Since we’re taking it a bit easy this summer by dropping from six posts a week to three, you might find yourself going through withdrawal. Not to fear.
We share additional content related to copywriting, content, social media, SEO and online marketing from many sources across the web @copyblogger on Twitter.
Ever notice how everyone on the blogs you read seems to agree on everything?
We all know that content is king, that transparency is good, that sleazy sales pages are bad.
We even seem to know the same people: Brian, Sonia, Naomi, Johnny, Dave N, Chris G.
What we forget is that this little galaxy we’re occupying is only a tiny sliver of the universe. And if we want to expand our audience, we need to start boldly going beyond our own safe little corner.
I was recently exploring some strange new worlds on the Internet, places I hadn’t ever been before.
On this particular journey, I wasn’t looking for content, but for patterns and themes. Here’s what I found:
Their trends and pattern are different. They’re not necessarily worse, and they’re not necessarily better.
We often forget that the Internet is a network of data. Instead, we focus on sites that are just individual nodes in that vast network, and we mistake the part for the whole.
We don’t really understand what’s going on, because we don’t have a good mental picture of it. It’s too big to get our heads around.
The particular galaxy that we’re in is pretty dense, heavily-populated, and interconnected. We read each other’s stuff, link heavily, and have backchannel conversations. This interconnectedness and density creates a strong gravity well of ideas, patterns, and themes.
We’re just one galaxy, though.
Some galaxies are as tight as ours and others aren’t. But there’s so much space between us that what we do here hasn’t quite reached them yet, like the light from distant stars that takes millions of years to reach the earth.
We’re prone to assume that if we don’t perceive something, it doesn’t exist. Bad assumption.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably a bit more on your game.
People who write effective copy that’s SEO-friendly do better both in search engine results and in getting readers engaged.
If you’re here reading this, it’s probably because you want to make your site better, and because you know where and how to find good information about that. That makes you different than most inhabitants of the other galaxies.
Just remember that what’s known and common here isn’t known and common elsewhere. In other galaxies, there’s no launch fatigue as we know it. There’s no third tribe. (Or first tribe, or second tribe.) Hell, there might not even be a Seth Godin.
Forget about “fields of opportunities.” There are whole galaxies of opportunities for you out there. While the particular aesthetic styles might be different, the principles of effective copywriting and SEO are universal. You don’t have to lower your standards just because the new galaxies you’re exploring seem to have less-evolved ideas of what makes a good blog.
To put it another way, visiting Rome doesn’t turn you into Caligula.
Instead of waiting around for the citizens of other galaxies to come to you, go to them instead.
Instead of using StumbleUpon in the usual robotic way, actually stop at a promising new website and get engaged. Hang around. See who they’re connected to. Be useful, relevant, and helpful there rather than on your own website or in your usual galaxy.
Click through to a commenter’s website, then click an interesting, unfamiliar link there. Repeat that a few times.
Follow your curiosity and you’ll probably find yourself in a third- or fourth-degree network from yours. Which pretty much puts you in the land of painted green dancing girls and monsters made from scraps of industrial carpeting.
It’s in those networks that you’re going to find your new readers. It’s also in those networks that you can really become next years’ A-lister, because A-lists are all relative to particular social networks.
If you’re happy where you are, then, by all means, stay put. Keep farming your own home planet.
But if your curiosity and ambition aren’t satisfied with that, consider this:
Someone out there in the Internet-universe is struggling with something you learned three years ago. What do they need, where are they, and how can you help them?
About the Author: Charlie Gilkey writes about meaningful action, creativity, and entrepreneurship at Productive Flourishing. Follow him on Twitter to get bite-sized slices of mojo.
When I talk with “normal” businesspeople (you know, the kind who have actual physical addresses, not just IP ones), they always ask me the same thing.
“I can see the appeal of that Twitter stuff for my teenage daughter — but how is it supposed to help my business?”
Of course, you know the answer to this question.
You’re a social media power user. Maybe even a ninja. You’re using social media to:
Easy, right?
But if you could still stand to learn a few things on those topics, you may want to take a look at the Social Media Success Summit.
The Summit is a virtual conference designed to cut through the clutter around social media marketing. It gives entrepreneurs the key strategies and next steps to use social media effectively.
Not to make friends. Not to “join the conversation.” But to grow their businesses.
The conference consists of live sessions (running between May 4 and May 25), which include time for live questions and answers. Those are wrapped up with full transcripts, recordings, and often additional material so you can keep mining the conference for business ideas for months to come. (The Summit actually makes everything available for you to listen to and download for a full year.)
The Summit’s 24 speakers this year include Gary Vaynerchuk, Guy Kawasaki, Muhammad Saleem, Steve Rubel, Jason Falls, Mari Smith, Chris Garrett, Ann Handley, and many more.
Just a few of their sessions include:
There’s also a Twitter power panel featuring some bright guys you may never have heard of — Brian Clark, Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse, and BlogWorld founder Rick Calvert.
Darren and Brian are also cooking up a bonus panel on where social media is going — what’s going to be hot (and what’s not). And Brian’s doing a third panel on how we at Copyblogger use social media to build our growing unstoppable empire array of businesses.
If you’re running any kind of online business (or if you’re serious about starting one), the Summit should easily be worth your time and investment. As of Tuesday, April 20, they’d sold 2200 of their 2500 seats, so if you want in, now’s the time.
Click here to get all the details and register for the conference. And since Brian is involved as a presenter, we’re also a marketing partner for the Summit. As you know if you’ve been hanging out here regularly, we don’t promote anything we don’t think is first rate. Last year’s Social Media Success Summit was exceptionally valuable, and we’re confident this year will be even better.
About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication. She also co-founded Inside the Third Tribe.
There’s a new version of Thesis out, and this is one of the best updates in quite a while. And yet there are a lot of new Copyblogger subscribers who might use WordPress, but might not really “get” what this Thesis thing is all about.
So in this post I’ll share with you why Thesis makes WordPress way better, and then let you know what’s brand new in Thesis 1.7. Ready?
First of all, Thesis is the flagship product of DIY Themes, a company I own together with Chris Pearson. He’s the design and code genius, I’m the rapper.
Thesis powers Copyblogger and many other high-traffic sites, but it’s more accurate to call it a code and design framework rather than a theme. Basically, Thesis is software that delivers rock-solid SEO website code, plus unprecedented design flexibility for WordPress — without requiring the novice user to code anything.
For sophisticated users, Thesis is a search-optimized development framework that allows designers and web developers to build sites better and faster than ever before. Let’s take a look at the three elements that have made Thesis the leading choice among online publishers and designers.
Search legend Danny Sullivan, Google’s Matt Cutts, and Microsoft search engineer Jeremiah Andrick all use Thesis for their sites. So does search and affiliate marketing entrepreneur Rae Hoffman, SEO guru Michael Gray, and online conversion experts Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg. Let’s not forget top bloggers Chris Brogan and Robert Scoble, web-hosting entrepreneur Scott Beale, adorable-image destination Cute Overload, and thousands of others.
To find out why the Thesis approach to site code results in maximum search engine crawlibility, watch this quick video I put together or check out this page for general information about Thesis.
With most WordPress themes, you’re stuck with the basic look and feel that the theme designer decided on. With Thesis, you can:
. . . and lots more. And no matter how you configure it, Thesis has some of the best typography you’ve seen.
Again, watch this video for an overview, and then dive into the four demo videos listed below the general video to see what Thesis can do, or check out this page for general information about Thesis.
Even with everything Thesis makes easier, we know people don’t want to be hung out to dry. Our support forums have evolved into a truly supportive community of over 21,000 of your fellow webmasters and bloggers. You’ll have help from DIY Themes support professionals, Thesis Certified Designers, and tons of your peers who simply enjoy lending a helping hand.
Plus, we’ve just added step-by-step installation and upgrade videos. Now it’s quicker and easier than ever to get started with Thesis 1.7.
For all the sparkly new features added in Thesis 1.7, click here. And we’re not done yet . . . upcoming releases will change the face of the WordPress theme market once again.
But don’t think you have to wait. Our current pricing provides all Thesis customers with every future update and unlimited access to support . . . so you can get started with Thesis today and never miss out on what’s coming next.
About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and wants you to know that Thesis + Scribe = SEO Made Simple. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
If there’s any one thing that can be said about SEO with certainty, it’s that it manages to cause a lot of confusion.
For example, it seems like many people’s idea of SEO was formed 10 years ago, and hasn’t bothered to change with the times. Even an online veteran like Robert Scoble is completely clueless about modern best practices for search engine optimization.
So, before we go any further, let me answer the question posed by the headline . . .
Yes, SEO copywriting still matters.
Here’s why.
“Pick your survey, search remains one of the top activities on the Internet and has been for over a decade,” said search industry legend Danny Sullivan when I pinged him on Twitter. Danny pointed me to one such survey that shows search is the most common online activity after email, and that fact cuts across generations.
“People make billions of unique searches each month,” said SEO guru Aaron Wall via email, “and unlike Facebook flittering, those people are in focus mode.” In other words, compared with most Internet traffic, searchers are the most motivated people that hit your site.
If they’re looking for a product or service, there’s a good chance they’re looking to buy it. If they’re searching for information and your site provides it, you’ve got a great chance of converting that drive-by traffic into a long-term subscriber.
And of course if you’re a professional web writer, whether freelance or with an agency, this discussion is purely academic. You try telling the client not to care about Google traffic, and let me know how that goes.
So, search traffic is clearly important, as long as it’s targeted search traffic. Let’s look at the elements that constitute the modern practice of search engine optimization so we can attract those highly-focused visitors.
Take a look at the image below, generously loaned to me by SEOmoz:
A quick review of the chart reveals that as far as SEO goes, what happens off your site matters more than what’s on it.
In other words, it’s like my favorite saying goes:
What people say about you is more important than what you say about yourself.
In this case, Google wants to know that people are linking to you, and the words they’re using (link anchor text), because that’s a more trusted relevance indicator. So yes . . . compelling content is always rule number one. But just like great content goes unnoticed without promotion, great content doesn’t rank well if you don’t make it clear what it’s supposed to rank for.
But how do we get people to notice our content so they can link to it? That’s where social media comes in. Blogging, social news sites, Twitter, Facebook – these are organic content distribution systems powered by your audience (and their friends).
It may come as a surprise that some of the brightest minds in social media are SEOs, and they’re completely on the up-and-up and non-shady. It’s just that they’re too busy getting things done to proclaim themselves social media experts or some other nonsense.
The huge influence of “off-page” factors on search optimization is why I wrote the SEO Copywriting 2.0 series 3 years ago. I updated it for 2010, but it is still directly on point, because it deals with fundamental aspects of strategic content development that don’t really change.
If you haven’t, check out SEO Copywriting 2.0 to get more out of the remainder of this series. An understanding of content development strategies is critical before going the “last mile” with on-page optimization.
Are you familiar with the “last mile” problem in the broadband industry? You can have thousands of miles of high speed fiber optics carrying loads of data cross country, but if the final connection to the customer’s home is aging copper or pokey coaxial, the benefit of the optical cables is lost.
Likewise, if you do everything right by building an authority site that Google trusts, but don’t tell Google that your page content matches what people are actually searching for, the targeted traffic benefit is lost. That’s what effective SEO copywriting does – it tells Google which words are the most relevant ones.
You don’t have to optimize on-page upfront. But you do have to begin with the ending in mind from a keyword standpoint, due to the importance of anchor text when people link. We’ll go more into that in part two of this series.
And if you ignore this SEO stuff? Sure, you’ll get plenty of untargeted “long tail” traffic otherwise, but what good does that really do you? Even with an advertising business model, irrelevant traffic bounces off your site quickly, leading to disgruntled advertisers who don’t renew. And if you’re selling something, you’re only burning bandwidth.
The beauty of building a reader-focused online presence based on valuable content is that you can do well even if Google hates you. But the irony is, if you actually follow that path, Google loves you.
Take advantage of that. It’s the critical last mile of a well-rounded online marketing strategy that makes a huge difference to your overall success.
Now we come to the big point. Everyone loves traffic – it’s addictive and strangely gratifying in its own right.
But traffic doesn’t pay the bills. It’s people who take the actions you need them to who do.
Going back to that confusion, many think that a search-optimized web page is some ugly keyword stuffed mess that sends people running for the hills on sight.
That’s not true. At least not when done well.
Danny Sullivan said it well at the close of our discussion:
“Unfortunately, too many assume that SEO means trying to trick search engines. It doesn’t. It simply means building a site that’s friendly to them.”
And that’s what we’ve been talking about here at Copyblogger for four years now (and helping at the code level with Thesis). Now let’s further explore on-page optimization specifics in this Simple SEO Copywriting series.
Coming up next:
About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Unglued Media. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
Recently, I was reading a post about sponsored Tweets, which sparked debate in both the comment section and on Twitter. The debate boiled down to whether or not a sponsored Tweet, or any sponsored content for that matter, is ethical.
Social media has a long history of being uncomfortable with making a profit. People believe there is some noble benefit to be gained from “taking the high road” and giving everything away for free.
If you’ve read Copyblogger for any length of time, you’ll notice that they talk a lot about content marketing. In essence, how to build an audience and gain trust and authority by giving content away.
It should be obvious that the goal of that process is to actually make a sale and pay your bills. But for some reason, that’s the part that people struggle with.
There is a certain percentage of the population that views any business pursuit (outside of the 9-5 workday, mind you), as a case of profiteering and being greedy.
In the conversation I mentioned above, some people have declared that they’ll stop following the “guilty” party. Some have said that they are completely turned off by all affiliate marketers. And others have stated that all the profits from this venture should be donated to charity.
Of course there’s more to life than making money. But I’m also not opposed to making a profit. If I have something of value to contribute, why should my family live in a van down by the river?
Money is useful for a lot of things, including charitable work and finding the cure for cancer. Like it or not, it makes the world go around. And there’s nothing particularly noble about relying on someone else’s money to lift us up.
What is it that makes one place acceptable for commerce, and another “sacred”?
Why is it now considered OK to monetize a blog, but not OK to monetize a Tweet?
And why does being generous with free content lead so many people to get angry when we try to monetize?
I’ll give you two examples.
Chris Brogan has given away a ton of fantastic free content for 11 years. In fact, his primary audience isn’t even a consumer of what he’s selling.
But that doesn’t matter . . . he still gives, freely and generously, every single day.
When he asked his readers to reciprocate and support his book, Trust Agents, (for a whopping 15 bucks), what happened?
His audience put his book on the bestseller lists, yes. But there was also a considerable backlash. Apparently, a vocal minority thought he was supposed to give for free forever, and never ask for anything in return.
Gary Vaynerchuk gave free content to his Wine Library TV viewers for years before he asked anyone to buy anything. Sure, he offered wines for sale, but he never pushed them. He consistently cared much more about his audience than he did about making a sale. In fact, I’ve never met someone more passionate about community than Gary V. You can hear it in the way he talks . . . it’s in his blood.
But when he launched his book, Crush It, people all over Twitter begged him to shut up about it. They wanted him to tone it down and relax. (Like Gary V. is ever going to do either of those things.)
These two men gave generously for years before asking for anything in return. And when they did, it was small change compared to what people spend on beer, coffee, movies, or video games. And even smaller change compared to what people make for their companies as 9-5 employees.
For some reason, it’s OK to make money at a day job. Don’t ask any questions, just sit in your cube and do what you’re told.
But when a passionate entrepreneur uses social media to create relationships and ask for money, that’s over the line. I guess the line of thinking is: I can’t make any money on my blog, so why should he?
I realize I’m preaching to the choir here, but there’s a reason for that. It’s simple really:
Our dream is under attack. The way of life that many of us are working toward is under siege by people who don’t have the courage, desire, or dedication to make it happen.
How can we let someone come into our house and talk smack? How can we not stand up for what’s right?
Making money, whether with affiliate links, sponsored content, or creating products, is not evil. It’s simply a byproduct of our desire for self-actualization. The world is better because of entrepreneurs, not worse, and it’s time we made that known.
So, are you with me?
About the Author: Nathan Hangen writes about web entrepreneurship at NathanHangen.com, and about how to use social media to fuel your brand at Making It Social. Follow him on Twitter @nhangen.
Earlier this year, Brian and I created a course called Freelance X Factor.
It was designed for the “typical” Copyblogger reader. (Smart, interested in writing, pretty savvy about social media . . . but possibly “not there yet” when it comes to packaging all of that up and turning it into income.)
The course is designed to give you a “business model in a box,” to take what you’re great at and start using it to make a better living. Our focus was to take social media writers and turn them into effective businesspeople.
While we were at it, we included a lot of content to help you become a social media rock star, if you weren’t there already.
And, in honor of the worst global economy since the Great Depression, we packaged all of this up at an incredibly attractive price.
Why bring all this up now? Because everything that made the course so valuable remains true. But we’re just about to raise the incredibly attractive price to something that’s merely “very attractive.”
We’ll be taking the offer down before the end of the month. In early January, we’ll be raising the price for Freelance X Factor from $87 to $147. Which is still, frankly, a hell of a deal.
If you’re a writer and you think the Copyblogger business model could help you re-position yourself for more income, fewer hassles, more respect, and more fun, well, you’re right. Click here to find out how to do that for the best possible price.
I’m a big fan of Leo Babauta.
His book, The Power of Less, is required reading for anyone who wants a rewarding life.
But many of Leo’s followers think doing less means, well, settling for less.
I’m here to tell you it can mean achieving much more.
In the last 4 years, I’ve been living the power of less.
In fact, I started with that philosophy well before I knew it was one.
I annoy many of my partners and friends with my approach.
But the reality is, engaging in busy work is not the secret to success.
Success comes from ignoring the busy and sticking with developing content and pursuing projects that matter to your goals.
That means you need time to think.
Don’t get me wrong, I work hard and push the envelope.
But I choose the things I pursue very carefully.
And that means ignoring the immediate until I know the right thing to do.
Again, this often annoys people who want my immediate attention.
But when it’s right, I act . . . and everyone involved is a lot happier with the eventual outcome.
The stereotype of the successful person is one who juggles multiple cats in the pursuit of maximum return.
I’m telling you to drop most of those cats, and lovingly embrace that special one.
Making clear decisions about content and projects that work requires clear vision, and you don’t achieve that in a frenzied, haphazard mode.
Right decisions require the right mindset, and a clear path to achieving the goal.
How clear is your mind right now?
P.S. No cats were harmed in the writing of this post.
About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Many bloggers already know that Twitter is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your blog.
When I talked to Guy Kawasaki about my book, he called the Tweetmeme Retweet button “the most important button on the web,” because of the enormous traffic-driving power it possesses. With one click, any of your readers can spread your post to hundreds or thousands of their followers.
As a marketer, I, of course, see this as an opportunity for optimization. When I see a powerful tool, my first impulse is to figure out how to make it even more powerful.
When you click that button, Tweetmeme grabs the title of the page it’s on, shortens the URL, and combines the two into a autofilled tweet for posting. Thus, the title of your post becomes the tweet that is shared with a potentially huge number of Twitter users.
If the importance of compelling headlines wasn’t painfully obvious before, it should be now.
Nearly 20% of all “normal” tweets contain a link, yet almost 70% of retweets do. Retweeting is the most common way links are shared on Twitter.
I’ve done research into various factors surrounding retweets and found a handful of factors that you may want to take into consideration when writing headlines for posts that you hope to share and spread on Twitter.
When I looked at the parts of speech that occur in retweets versus those that occur in normal tweets, I found that retweets tend to be noun-heavy and use third-person verbs.
This pattern is reminiscent of newspaper headlines. Highly retweetable headlines talk about someone or something doing something.
A headline should never talk about all the things you did yesterday and how you did them, as past-tense verbs and adverbs both lead to far fewer retweets.
The words that tend to occur more in retweets than in normal tweets are topped by the word “you.”
This means, whenever possible, you should talk directly to your readers. “Top” and “10″ also rank highly, showing that lists do well on Twitter. Not surprisingly, talking about social media and Twitter itself also helps.
On the other side of the coin are the least retweetable words. Random first-person verbs and details about your life, however fascinating you may find it, don’t get a ton of retweets.
I compared how common words in retweets are to how often these same common words appear in normal tweets, and found that rare and more novel words are highly retweetable.
When you’re writing your headlines, you should be striving to say something new that breaks through the clutter of everyday chatter.
I expected to find that retweets were simple and required less intelligence to understand. But my data showed the opposite.
Using two readability metrics, I found that retweets often use longer, more complex words. So don’t try to “dumb down” your headlines for Twitter; users and power retweeters are smarter than you may think.
LIWC is a linguistic system designed to identify concepts in pieces of text.
The most striking thing I found when using LIWC to analyze retweets is that self reference does not get a lot of sharing.
In other words, don’t talk about yourself if you want Twitter traffic; talk about your readers.
If you’ve been in social media awhile, you probably already guessed that was the case — now you’ve got the data to back it up.
About the Author: Get more tips like this and learn about the full range of social media marketing platforms, tools, techniques and strategies from Dan Zarrella’s The Social Media Marketing Book, published by O’Reilly.
