblog.” -@ConversationAge

#38. Sergio Balegno. “Invest more time mapping a strategy for not just using social media, but for integrating social media with other tactics.” -@sergiobalegno

#39. Hank Wasiak. “Get rid of conventional views of influence. It should be about our influence — from my influence to our influence.” -@hankwasiak

#40. Mitch Joel. “Get active in other people’s communities. Get out of your own head and get into other people’s spaces.” -@mitchjoel

#41. Tamsen McMahon. “Building digital influence is about ‘digital dimensionality.’ Show as many sides of yourself or your business as you can.” -@tamadear

#42. Justin Levy. “Listen to the conversations around you. See how different networks interact, because not every network’s the same.” -@justinlevy

#43. Chris Garrett. “What you’re looking for is a long-term relationship. You don’t want to gain influence and lose influence.” -@chrisgarrett

#44. Cathy Brooks. “Think about the authenticity and consistency of your voice across your entire online and offline presence.” -@cathybrooks

#45. Todd Defren. “To change your world, start by trying to change the world. What is it that you feel passionate enough about to shake things up?” -@tdefren

#46. Brian Clark. “Learn to be a storyteller. Narrative — it’s what makes us human. Big media does it great. You have to as well.” -@copyblogger

#47. Scott Belsky. “Share your ideas liberally. Accountability and letting people know what you’re up to can make all the difference.” -@scottbelsky

#48. Wendy Piersall. “You have to put your business model before pursuing fame. Whatever you do online, make sure that it adds to your bottom line.” -@emom

#49. Mark Silver. “Many people are afraid to speak; if you speak for them, they will be listening.” -@markheartofbiz

#50. Dan Schawbel. “Go further down the long tail and choose a much smaller niche to focus on. Be the personal finance expert for Minnesota.” -@danschawbel

#51. Shashi Bellamkonda. “Find out from your customers which social networks they are using, and be there for them at the moment they need you.” -@shashib

#52. Gretchen Rubin. “Self-expression is the new entertainment. Get people talking. I had success just asking, ‘What’s your comfort food?’” -@gretchenrubin

#53. Muhammad Saleem. “Give as much as you can give. Too often we’re too focused on what we want to accomplish.” -@msaleem

#54. Aaron Kahlow. “Think about social media not as its own strategy, but a strategy to enhance your existing marketing and business goals.” -@aaronkahlow

#55. Alexandra Levit. “Target between five and ten individuals who you admire, whose work you’ve followed, and gradually start getting to know them.” -@alevit

#56. Steve Woodruff. “Identify gifted up-and-comers. By coming alongside them and becoming an advocate, you end up creating an advocate for life.” -@swoodruff

#57. David Siteman Garland. “Start the media arm of your company, whether it’s a special show, or a podcast, or an online magazine.” -@therisetothetop

#58. Amber Naslund. “Online influence is a slow burn. It’s something that’s grown by having quality one-on-one conversations over time.” -@ambercadabra

#59. Julien Smith. “Get someone else to take a look at what you have that you maybe take for granted and gives you an advantage over other people.” -@julien

#60. Brian Solis. “How do you become a thought leader? It starts with *being* a thought leader and then connecting the dots back to you.” -@briansolis

So there you have it: 60 of the most successful digital influencers, all sharing their thoughts on how you can increase your own digital influence.

Of course, each one is tweetable — what’s the point of wisdom if it can’t be shared? (Kudos to Chris Brogan for the original inspiration of “tweetable advice.”)

And if you want to join the conversation on influence, just include #influencer in your tweets. You’ll find a community of people waiting to interact with you.

And now, my friends, I ask you: which is your favorite tweet, and why? And how can you implement it in your business, starting today? Let’s have some fun in the comments.

Sam Rosen is the big-time, Daddy Warbucks CEO of ThoughtLead, a digital influence agency that helps brands use the web to spread important ideas, and the co-creator of the Influencer Project — the shortest marketing conference ever.
20Apr

The 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers

Blog Psychology, Blogging, Popular No Comments

Do you want to be a successful blogger?

I do. I might be getting a bit obsessed with it, actually.

Post ideas pop into my head unexpectedly. I keep a long running list of ideas for improving my blog.

I also study how the most successful bloggers got where they are, and I pore over every word that they write.

If you want to be a great blogger, you should, too.

A lot of the top bloggers like Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, and Leo
Babauta have shared hundreds of tips about how they made their blogs so successful. But each blogger’s tips are just a little different.

There’s too much advice to follow

So I would read one special report with a great idea and put that into place on my blog. But the next day I’d find a podcast from another top blogger with contradictory advice, so I’d change my blog again. Then I’d come across a third idea from an equally successful blogger, which sent me down a totally new path.

Finally I realized I needed to stop focusing on little things like what plug-ins to use, how to write my About Page, or where to position my ads.

I needed to focus on a bigger picture. I wanted to find out what all these top bloggers had in common. Their mindset, their mental habits.

I spent a lot of time observing, which led to this list of the eight success traits shared by all top bloggers I’ve found. I’m happy to share it with you.

The good news is that even if you don’t have all these personality traits already, most of them can be developed over time. Best of all, if you can cultivate these traits, you’ll become more effective in the rest of your life as well.

1. Effective bloggers are prolific

The first key to being a successful blogger is to write. A lot.

The more you write, the better your writing gets. The more posts you add to your blog, the more juice you’ll get from search engines. And more content means more reader visits to see what’s new.

There’s no way around it; it takes work to be prolific. Effective bloggers work hard. Putting a successful blog together requires a lot of time in front of your computer, and not surfing LOLCats or Twittering about what you had for lunch. Great bloggers put serious time into researching, writing, editing, and planning posts for their blogs.

2. Effective bloggers are concise

It is a truth universally acknowledged by top bloggers; people come to your blog for a reason. Usually because they want to learn something from you.

No one wants to read fluff or blather, especially online.

Top bloggers know how to quickly get people’s attention, how to keep it, and how to make their posts easy to digest.

Most effective bloggers tend toward short posts. They also divide their copy into short paragraphs, and use bullet points or numbered lists to keep the reader scanning. They use compelling subheads so readers can scan for the information they need.

Brevity comes in handy in other areas of life, too. Keep your phone calls short. Pare your email messages down to the essentials. You’ll have more time for creative work, and people will be much more interested in what you have to say.

3. Effective bloggers are analytical

Successful bloggers don’t work or live in a bubble.

They always look to their readers, observing carefully to see what readers care about and respond to.

They study their statistics, so they know where readers come from — what sites, what search engines, what search terms, and even what countries.

They know when they tend to get the most traffic, what kinds of posts are best suited for their audience, and what kinds of headlines get tweeted most often.

Then they tailor the timing, content, layout, and images of their posts to suit their audience.

4. Effective bloggers are lifelong learners

If you’re new to blogging, you’re probably on a steep learning curve at the moment.

Maybe you tell yourself that things will get better when you’ve been doing it longer. There won’t be so much to learn. You’ll have systems in place soon and everything will run smoothly.

Sadly, I think this is a myth. I’ve been using and designing for the Internet for about 15 years, and it keeps changing. Just when you’ve got one element sorted out, something new gets released. Or becomes obsolete. Or mutates in 20 different directions.

If you want to stay ahead in blogging, you have to keep learning.

Fortunately, being curious and wanting to learn keeps you young and your brain active. A love of learning doesn’t just set you up for a successful blog, but for a successful and happy life.

5. Effective bloggers are focused and consistent

Successful bloggers choose a topic and stick to it.

They write consistently about their chosen subject, and with a consistent voice and approach. Even when they write about something that seems to be off-topic, they relate it back to the niche they know their readers are interested in.

Top bloggers are also consistent about timing. Most stick to regular posting schedules. Whether they post three posts a day or two posts a week, their readers know what to expect.

6. Effective bloggers plan ahead

Successful bloggers know where they’re going. They have a master plan and they stick to it. Yes, they adapt based on feedback, but always in service of a vision.

To paraphrase Seth Godin’s recent book Linchpin, “Effective bloggers ship.” Top bloggers don’t waffle for months about the typeface on their upcoming ebook. They may tailor the angle, price, or format to better suit their market. But they don’t let themselves get derailed. They follow the plan.

7. Effective bloggers are persistent

Top bloggers understand that success doesn’t happen overnight. Real success rarely happens quickly.

Time is on your side. To get to the top takes consistency, hard work, serious study, and lots of persistence. Successful bloggers don’t give up.

8. Effective bloggers are self-starters

I’ve been self-employed for years.

I’ve noticed a lot of people like the idea of working from home, working for themselves, being their own boss. But if you want these things, you need to be able to manage yourself.

No one is going to sack you if you’re late. No one reminds you of important deadlines or nags you to get your sales numbers up.

If you want to be a successful blogger, you need to be a self-starter. It’s not enough to have good ideas. You have to act on them.

What trait do you think is most valuable?

What do you think the most important trait of a top blogger is? It might be one of these eight, or something completely different. Let us know in the comments!

About the Author: Annabel Candy is a travel fiend who currently calls Australia home. She has travelled widely and writes a personal improvement blog called Get in the Hot Spot. It’s stuffed with inspiration and tips to help people live their dreams.
16Mar

The Secret Ingredient to an Irresistible Blog

Blog Psychology No Comments
Things were going pretty well until I bit into my hamburger.

Ow.

Something was really wrong.

“Are you okay?” asked my date.

My eyes started watering. I was so confused, but I nodded.

I bit down harder and suddenly the hamburger flew out of my hands. I’ve never been so bewildered in my life. Only when I held my hand up did the sorry truth stare us in the face.

Somehow, my left ring finger had slipped inside the bun of that burger. I bit down on it. And when it hurt, the cause wasn’t immediately obvious, so I bit down harder . . . so hard I forced myself to drop the hamburger.

When I realized what had happened, I laughed really hard. She didn’t.

“Aren’t you embarrassed?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding, “but this is kind of how it is. And this stuff can’t be taught.” Then I finished the hamburger in dainty bites, making sure that no other errant appendages strayed between the bread.

“It must be kind of liberating to know that,” she said.

In a non-glorious footnote, the rest of that date went exactly nowhere.

But authentically idiotic is still authentic, which brings us to the point today:

There are things that bloggers can and can’t be taught

As my traffic climbed from modest to less-modest, other bloggers began asking me if I could help them build their own blog traffic. At first, I wasn’t sure I could, even if I wanted to. But I decided I’d try.

Before I was willing to work with someone, I asked one question:

Why do you think I can help you?

Their answers told me a lot. Not just about their expectations and thought processes, but about a lot of what’s wrong with the blogging mindset in general.

A few answers I’ve gotten
- You love what you do and can help me love what I do
- You know where you’re going and I want to go to the same place
- You’re passionate and I think that might rub off on me
What I didn’t hear from them was:
- I love what I do and think you could help me do it better
- Here’s where I want to go and I’m not sure how to get there
- I’m passionate about this idea and I want to bounce some ideas off another passionate person
Maybe that’s silly of me, but those are questions I could have approached more easily.

By the way, I’ve decided I’m not a very good coach and I doubt I’ll do this again. In fact, I think I suck. Don’t hire me.

(OK — I’m actually really good at some things. But I’m writing this post as a snapshot of this experience, not a sales pitch.)

Let’s take a look at those answers I received.

“You love what you do”

I do, but you cannot pay someone else to help you love something in the way they love it.

I love blogging, but I write my blog, not anyone else’s. And I don’t play for stakes, I play for fun. I would not love another project as much.

How do I know? Because I didn’t pick another project.

If you are seeking help with your blog, there is nothing wrong with trying to take the steps of someone who has achieved what you want. Why else would you be reading Copyblogger today?

But do not assume that their goals resemble your goals, even if they have numbers you would like to have.

“You know where you’re going”

No I don’t, other than up.

I know that I will publish a post every day and I will try to do lots of guest posts. I will be nice and helpful to everyone I can, lift a bunch of heavy stuff, and try to laugh a lot.

That’s what I know, that’s what I’ve done, that’s what I’ll do until it’s not fun anymore.

Whenever someone has had some success, many of us — me included — assume that the success is the result of a plan. That’s not always true. Dumb luck can play its role in anyone’s good fortune. Just keep an open mind. There are a lot of variables that go into whatever we decide “success” is.

“You’re passionate”

Once I took a mambo class taught by a guy whose passion nearly melted us all. He was like a combination of Beto from the Zumba commercials and Pepe Le Pew. He was amorous, passionate, and all swiveling hips. I love dancing, but I didn’t leave the class with that guy’s passion for mambo. But he tried!

The secret ingredient to a great blog

We like to give authority and credibility to other people. We want other people to have the answers.

Sometimes this creates brilliant coaches who are worth every penny. I have no doubt that if I hired Naomi Dunford and I had a plan, she could help me execute it.

But sometimes our need for answers spawns “gurus” who are freaking travesties of ethics and exploitation.

So what should you do to make your blog better?

Now that I’m done writing this post, here’s how I’m feeling:

First: If a consultant out there says “I can help you love writing,” or “I can help you write like me,” or “I can teach you passion,” the quickest way to escape their clutches is with a perfectly timed throat-strike.

(Don’t bother aiming for the groin — cowards and exploiters have no feelings down there).

It’s great to get help and advice if you need it. But don’t expect anyone to do all the thinking for you. And don’t trust anyone who tells you he can or will.

Second: However much advice you may get along the way, there is one secret ingredient to the great blog recipe. And that secret ingredient is you.

Finally: There’s only one test that really matters, and that can be solved over lunch:

Can your consultant eat a hamburger without harming himself?

About the Author: Josh Hanagarne is the twitchy giant behind World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog about living with Tourette’s Syndrome, kettlebells, book recommendations, buying pants when you’re 6’8”, old-time strongman training, and much more. Please subscribe to Josh’s RSS Updates to stay in touch.
01Dec

Four Things 50 Cent Can Teach You About Connecting with Your Audience

Blog Psychology, Collaboration, Social Media Marketing No Comments

I spent most of 2007 hanging out with Curtis Jackson, better known as Fifty Cent. Together we wrote a bestselling book about hustling, fearlessness, and power.

I’d like to share a couple of insights that arose from that collaboration.

After the remarkable success of his first two commercial albums, Fifty Cent stood on top of the music world. But his very success was starting to corrode his musical ability.

His sense of connection, so vital on the streets, was fading in this new environment he now inhabited.

He was surrounded by flatterers who wanted to be in his entourage, managers and industry people who saw only dollar signs in him. His main interactions were with people in the corporate world or other stars.

At the same time, he could no longer hang out on the streets or get firsthand looks at the trends that were just starting up.

All of this meant that Fifty was flying blind with his music, not really sure if it would connect anymore with his audience. Other stars didn’t seem to mind this; in fact, they enjoyed living in this kind of celebrity bubble. They were afraid of coming back down to earth. Fifty felt the opposite, but there seemed to be no way out.

Know your environment from the inside out

Most people think first of what they want to express or make, then find the audience for their idea. You must work the opposite angle, thinking first of the public. You need to keep your focus on their changing needs, the trends that are washing through them. Beginning with their demand, you create the appropriate supply. Do not be afraid of people’s criticisms—without such feedback your work will be too personal and delusional. You must maintain as close a relationship to your environment as possible, getting an inside “feel” for what is happening around you. Never lose touch with your base.

~ The 50th Law

An experiment in reconnection

In early 2007, Fifty decided to start up his own website. He thought of it as a way to market his music and merchandise directly to the public, without the screen of his record label, which was proving quite inept in adapting to the Internet age.

First, he decided to experiment. As he prepared to launch a G-Unit record in the summer of 2008, he leaked one of the songs on to the website on a Friday night, then the next day he refreshed the Comments page every few minutes and tracked the members’ response to it.

After several hundred comments it was clear that the verdict was negative. The song was too soft. They wanted and expected something harder from a G-Unit record.

Taking their criticisms to heart, he shelved the song and soon released another, creating the hard sound they had demanded. This time the response was overwhelmingly positive.

He put up the latest single from his arch-enemy The Game, hoping to read the negative comments of his fans. To his surprise, many of them liked the song. He engaged in an online debate with them about this and had his eyes opened about changes in people’s tastes and why they had perhaps grown distant from his music. It forced him to rethink his own direction.

Creating a radical connection

To draw more people to his site, Fifty decided to break down the distance in both directions. He posted blogs on personal subjects, and then responded to his fans’ comments. They could feel they had complete access to him.

Using the advances in technology, he took this further, having his team film him on their cell phones wherever he went; these images were then streamed live on the website. Made dramatic by Fifty’s flair for confrontation, membership grew by leaps and bounds.

As it evolved, the website came to strangely resemble the world of hustling that Fifty had created for himself on the streets of southside Queens.

He could produce testers (trial songs) for his fans, who were like drug fiends, constantly hungry for new product from Fifty; and he could get instant feedback on their quality. He could develop a feel for what they were looking for and how he could manipulate their demand.

He had moved from the outside to the inside and the hustling game came alive once more, this time on a global scale.

Four keys to the fearless approach

The public is never wrong. When people don’t respond to what you do, they’re telling you something loud and clear. You’re just not listening.

~ Fifty Cent

Fifty’s approach isn’t just for pop culture icons. His insights into rebuilding connection are universal.

Most of us live in a society of apparent abundance and ease. We lack a sense of urgency to connect to other people. In such a melting pot as the modern world, with people’s tastes changing at a faster pace than ever before, our success depends on our ability to move outside of ourselves and connect to other social networks.

At all cost, you need to continually force yourself outward. You must reach a point where losing this connection to your environment makes you feel uncomfortable, even vulnerable.

The following are four strategies you can use to bring yourself closer to this ideal.

1. Crush all distance

In this day and age, to reach people you must have access to their inner lives — their frustrations, aspirations, resentments.

To do so, you must crush as much distance as possible between you and your audience.

You enter their spirit and absorb it from within. Their way of looking at things becomes yours. And when you recreate it in some form of work, it has life. What shocks and excites you will then have the same effect on them.

This requires a degree of fearlessness and open spirit. You are not afraid to have your whole personality shaped by these intense interactions. You assume a radical equality with the public, giving voice to people’s ideas and desires.

What you produce will naturally connect in a deep way.

2. Open informal channels of criticism and feedback

When Eleanor Roosevelt entered the White House as First Lady in 1933, it was with much trepidation. Denied an official position within the administration, she decided to work to create informal channels to the public, on her own.

She traveled all over the country — to inner cities and remote rural towns — listening to people’s complaints and needs. She brought many of these people back to meet the president and give him firsthand impressions of the effects of the New Deal.

She opened a column in The Woman’s Home Companion, in which she let her audience know, “I want you to write me.” She would use her column as a kind of discussion forum with the American public, encouraging people to share their criticisms.

Within six months she had received over 300,000 letters, and with her staff she worked to answer every last one of them.

She began to see a pattern from the bottom up — a growing disenchantment with the New Deal. Every day, she left a memo in her husband’s basket, reminding him of these criticisms and the need to be more responsive. And slowly, she began to have an influence on his policy, pushing him leftward. All of this took tremendous courage for she was continually ridiculed for her activist approach, long before any First Lady had ever thought of such a role.

As Eleanor understood, any kind of group tends to close itself off from the outside world. From within this bubble, people delude themselves into thinking they have insight into how their audience or public feels — they read the papers, various reports, the poll numbers, etc.

But all of this information tends to be flat and highly filtered. It is much different when you interact directly with the public, hear in the flesh their criticisms and feedback. You create a back-and-forth dynamic in which their ideas, involvement and energy can be harnessed for your purposes.

3. Reconnect with your base

We see it again and again.

A person has success when they are younger because they have deep ties with a social group. Then slowly they lose this connection.

In his own way, the famous black activist Malcolm X struggled with this problem. He had spent his youth as a savvy street hustler, ending up in prison on drug charges. Out of prison he became a highly visible spokesperson for Nation of Islam, channeling his emotions into powerful speeches that gave voice to those who lived deep in the ghettos of America.

As he became more and more famous, he made an effort to inoculate himself from the psychic distance experienced by other successful leaders in the black community.

He increased his interactions with street hustlers and agitators, the kind of people from the lower depths that most leaders would scrupulously avoid. He made himself spend more time with those who had suffered recent injustices, soaking up their experiences and sense of outrage.

I knew that the ghetto people knew that I never left the ghetto in spirit, and I never left it physically any more than I had to. I had a ghetto instinct; for instance, I could feel if tension was beyond normal in a ghetto audience. And I could speak and understand the ghetto’s language.

~ Malcolm X

The goal in connecting to the public is not to please everyone, to spread yourself out to the widest possible audience. You have a base of power — a group of people, small or large, who identify with you. Keep your associations with it alive, intense and present.

Return to your origins — the source of all inspiration and power.

4. Create the social mirror

Instead of turning inward, consider people’s coolness to your idea and their criticisms as a kind of mirror that they are holding up to you.

Your ego cannot protect you — the mirror does not lie. You use it to correct your appearance and avoid ridicule.

The opinions of other people serve a similar function. You view your work inside your mind, encrusted with all kinds of desires and fears. Through their criticisms you can get closer to this objective version and gradually improve what you do.

When your work does not communicate with others, consider it your own fault. You did not make your ideas clear enough, you failed to connect with your audience emotionally. This will spare you any bitterness or anger that might come from people’s critiques. You are simply perfecting your work through the social mirror.

About the Author: Robert Greene is the bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power (two million copies sold) and The 33 Strategies of War. His collaboration with Fifty Cent, The 50th Law, spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Check out Robert’s blog at Power, Seduction and War.
20Oct

How to Be the Cool Kid (Even if You Weren’t One in High School)

Blog Psychology, Blogging No Comments

If you hang out here on Copyblogger, you’re probably trying to figure out how to expand your readership and make your blog popular.

You’re here because Brian Clark is a pretty cool guy, and he seems to know what’s up.

He has this shiny blog, a rockin’ team, billions of subscribers, good hair, a nice car and a pretty wife.

So maybe you’re hoping that if you hang out with Brian long enough, listen to what he has to say, read his blog’s posts and become one of his inner circle, that some of his coolness will rub off on you and your blog.

You’re hoping that your blog becomes cool by association.

You’ve done this before. We all did. In high school, we all worshiped the popular kids, the cool kids that could help us be cool too.

And just like back then, you’re probably going about it the wrong way.

The popular kid

High school movies try to show the popular guy and gal as a cookie-cutter ideal. They’re the head cheerleader and the head jock — always surrounded by a huge crowd of other cheerleaders and jocks in identical uniforms, who all talk, walk, look, dress, and mock any outsiders in the exact same way.

In the movies, the popular kid is just like all the other kids, but a little more perfect.

You might easily be fooled into thinking that hanging out with someone popular makes you the popular kid you want to be.

But you don’t want to be the popular kid. You want to be the cool kid.

The cool kid

The cool kid didn’t give a damn what anyone thought about him. He had a wacky hobby that he was pretty good at, maybe motorbike racing or painting or staring off into nothingness in an alluring way. He might be a jock, but he could take his sport or leave it. He didn’t play high school politics. He didn’t have obvious crushes. He never created drama.

And everyone liked him.

Even the popular kids liked the cool guy. He wasn’t a part of their crowd, but he was still cool, you know? They never made fun of him. They respected him.

This is the guy you want to be in the blogging world. Think of every uber-popular blog you know of, and then think of the person who writes that blog.

Guy or gal, they’re cool.They know their own niche inside and out, they don’t give a damn, and they get along with everybody, even if they don’t hang out with those people regularly.

Chris B and Darren are cool. So are Chris G and Naomi and Dave.

Note that not one of the people I just mentioned could be mistaken for any other person. This brings me to the other important point you need to remember about the cool kid when you’re trying to blog like one.

The cool kid wasn’t like anyone else — and didn’t want to be

This is the most important element to remember as a blogger.

Differentiate yourself. Have a unique voice. Be special in your own way. There are so many blogs out there nowadays that it’s near impossible to start blogging on a topic that hasn’t been discussed a hundred times already.

But that’s okay. The cool kid didn’t have a hobby that no one had ever heard of before. He just did what he liked to do in a way that made it seem really awesome — and made you kind of wish you’d thought of doing it first.

Even if you did think of doing it first. The cool kid just did it way cooler than you did it. He was the one who made martial arts or playing the saxophone or climbing trees original and cool and worthwhile.

Here’s something else that made the cool kid cool — he didn’t make a point of showing off how cool he was. He just did what he did, and it was fantastic.

Likewise, don’t keep pointing to your unique coolness. Just let it show up in your blog naturally. Be cool about it.

And suddenly you’ll be that guy, that really cool guy who happens to blog about penguins or marketing or economics.

The topic isn’t important. Being yourself, being cool about your topic, is.

About the Author: For more great posts from one of the coolest kids in town helping you have a better blog and business, check out James’ awesomeness at Men with Pens. You won’t regret it.
13Oct

Don’t Let Your Blog Readers Touch that Remote

Blog Psychology, Copywriting No Comments
You remember the last time you channel surfed? We all do it when there’s nothing good on TV — nothing that holds our attention.

Well, you can’t channel surf with a book. You can skip pages, put the book down, or stare off into space, but that book isn’t changing (unless you have something to write with or a pair of scissors in hand).

That gives the book power. The book controls how you pay attention to it, in a way television can’t.

Because of the links in hypertext, web content is vulnerable, just like television, to channel surfing.

Your content doesn’t have the final say in how it’s structured, because the user chooses which web pages to visit, and what order to visit them. One web page doesn’t necessarily demand her attention all at once.

Your blog is a lot like a television channel, except the net has more channels than cable (meaning there’s lots more competition). You have very little time to make a good impression, keep your reader hooked, and direct her to your call to action. Your reader’s mouse is a remote control, and the instant you lose her attention, she’ll channel surf away.

You have to fight that remote

Anne Mangen, an academic who studies how people read digital texts, explains:

“A click with the mouse immediately changes the visual input so that our attentional focus can be maintained. Thus, our urge to click and the consequent impatient mode of reading can be at least partly explained by reference to psychobiologically hardwired dispositions of ours.”

In simpler terms, channel surfing taps into our innate instinct to change the scenery the moment we get bored. Unfortunately for you, that training translates to the web.

Your reader’s mouse (your blog’s remote control) puts millions of web pages at her fingertips. And that trains her to get bored more easily with your content.

So you need to write and design in a way that will keep your reader so engaged that any urges to click will have to wait until she finishes your beloved content first.

10 ways to make your blog channel-surf-proof

Here are ten helpful ways to keep your reader’s hands off that remote:
1. Give your reader the low-down right at the start. Think about the most popular TV channels. Their content either gives them away in the first few seconds (as being a source for news, celebrity gossip, cooking, nature), or their branding tells the story for them (big-money dramas and sitcoms, mainstream news, Leno). The viewer always knows what to expect. Make sure your brand is just as clear. Your reader always needs to know just what she’s here for.
2. Don’t sound like a chimp. When professionals goof up on TV, it’s easy to gloss over it and follow their next move. But when typos glare at your reader, she’s wondering if she’s on the right channel.
3. Make sure your blog has more to offer than the most recent programming (your last blog post, testimonials page, or sales pitch). That way, you can entice a little internal channel surfing, to the rest of your great content. Ditch the old school reverse-chronological style, and design your blog architecture so that your readers have plenty of cool stuff to do.
4. Keep your programming fresh by writing magnetic headlines, using compelling pictures, and appealing to your readers’ emotions.
5. Keep your writing simple, fast-paced, and dramatic. The final season of “Lost” will attract a lot more viewers than a public access channel featuring lectures from dull, verbose professors.
6. Keep the flow logical. If your plot doesn’t make sense, your blog reader will change to a program that does. So go over all of your transitions and self-edit, edit, edit.
7. Offer cookies to your reader so she has a reason to stick around.
8. Don’t follow the lead of TV commercials. (Your reader is too smart to fall for those anyway.) If you’re going to engage your reader’s insecurities, make sure it’s to offer a solution and mobilize her for success. It’s ok to use a little pain in your copywriting, but do it in an honest and win-win way.
9. Think carefully before you put up ads. Will they add to or detract from the attraction value of your channel? And don’t let excessive ads clutter up your site. The only clutter you find on TV is in the bedroom of a so-called “reality” star.
10. If you have to take commercial breaks (by embedding advertisements, affiliate links, and/or endorsements in content), at least make them infomercials. That is, make them informative, short, and humorous if you can — then get right back to the scheduled programming.
Don’t give up

You have to fight hard for your air time, because as a blog owner you deal in hypertext, which grants your reader tremendous control over what she consumes. She’ll leave the minute she gets bored, so do everything you can to keep her engaged.

Battling that remote forces you to become a better messenger. When you get it right, the connection you make with your readers can be immediate and powerful in ways that aren’t possible with a book or television.

If you’ve got more ways to keep your readers away from your blog’s remote control — share them in the comments below!

About the Author: Melissa Karnaze writes about the intelligence of emotions on Mindful Construct and Twitter.
08Oct

How Cross-Dressing Makes You a Better Blogger

Blog Psychology, Blogging No Comments

If you’re anything like most bloggers, there comes a certain point when you simply run out of inspiration for your blog.

You’ve been writing blog posts about web design, or cooking, or whale-watching off the coast of Norway for way too long.

You’ve exhausted the topic, and yourself.

You just don’t know what to write anymore.

Not that you’re one to give up easily. You work on unblocking your creativity. You start going back over old topics, reworking them, trying to find new angles and new ways of talking about the same old thing.

We all know it. There’s nothing new under the sun. Every story in the world has been told a thousand times before you got to it. There’s nothing wrong with making what’s old new again.

Until the day that well runs dry too.

You’ve talked about everything you know how to talk about four times over, from every conceivable angle. You’ve reworked all the posts you can. You are done. Finished. Finito. Really freakin’ tired.

Time to hang up your blogging hat and become a Starbucks barista, right?

Wrong.

It’s time to start cross-dressing

Now, you may think this post comes from a man going through a mid-life crisis. You would be dead wrong. I am not advocating cross-dressing because I can’t think of anything more exciting to do with my Friday evening. I’m not even suggesting it because I have a secret curiosity about high-heeled shoes.

I’m suggesting it because it will make you a better blogger.

Let’s go back to those high-heeled shoes for a minute. Try walking a mile in them. (Ladies, go find yourselves some nice wing-tips and do the same.)

If you were a woman, or a man, whichever you currently aren’t, how would you write about your favorite topic?

Don’t get stereotypical here

I’m not suggesting that you’d suddenly start blogging with your pinky in the air (if you’re a guy) or with a beer at your elbow (if you’re a woman).

I’m offering the theory that maybe, just maybe, the opposite sex knows something you don’t.

The opposite sex knows how to revamp that topic you’re trying to write about.

A thousand relationship self-help books tell us that men and women think differently. Recent studies suggest a discovery that male and female brains aren’t even built the same. That’s a good thing when you’re stuck for blogging ideas, because thinking differently gives you insight into a new angle.

Try it for yourself

Go ahead. Pretend you’re the opposite sex. Toss around that topic of yours. How would you write it if you weren’t who you are?

If your imagination doesn’t stretch that far, talk to some members of the opposite sex. See what they’re interested in. See what they talk about.

Ask people of the opposite sex their opinion on your worn-out topic. “When you think of writing or marketing or design, what’s the first thing that crosses your mind?”

Don’t try to drive the conversation. Just listen. And for Pete’s sake, take notes. These people are giving you gold.

When the cross-dressing well runs dry, you can try this tactic in all sorts of ways.

Go talk to someone older or younger than you are. Go talk to someone who isn’t as cool as you are, or who is way cooler. Go talk to someone who has a completely different lifestyle, who lives in the city if you live in the country, who has more or less money than you do, who has a dog or a parakeet.

Long story short? When you run out of new ways to look at your world, go steal someone else’s eyes.

Don’t steal their shoes, though. Women hate that.

About the Author: James Chartrand is the man who embraces his feminine side over at Men with Pens (go figure). Check out his book, The Unlimited Freelancer. It’s your ticket to unleashing your freelance business.
24Sep

How I Got 294 Comments With One Blog Post

Blog Psychology, Persuasion No Comments
How’d you like to learn how to get a massive amount of comments on one blog post?

Better yet, what if you could use those comments to convince your readers to buy your products or services?

Because you can. In this post, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of a strategy Laura Roeder showed me to pull in 294 comments on my post and eventually attract more than 30 consulting clients.

It uses all of the copywriting techniques and psychological triggers that we promote here at Copyblogger, but it combines them in a unique way that generates a lot of buzz.

Here’s why that’s important:

Why buzz is essential for selling anything

Have you ever hesitated to buy something because you didn’t see anyone else interested in it? You were genuinely interested in the product — you just didn’t want to be first?

We all do it. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that psychologists like Robert Cialdini call social proof.

The question is: how do you deal with it, if you’re trying to sell something?

If you’ve watched any of our product launches here at Copyblogger, you’ve probably noticed that they generate a lot of buzz. People are talking about them on Twitter, course members write about them on their blogs, and many of the influential bloggers in our niche help us promote the course. Altogether, it’s a huge amount of buzz.

And it’s far from accidental. We prepare for weeks or even months before the launch date in order to make sure everyone is buzzing about the product all at one time. We want to give prospective customers as much social proof as possible, so that they can feel comfortable with buying it.

Except . . . what if you don’t have a big blog like Copyblogger? What if you’re just getting started, and you have hardly any readers at all?

Is it still possible to create buzz?

Yes.

Creating fans out of thin air

A few months ago, I noticed a lot of buzz on Twitter related to a video from Laura Roeder about creating fans out of thin air.

After speaking on a panel at South by Southwest, working with celebrities like Brea Grant from NBC’s Heroes, and creating some stellar results for small businesses of all kinds, Laura is quickly becoming a preeminent social media expert, and her video lays out one of the best strategies for generating buzz that I’ve seen.

Here’s how it works:
1. Hold a competition where the winner gets a free sample of your product or service
2. Build buzz with social media (Twitter, Facebook, your blog, etc.)
3. Use that buzz as social proof, convincing folks that didn’t win to pay you for your product or service
The only problem with her approach is that it’s a little simplistic. You can tell Laura is targeting business owners who are inexperienced with social media, and she’s trying to make it as easy as possible. Instead of using a blog to showcase the competition, she shows you how to create a simple website with Google.

But can this strategy work just as well for bloggers?

You bet. Let me show you how I modified it to take advantage of the powerful social proof from comments.

How I launched a consulting service here at Copyblogger

Imagine this.

A reader stops by your blog and sees that you are giving away 20-30 free consultations. All they have to do to have a chance to be chosen is leave a comment with their biggest frustration. So, they take a few minutes to jot one down.

Later, they see that there are 100s of other comments, and they’re not surprised when they don’t win. The demand is enormous!

But then what happens? A few days later, you announce that you were absolutely overwhelmed with the response, but you’re willing to do a limited number of additional consultations for $95 each. The first people to email you get them.

How do you think your reader is going to feel?

Sure, some of them might hold back because they figure they’ve already lost their chance. Others will have no interest in your services, so they’ll go on their merry way. But after seeing all of those comments, none of them will doubt that your services are in demand.

The social proof in the form of comments helps people see the value in the offer you’re making.

It may seem a bit sneaky, but it works. I’m spilling my secrets here, because the above scenario is exactly what I did to launch my consulting services here at Copyblogger, and I’ve been booked solid ever since. The demand was so high that I had several people offering double or even triple the normal rate if I would move them to the head of the line.

The key, of course, is to offer true value. But beyond that, there are plenty of people offering great value in obscurity.

Don’t be one of them.

It’s the power of social proof that makes the difference, and you don’t need a huge blog to harness it. Here’s how to launch a product or service from your blog, even if your audience is still fairly small:

How to launch a product or service from your blog

Step 1: Watch Laura’s video about Creating Fans Out Of Thin Air. It’s the foundation for this approach.

Step 2: Write a post announcing that you’re giving away a limited number of free samples of your product or service to readers who leave a comment describing their biggest frustration with a certain topic. If your audience is small, don’t do 20-30 free consultations like I did. Start with 5 or 10.

Step 3: Use the competition to create lots of buzz on Twitter. Get all of your friends to tweet about it. Also, ask the winners to tweet a testimonial for you, helping you create even more buzz.

Step 4: Offer a special deal on your product or service to everyone who didn’t win. I didn’t even follow this step, and I was still overwhelmed with clients.

Step 5: Write another post on your blog pointing to all of the comments on your first post and telling everyone how you’re overwhelmed with entries, so you decided to go ahead and put the product up for sale.

That’s it.

I used this process to launch a consulting service, but really, you can use it for anything. In fact, Laura has several more videos about how anyone can harness the power of social media to help get customers talking about their business.

Click here to check them out. If you’re interested in learning how all of this social media hoopla converts into money, I really think they’ll help you.

On Monday, Laura is following up with a post about how she helped Brea Grant (Daphne from NBC’s Heroes) use social media to build her career. I think you’ll get a lot out of it, but don’t forget to sign up for the other videos as well.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on twitter.
15Sep

5 Ways to Market like a Psychotherapist

Blog Psychology, Persuasion, Selling No Comments
Psychotherapy, a discipline intended to help people, is actually a form of marketing.

Does that thought make you uncomfortable? Or even seem a little creepy?

American psychiatrist Jerome Frank put it eloquently over forty years ago: psychotherapy is the art of Persuasion and Healing.

A good therapist needs to do more than just teach her clients to have more positive feelings.

She actually needs to sell those feelings, in order to get the results her patients want.

Psychotherapy sells the “good” feelings

In Persuasion and Healing, Frank said:

“[S]uccess in therapy depends in large part on its ability to combat the patient’s demoralization and heighten his hopes of relief. All forms of psychotherapy do this implicitly, regardless of their explicit aims. Progress in therapy, in turn, further shifts the balance toward the ‘welfare emotions’ […] such as love, joy, and pride, so that, with luck, the process becomes self-enhancing.”

So psychotherapists promote these positive or “welfare” emotions.

Why would that be marketing?

Because when your dog pees on your carpet or someone cuts in front of you on the freeway, you need to be sold on why staying cool is more productive than going berserk.

Like any smart marketer, the psychotherapist needs to determine the right time to “sell” the patient on feeling good instead of bad. She needs to be mindful of emotional intelligence literature, which shows that emotional health is dynamic, and that it’s healthy to fluctuate between non-welfare and welfare emotions.

(In other words, as every good copywriter knows, negativity isn’t always a bad thing.)

Psychotherapy sells ideas and attitudes

When you see your psychotherapist, she has to do a lot of persuasive work to convince you that you’ll get over that failed relationship. Your grieving heart has a hard time believing a word of it.

She has to work to persuade you that even though all of your life you were trained to be nice, being assertive is actually okay.

Sometimes marketing propels us to buy stuff, and sometimes it persuades us to adopt ideas and attitudes. The process isn’t actually all that different. And even when we’re selling products, we often need to do the work of selling ideas first.

How to market like a psychotherapist

To market like a psychotherapist, you can start with these five basic steps:
1. Don’t think in simplistic terms of selling products or services. Find the ideas and attitudes that you are really trying to sell. You’re not manipulating people to buy; you’re presenting them with ideas and attitudes that they can choose to adopt.
2. Before you can persuade, you have to thoroughly understand your “patient.” With the web at your fingertips, you can conduct your own polls, take Twitter’s pulse, or use web analytics to study your traffic. Thoughtful research helps you to be more empathetic toward your prospects, because you listen to and care about their concerns, questions, and interests.
3. Be mindful of the professional literature in your field. Psychotherapists go through years of professional training to learn the best-respected theories and modalities. Make an ongoing study of the best research and thinking on persuasion.
4. Instead of viewing your work as selling or marketing, see it for what it is: a comfortable conversation on a couch, about topics that are important to everyday people.
5. Share the ideas and attitudes that benefit your customers. Psychotherapists market “welfare” emotions because they want people to lead happier, more effective lives. Learn to market the ideas that you see helping your customers do the same.
About the Author: Melissa Karnaze writes about the intelligence of emotions on Mindful Construct and Twitter.
11Sep

Finding Your Village of Customers

Blog Psychology, Blogging No Comments

Godin calls it a tribe. Kevin Kelly calls them your 1000 True Fans. Hugh MacLeod calls it a global microbrand.

Everywhere you look, you might notice a new kind of flexible, smart small business. They serve a relatively small number of people. Big businesses drool over their profit margins and adaptability. Their customers are knocked out by what they do and how they do it.

Oh, and one more thing. They’re taking over the world.

These businesses know their customers, often on a first name basis. Their customer relationships, like every real relationship, encounter the occasional rough spot. Being small and human means making plenty of mistakes.

But when these businesses mess up, unlike AT&T or Microsoft, their customers often love them more.

What’s a village business?

A few months ago, I wrote about the advantages of having a village of customers. Business is personal, intimate, and human-scaled. Each village business is individual, defined by the personality of the owner, but also by the quirks of their customers.

But unlike a literal village, many of the new village businesses have customers all over the world. Your customers might hail from Melbourne, Malaysia and Munich, while you run your village business from a home office in Madison, Wisconsin.

As economic trends smash big companies to pieces (and outsource the crumbs that are left), more and more people are creating vibrant little businesses serving their own villages of customers.

A village business is responsive

When your customer base is small, you can be exceptionally responsive to the needs and desires of those customers.

If you’re a village baker worried about health trends, you can start doing something about it right away.

You put more heart-healthy items in your cases. You open your kitchen after hours for healthy cooking classes. You team up with local restaurants to put better bread on their tables, and local mills to get fresh organic flour for your products.

What you don’t do is run focus groups to see if there’s a market need, or ask your franchise manager if they’re ok with you adding some items to the menu.

You just try it out. Your community likes it or they don’t. Either way, you won’t have to do market research to find out how it’s going — your village just tells you.

You adjust your course. You find common ground between your vision and the needs of your village. You learn by doing.

A place where everybody knows your name

Remember that line from the old TV show Cheers? The show is about a bar that’s a quintessential village business. Everyone’s a regular. Everyone is familiar.

Television shows rely on this familiarity. Shows about quirky villages (Northern Exposure, The Gilmore Girls) draw loyal viewers week after week. And even shows allegedly set in big cities (Friends, Seinfeld, Sex in the City) give us versions of those cities where we spend all of our time within the same village of familiar faces.

Most of us are uncomfortable in vast, anonymous spaces. Red Square is magnificent, but no one wants to spend a week’s vacation there.

We want to feel special, like we’re part of something. We want to be a “regular.”

Give them someplace to gather

What does a village need?

A leader. (That’s you.) A purpose. (That’s your market position or winning difference.) An idiot. (Don’t worry, one always shows up.) And a place to come together.

You might create a membership site for your best-loved customers. Or organize special conferences, user groups, and gatherings. You might build something as simple as a private online forum where your village can share their experiences — good and bad.

But give your village a place to get together. To know you better, and know one another better. A place where everybody knows their name.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.