You are your brand. But, is your brand always who you want to represent?

Whether you work for an agency, or you’re an independent, you’re constantly representing a brand. You’re proud of the name you’ve built up, or the one you stand behind; but, when does branding get in the way?

Choosing the Best Bio for Outreach

I’ve always touted the benefits of using social media for outreach. However, your branding dilemma stems from social media profiles.

For example, your Twitter bio is a 160 character summation of who you are to complete strangers. Well, who are you may not be the best representation for blogger outreach. Let’s consider the following bios, and what they mean to publishers.

A. “@KelseyLibert Blogger Outreach Specialist and SEO enthusiast for @XYZcompany”

B.  ”@KelseyLibert dog lover and travel entrepreneur who is dabbling in life, liberty and the endless pursuit of happiness.”

C. “@KelseyLibert Assistant cook and bottle washer for a diverse online media company. Speaker. Entrepreneur seeking to broaden my knowledge, and yours.”

I’ve used each of these bios in my social media profiles. While each bio is very different, each one represents a slice of who I am. The question at hand is, “Who do I want to represent to publishers?” In that case, the winner is bio C. 

Bio A is great if you work for a reputable company, and you’re trying to network within your industry. However, a skeptical publisher may only see you as an SEO scam artist whose only focus is link building, not mutual benefit relationship building.

Bio B is good because it establishes the principle of liking. However, not everyone is a dog and travel lover; so, what else do you bring to the table?

That makes bio C the winner. Bio C is a well rounded representation of both your personal and professional self. It leaves out any reference to SEO tactics, and touts your best qualities and interest in others. It says you’re a professional, but also a human I could relate to.

Photo Credit by rightee

Wrapping up the first day at PubCon, I attended a two in one deal with Jabez Lebret and Dan Zarrella. The following is a recap of the key takeaways.

Jabez Lebret at PubCon

The Psychology of Facebook Conversion with Jabez Lebret

In this session Jabez Lebret revealed how to leverage social sharing, from a cognitive perspective. The key takeaway here, is to remember that people engage in social media because it’s a tribal way to connect.

• The average Facebook user has less than 200 “friends” – those are the friends they know and trust, the people they want to share information with.
• When we start thinking about developing our communication strategies, we need to realize we’re asking them to share this information with their tribe – which is psychologically a lot.
• People post because of their ego (sharing about ourselves): pictures, travel, food, news
• People post because of their tribe: pictures, family, childhood, local, kids.
• Narcissism – is a driver – in psychological sense, the term is used to describe both normal self love and unhealthy self absorption due to a disturbance in the sense of self.

When we think about positioning our brands, we have to cater to what is driving their interaction. If we are not giving them the opportunity to do what they want to do by nature, we are making it difficult for them. Make it easy for people to share!

Dan Zarrella at PubCon

The Science of Inbound Marketing with Dan Zarrella

Dan Zarrella starts off by going against the grain, “Engage in the conversation! Be a personality!” is stuff that is basically rainbows and unicorns. In this session, we’re about to break down the science.

Twitter

• The people who are most likely to RT, also have the highest number of followers. These people spend less time engaging in conversation, and more time hitting RT. If you give them something of value to RT, your message will reach a bigger audience.
• If 60-80% of your tweets are links, you’ll get more retweets. The more you’re engaging on Twitter, the fewer RTs you’ll get.
• If you use the call to action, “please retweet” you will get more RTS. Calls to action work!
• Tweets scheduled between 4-6pm EST get more RTs than tweets posted earlier in the day, because you’re getting lazy and it’s easier to hit RT.

Ebooks

• People prefer ebooks in the following format (most to least): Kindle, PDF, HTML.
• People prefer to read eBooks that are over 100+ pages or under 5 pages.

Facebook

• Posts made on Saturday and Sunday get a lot more likes than those in a weekday, and later in the day is also higher.
• Posting at peak times makes it harder for you to break through the noise
• The post type that gets the most likes (most to least): photos, status updates, video, links
• Don’t get stuck in the middle when writing Facebook posts, write them very short or very long.
• Facebook is kinda like the Jersey Shore, linguistically, the most shareable content is sexual, positive, learning, media, work constructive, and self reference. The least is negative, leisure, anxiety, numbers.

Let’s talk about SEO

• LinkedIn has the strongest relationship of “shares:links generated”
• Most linked title words (most to least): sports, breaking, music, free, fashion, news, technology, video, photo, official, best, tips, new, photography, etc.
• 9-10am blog posts are getting the most views, but posts published 6-7am get more links
• Monday blog posts get the most views, Saturday and Sunday gets the least
• Links by day of weeks (most to least): Monday, Thursday, Sunday

Email Marketing data pulled from Buzzstream 

• It’s safe to use an “&” in your subject line, because it’s perceived that you’re packing so much value into your subject line that you couldn’t fit it – it has a positive impact on open rate. The use of a question mark inhas a negative impact
• First name personalization is very strong, as is company name – personalize when you can
• Emails sent on Saturday an Sunday do much better than earlier in the week
• Emails sent 5-6am have the highest open rate

The following is a recap of part two of my PubCon presentation on Blogger Outreach and Relationship Building.

Seth Godin once said, “When everyone is playing the same game, your execution is critical.” Well, we’ve proven that everyone is playing the content marketing game, so, how do you stand out?

You create ideas that resonate with your audience, not with your anchor text. Sticky ideas are understandable, memorable and effective in changing thought or behavior. There are six principles of sticky ideas, and while you don’t need all 6 – the more the better. These six principles include:

• Simplicity
• Unexpectedness
• Concreteness
• Credibility
• Emotions
• Stories

The key idea for content marketing is that you want to  create ideas that resonate with your audience, not with your anchor text. Sticky ideas are understandable, memorable and effective in changing thought or behavior. There are six principles of sticky ideas, and while you don’t need all 6 – the more the better.

I. Simplicity: How do you strip an idea to its core without turning it into a silly sound bite?

For starters, you definitely don’t want to create content that is text heavy, lacks data visualizations, and is poorly designed. Your goal is to create simple ideas that provide value to a broad audience.

Simple ideas are “succinct enough to be sticky, meaningful enough to make a difference.” Analogies are great, because you’re comparing new concepts, to something already known – which makes your message easier to understand.

II. Unexpectedness: How do you capture peoples’ attention… and hold it?

For our ideas to endure, not only must we must generate interest and curiosity, but we must also have our audience experience “the aha moment.” Albert Einstein encapsulates this core principle with the following quote:

“I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein

I identify with this, as does much of human kind. But, why are we so passionately curious?

Professors George Loewenstein (Carnegie Melon University) explains it as the “information gap theory of curiosity,” which creates curiosity on demand. This theory is based on an innate human behavior that’s triggered when people feel there is a gap between what they know, and what they want to know. When people feel this gap, they are compelled to fill it by taking action, such as reading, engaging and spreading your content

Therefore, your content needs to create knowledge gaps. You can do this with curiosity based headlines (such as those used on HBR), studies that disprove a common thought, etc.

III. Concreteness: How do you help people understand your idea and remember it much later?

Data is concrete and memorable, an abstraction or idea is not. Use actual events and case studies to make your ideas more concrete.

IV. Credibility: How do you get people to believe your idea?

So, what you think is credible includes doctors, lawyers, Harvard Law, etc. However, what is actually credible is the audience. Let’s admit it, we’re narcissists sometimes . More often than not, we believe our knowledge is the most credible source. Our knowledge is credible because we learned it personally, it wasn’t hear say, or outdated. So, what we have to do is involve our audience in the learning process of our message. Instead of shouting an idea at them, we engage the audience by having them be a part of the content learning process. The goal is to put your audience into the story with powerful details and testable credentials. Microsites are very effective at building credibility.

V. Emotional: How do you get people to care about your idea?

Two Wharton marketing professors tangentially answered this question, when they pondered, “Why are certain pieces of online content more viral than others?” The study took a psychological approach to understanding diffusion through emotion.

Using unique data set of all the New York Times articles published over a three-month period, the two professors examined how emotion shapes virality. I broke down the key takeaways in the following slide: In order to generate viral content ideas, you need to focus more on “Positive Content emotions,” such as awe, anxiety, anger, and less ideas on “Negative Content emotions” such as sadness.

VI. Stories: How do you get people to act on your idea?

To do this, we have to take a key lesson from journalists. The best journalists create stories that understand and demonstrate what these facts mean to people. This is what you need to do with your content.

For example, let’s take a look these two identical Subway campaigns:

These two campaigns had one message: “Hey, we’ve got 7 new subs with 6 grams of fat!” Can you tell which one was more successful? It was the one that created a story, not just data. Most stories naturally come with concrete, unexpected and emotional details. That is why Jared was such a successful campaign – because it created a story, and in turn, the six points of SUCCESs:

• Simple: Visual message
• Unexpected: Man loses 245 pounds in a year, eating fast food
• Concrete: This image serves as testimony, and clings to your memory
• Emotional: His weight was debilitating
• Story: It’s Jared’s fight for his life

The following post is a series from my PubCon presentation, “Blogger Outreach and Relationship Building.”

In the last year, the adoption of content marketing has grown at an exponential rate. Due to the shake up by panda and penguin, it’s obvious that this white hat initiative should explode. But, what does the content marketing explosion mean for the publishers- the ultimate gatekeepers for your link generation?

Google Trends – Content Marketing

It means publishers are overwhelmed. The following Twitter conversation is with a Self.com editor. Like many of you, Anna is drowning in emails. She receives over 150 emails a day, yet she reads or glances at half. Unfortunately, your content pitch now has a 50% chance of just getting a glance, not even a thorough read – and that’s if you’re lucky.

At best, this editor glances at half of her 150 emails/day

If we take the time to pay attention, we see that publishers are making a public outcry. They’re taking action against your regurgitated content, and calling out infographic spam. If you continue to spam publishers with mismatched, regurgitated content, your name now sticks out as someone to avoid.

Stop spamming publishers, or you will become someone to avoid all together.

And no, this isn’t another Twitter rampage. These people are taking serious action by setting up keyword spam filters to block certain content pitches – especially infographics.

Editors are setting up keyword spam filters for content pitches

So, what do we do?

We work from the ground up to establish mutually beneficial relationships, around content these publishers care about: timely, engaging and new information that speaks to their audience. To do this, you can refer to part two of my PubCon presentation, “The Secret of Creating Ideas that Resonate with Your Audience“

We’re starting off the session with Tim Ash, who reports he’ll be doing this at NY speed – with my laptop in my lap, this is about to get interesting!

7 Tactics for Landing Page Optimization by Tim Ash

Tim Ash from SIteTuners sets the tone by opening with, “Ignore your landing pages at great peril.” He’ll be dishing out his 7 best tactics for landing page optimization:

1. Unclear Call-To-Action

Who are the only people that matter on your website? Visitors. Not your webmaster, ad agencies, or anyone else.

Welcome is not a call to action. A large image of two people is not a call to action. Spiffy, colorful icons are not calls to action. Tim advises, death by “and” – work hard to avoid it. In other words, the less the better.

What is the purpose of this page? Begin with the end in mind.

Different pages can have different purposes, or multiple purposes. A landing page with a clear call to action is best – make it simple, like a zip code and an enter button.

For example, on one of SiteTuners  pages, there is one visually stimulating icon, and that’s it – it makes the call to action clear.

2. Too Many Choices

When a user lands on your page, he or she is asking, “What do you want me to do?” Too many red buttons is not good. Editing is hard, but it’s your job to curate the content to tell the user what’s important. If you have competing goals, prioritize.

3. Asking Too Much Info

Don’t ask for information out of order. Without a relationship, you don’t have a right to ask for that information right off the bat. As soon as you get online, you suffer from greedy marketer syndrome.

You need to build the relationship before asking for the visitors information. Ask for the minimum amount of information to start the process.

There must be enough value in your download in order for someone to click it. Trust symbols need to be more prominent. Shorter forms can increase your revenue.

What is the minimum information we need to download this information? Nothing. Let them download it. You haven’t lost anything except your control – add your links add the end.

4. Too Much Text

You don’t want a landing page with scrolling text.

Nobody reads on the web – cut down the text, increase comprehension and conversion.

5.  Not Keeping Your Promise

Who trusts consumer reports? Tim shows us a Consumer Report ad for Best Digital Camera – when we get to the landing page, it’s all the major brands. Then, a little red button “Join today!” Fail. They promised me expert camera reviews, and there were no reviews. They broke a promise.

The number one driver of conversion is matching visitor intent

6. Visual Distraction

You don’t want visitors to look at a big image of “The Rock,” you want them to look at the call to action. Large images are distracting. If you have a visual rotating slider – don’t do that! Our brain does things on auto pilot, we will always react to motion. Every time you have motion on your page, I’ll look there, and not at your form or call to action.

Exit pop ups are fair game – give them a survey for 10% off and ask why they’re leaving. But, don’t interrupt them in the middle with a pop over.

7. Lack of Trust

A woman in sneakers blowing a bubble is not a signal of trust. Your influencers or trust signals do not belong at the bottom of your page.  If you won a bunch of awards, list it on the landing page as a signal of trust.

Don’t let your client lists take up most of the page – it can intimidate the smaller companies. Sometimes you can have too much trust on a page with too many logos.

That concludes Tim Ash’s portion of the session! Up next we have Janet Driscoll Miller. First, she’ll discuss six basic tactics, and then she’ll dive into advanced tactics and testing.

10 Tips for Improving Landing Pages by Janet Driscoll Miller

1. Keep the Promise

Look at user intent, and follow through on that intent. You want the keyword searches to match the ad, all the way through to the landing page.

2. Include a Call to Action

By creating a landing page with a clear call to action with a form, it helps the person understand “what do I want you to do?”

3. Make Your Message Clear

Reduce the number of choices on a page! Keep the choices simple – one, or two.

4. Call To Action Colors

Keep it complimentary! You want the opposite to what’s on your page. Use a complementary color to the overall page color scheme. A small change can make a huge difference.

5. Keep Your Messages Above the Fold

The call to action needs to be above the fold (before where the user will have to scroll).

6. Reduce Form Fields

Even reducing form fields from 9 to 3 fields can lead to a 300% increase in conversion. The shorter the form, the more likely the visitor will fill it out. Gauge how much information you really need, and the value of the exchange from a consumers point.

Marketing automation allows you to reduce form fields – use it! Nurture customers through form fields.

7. Don’t’ forget good usability

Try to repeat keywords in your headlines.

8. Consider Adding “Trust Badges”

Customer logos and awards and certificates are forms of trust badges.

9. Consider Marketing Automation

Marketing automation sits between your website and CRM tool. This tool allows aggressive profiling, which is helpful in a longer sales cycle. It propagates a user’s profile over time, marketers prioritize the fields to capture. Each time it will automatically ask different form fields to compile a complete look at the user.

You can do this inside the tool using the progressive profiling form feature. Or, outside the tool use the API, which is helpful for website pages, marketing library logins, etc.

10. Why Social?

Search is lacking in demographic data. LinkedIn and Facebook offer a bit of demographic targeting. We use Facebook for B2C and LnikedIn for B2B. Using cookies with social ads is a great way to gather this information.

You can implement social logins on landing pages as a form of marketing automation, you’re leveraging a third party tool API. Check out:

• https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/sign-linkedin
• https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/profile-fields

 Conclusion

Tim Ash concludes with, “make radical changes,” apparently “as the ladies say, the bigger the better.”  That’s a wrap on Best Tactics in Landing Page Optimization! Thanks for tuning in.

Brett starts off the talk by asking everyone in the crowd to introduce themselves to three new people. What a great way to launch into some early morning networking!

Now, diving right into the keynote speaker. Somehow I managed to get front row, dead center seats to the Kickoff Keynote with Robert Cialdini, President of Influence at Work.

Dr. Robert Cialdi on Psychology of Influence

Dr. Cialdini begins by explaining the psychology of persuasion, which means the ability to move people in our direction, to increase the likelihood that they will say yes – without changing the merits what we have to offer, one bit. Only changing the way we present the merits of what we have to offer. He says he can’t tell you what you should put into your offer, you know that. But he can tell you how to best deliver the merits of your case, that’s what his topic will be today.

The Psychology of Influence 

If you include one of these six universal principles of influence, you will increase the likelihood of success.

1. Reciprocation
2. Liking
3. Commitment and Consistency
4. Scarcity
5. Authority
6. Social Proof

Let’s take a quick tour of the principles:

I. Reciprocation

Reciprocation - a rule that exists within all human societies, that obligates me to give back to you the form of behavior that you’ve first given to me. For example, if you invite me to a party, I’m obligated to invite you to my party. If you do me a favor, I owe you a favor. In the context of obligation, people say yes to those they owe. It means you need to go first with your customers, clients, prospects – invest in them, give something to them first, and they will stand ready and eager to give back in return. There is a rule that was installed in them since childhood, you don’t have to do it, it’s already in there. It says you must not take without giving in return.

If you give a smile, you get a smile, but only if you go first.

We should be giving information, samples and features to people. Is there anything you could do in a restaurant, at the end of the meal, to significantly increase your tips? Something associated with giving first. For example, a mint! If there is a mint on the tray for each diner, tips go up 3.3%. It’s not what was give, it’s that something was given. I like this study because the researchers didn’t stop there. Instead of going to each table with a mint, in this case there were two mints on the tray – something unexpected. Tips went up 14.1%. The more that you give that’s unexpected, the more people stand eager to give back to you.

People want to give back, to those who have given to them.

In the case of reciprocity, you go first. What you give first should be unexpected.

II. Liking

The principle of liking. People say yes to those they know and like. By giving us one simple thing we can do to significantly increase the extent to which people like and want to corroborate with us: to uncover and unsurface similarities that truly exist between us and the people we’re dealing with.

People like those who are like them.

You can tell them who you are, so they can see similarities between whoever they are, and you. There was a study done of negotiators, and they found that in a certain negotiating environment, there were 30% where both parties walked away with no deal. They changed that drastically from 30% deadlock to 6% deadlock (over email) by simply having the two parties exchange info about themselves before they began the negotiation. Tell us what hobbies, interests, schooling you’ve had. Here is the implication: get across features of who you are, professional, but personally. You can do this in the “about us” section on your website.

The About Us section is invariably solely professional information, we’re advising people to put personal information.

III. Commitment and Consistency

Commitment and consistency – there is a tendency to want to be consistent with what we have already said and done, especially in public. Back to the restaurant – solving the problem of no shows. People who say they’re going to do something, and don’t. In order to reduce this, one manager had the receptionist change two words when they take reservations. Previously “please call if you have to change or cancel your reservation,” changed to, “will you please call to change or cancel your reservations” (and to pause).  The no shows, dropped from 32% to 10% for two words – that’s the public commitment! Change the language that you use, that harnesses the power of psychological influence.

Don’t let people get away without making active, public commitments to you.

They should be clicking even on preliminary choices with you, in a way that is public and visible.

The power of persuasion, under conditions of uncertainty. There are so many options, people are much less confident with who they should engage in business with. It makes people unsettled. In e commerce that’s especially common, because there are so many new actors.Here’s what happens as a consequence, there are three psychological consequences:

1. Tendency to freeze when you’re unsure, and are not confident in what you should be doing next, or best in that situation.What you see is a lot of people sitting on the fence, unwilling to take a step in your direction, even if you have the best offering. If they’re unsure, they just freeze.
2. Loss aversion – the reason they freeze is because they don’t want to lose. There is a tendency to be reluctant to take any step that might cost you something.
3. Uncertainty eventually causes an impulsive choice, when you’re finally pushed by some deadline to get off that fence. You don’t do it by looking at the whole array of factors, but you just pick one.

IV. Scarcity

In the final three principles, those single things that if you put them in your message, will cause people to jump – to get into the game:

1. Principle of Scarcity: people want more, of those things they can have less of. It spurs them into action if they think this is something that is rare, or dwindling in availability to them. Think Groupon – it’s limited in time and in numbers – it’s saying you better move, you can’t afford to stay on the fence or it will be gone – it spurs people into action. Scarcity confirms value.  Isolate what is unique, and scarce about what you have to offer. What is it about your product or service, that is scarce or rare?
2. When you do present the unique or uncommon benefits, it’s not enough to tell people what they will gain if they move in your direction. Especially under conditions of uncertainty, people are more mobilized to act, by losing those unique benefits and features, than gaining them. You will be able to save by insulating your home. Instead, they said, you will lose a dollar a day if you don’t insulate your home. Same merits – $1/day, but psychologically it was not the same. Losing versus gaining. There were 150% more people who insulated their homes under loss language than gain language. Another thing we have to change is the word at the top: new. Marketers think “new” is the power word for moving the audience in the right direction, and their wrong. What new does is creates uncertainty – it tells your market there is no history of this product, no track record, none of your friends who can tell you about it. Only a certain (small) percent of the population is first movers. Two things you should be saying: “new and improved” which satisfies all of your needs, you’re familiar with it, and it’s better than ever. Use the power of your opponent, or the problem in your situation, to your behalf. Another great campaign is, “Hear what you’ve been missing” by The Bose Wave. The key here is: when people are uncertain, they are reluctant to lose.  If you tell them honestly what they will forgo, if they fail to move in your direction, you will significantly increase the likelihood of success. 
3. Exclusivity of Information  – information is that exclusive, is more persuasive than the very same information that has already been distributed across the market. You need to move immediately with that information, and tell them, “I just learned this,” “I just got this today, and it’s not even published yet.” People will lean in to hear the merits of your case. But, you have to preface this with its exclusivity. 

V. Authority

Another principle that impacts uncertainty is the Principle of Authority, which says, people defer to those individuals who are experts on the topic. “If an expert says it, it must be true.” You can leverage this by having testimonials by acknowledged experts in the industry. Pointing to the comments of legitimate authorities that align with your position, produces a significant jump of movement in your direction. There is one kind of authority communicator that is the most effective communicator we have uncovered in over a century, it is: the credible communicator, who has to elements of knowledge and trustworthiness.

If you are an authority, you are entitled to raise those principles of authority to the surface, before they encounter the rest of your message.

For proving the knowledge portion of a credible communicator, you can’t be a self promoting, bragger. If you have a third party deliver that information, to testify for your credentials, that’s how you can break this stigma. If this third party doesn’t exist, you need to send that person a letter of introduction, that precedes the meeting by several days, saying, “I’m looking forward to our interaction on Thursday on topic xyz, my background and experience on xyz are as follows.”

For proving trustworthiness, you need to provide the information in an unbiased way, that you’re not trying to serve your own interest. If you’re a straight shooter, what will evolve is a perception of you as a trustworthy source of information. If you don’t have that time, there is a strategy that produces instant trustworthiness. What is wrong, is to front load your message with the strengths and most powerful arguments, the most compelling features of your case. Before you mention the most powerful arguments in your case, mention a weakness in your case, a drawback to what it is that you’re offering, and then, you pivot on the word “but, however, at the same time,” and bridge into the strength of your case. Now, people are open to hearing the strengths, after being shown the weakness.

The top five advertising cases of all time around the globe, the first one was Avis, “We’re #2, but we try harder.” Another one was from L’Oreal, “We’re expensive, but you’re worth it.”

In both of these cases, they mention a weakness, they pivot on the word but, and nullify the weakness with an advantage.

It enriches you with the power of credibility when you present your weakness first. Because “but” says, take the information I just gave you and put it away, and focus your attention on the next thing I’m going to say. That is why you want your strengths after the word but, and your weaknesses before.

VI. Social Proof

One last principle that solves the problem of uncertainty, the principle of consensus. People look to peers, comparable others, “what have they done, or said?” If you can provide information about a consensus, you reduce their uncertainty. For example, 98% of online purchasers, read the reviews of prior customers. We want to follow the lead of many others, and similar others.

The consensus principle is at the core of the social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) revolution. Potential buyers are now able to access the consumer responses.

Conclusion

It’s easy for marketers to use economic factors when seeking to motivate customers toward their products.Yet, there are other methods you can use that don’t cost anything – you just have to know what the behavioral sciences.

That’s a wrap on the kickoff keynote with Robert Cialdini! If you want to learn more about behavioral science, check out his website Influence at Work. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more.

In an era where your following is a billboard of your power (or influence), our weakness has become our overwhelming desire to keep up appearances.

A recent Gartner study found that,

“10-15% Of Brands’ Social Media Fans, Likes And Reviews Will Be Fake By 2014…About 1%-4% of social media interactions being paid today. “

But, why? Is there any real power behind the fake following of political campaigns and big brands?

You will be Forever Alone by Building a Fake Social Media Following

I. What Social Media Users Think About Your Fake Followers

A recent LinkedIn discussion generated this question,

“Is buying Twitter and Pinterest followers a bad idea?”

The question received over 300 comments. The general opinion: quality, over quantity. While some die hard spammers argued, “zero likes = zero reach,” the rest of us paused to answer, “fake likes = no authentic reach.”  I put in my two-cents worth with the following,

The conversion of fake followers is zero. With the increasing use of social tools to detect fake followers, you’re putting your brand at risk to be unveiled as a fraud. The ability of this to negatively impact your brand’s appearance is much higher. If your goal is to increase your reach, then produce authentic value. Consumers flock to value.

So, let’s it break it down further.

Is a Fake Social Media Following Good?

A following count is a statement of a brand’s power, and as such, a large following may represent an authority in the industry. Those with a large following may also gain more followers due to this interpreted power. Although purchased followers may not buy anything from the brand, their presence may convince others to buy.

No, a Fake Social Media Following is Just Plain Ugly.

The conversion of fake followers is zero. Legitimate power is about quality over quantity. Shortcuts don’t normally yield stellar results. Bought traffic provides little value in terms of engagement with your brand. Fake followers can ultimately hinder your organic following ratio; since your numbers will be inflated with artificial followers, your overall engagement numbers will be low. This practice violates the terms and conditions of both Twitter and Facebook. Social networks will inevitably devalue your account because of your actions, which also creates the potential for your account to be removed. This increases in the likelihood of your brand losing trust in the industry.

The ultimate lesson? Organically grown followers are your best pursuit.

II. Is Your Competitor Using Fake Followers?

A good rule of thumb for detecting fake followers on Twitter, is to evaluate if the ratio of following:followers. If the ratio is equally matched, then it’s likely this user is using bots to gain followers. For example, which following appears to be more authentic?

Using Bots to Gain Followers

Authentic Social Media Following

I hope you chose the the bottom image.

Finding fake followers has become a new sport for competitors. If you want to investigate your fake following count, or your competitors, check out Fake Follower Check via StatusPeople.

III. The Regulation of Fake Followers

While the social media space is largely unregulated, at some point consumer organizations are going to start weighing in. Gartner predicted in its study that,

In the next two years, at least two major Fortune 500 companies will find themselves under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. over fake ratings and reviews. There has been a precedent here: in 2009 the FTC said that positive reviews posted without full disclosure of compensation (if it’s there) can be prosecuted as a case of false or deceptive advertising.

Therefore, it is in your best interest to start building an authentic following, and to do it now.

Closing

Since over half of the Internet population is active social networks, it’s a good idea to get your brand established on these networks. However, using a fake social media account will ultimately cause a PR fiasco for your brand. If you want to build your voice as an authority in the industry, the best way is to consistently provide value to your consumers.

There is something about reaching a quarter of a century that inspires you to make a list.  Not a bucket list, but a list full of goal oriented inspiration.

When I saw a list of everything I should do before 30, it made me think, why wait? Turning a quarter century is a pretty big deal, too. Since I’m not one of the graduates making wedding announcements or baby updates, I decided I wanted to keep myself in line with a little goal oriented inspiration. So, the last 12 months have been a roller coaster. Here’s what I’m planning for the next 8 months.

1. To be an entrepreneur, I’ll have to sleep like one.

2. Become a public speaker. Make my first professional presentation at PubCon.

3. Launch a successful lead generation site.

4. Sign up, and complete my first marathon for a cause. Refer to Mary Baum for this one.

5. Finally lose the freshman 20.

6. Start volunteering at an animal shelter at least once a month.

7. Go skydiving.

8. Learn how to drive a manual car.

9. Donate blood.

10. Read at least 10 new books – half professional, half for fun.

11. Decide on 5, 10 and 20-year life goals, and write them down.

12. Master a new social network.

13. Become more involved with Quora, and less involved with Twitter.

14. Blog at least twice a week on my personal site.

15. Make it home for Christmas this year.

16. Keep hacking away at student loan debt.

17. Get a personal column with a top tier publisher.

18. Put in a bid to speak at a conference in 2013.

19. Travel to a state I’ve never been to.

20. Master my Canon DSLR for personal and professional use.

21. Complete a free online course with a reputable university.

22. Learn one piece of code each week.

23. Start my own YouTube channel.

24. Complete my first tough mudder.

25. Introduce myself to someone who has inspired me.

So, is there something I missed? What makes your list?

But, social media shouldn’t be used to actually send a pitch (and if you can send a pitch in 140 characters, more power to you!) or for one-time communication. Rather, social media should be used to help get your foot in the door and get to know a contact on a more personal level. From there, you can use social media to manage and maintain relationships with your outreach contacts.

While there are now countless social networks to choose from, Twitter and LinkedIn remain two of the best for connecting with people you don’t know personally. In this post, we’ll show you how to successfully leverage these networks to build a relationship with a publisher.

Building Relationships on Twitter

Using Twitter, you can share an author’s content in a way that will get you on their radar.

All Tweets Are Not Created Equal

Tweeting a link to an article is a seal of approval that you value an author’s work enough to share it with your community. But, simply tweeting a link isn’t enough…

Don’t be another bot.

It takes two careless seconds to retweet an article. It takes 15 seconds to pull your favorite quote out of the article, and tweet that. It takes less than a minute to create genuine feedback using 140 characters.

Pretend you’re me, the author. As the author, which tweet would get your attention?

• RT @KelseyLibert: [Title] [url]
• “[Pull quote]” [url] by @KelseyLibert
• Great tips by @KelseyLibert My favorite is [insert your favorite tip] found [url] (<– I hope you chose this one…I did.)

The more time you take crafting a tweet, the more it shows your personality. You have a personality – so use it.

8 Tips for Crafting Tweets that Get a Response

1. Give Credit @Author. Tweet the article, but give credit to the author, not the publication.
2. Be Opinionated.  Append you opinion to the article that you’re tweeting.
3. Show Appreciation.  Say how much you loved the article, and why.
4. Pull Quotes.  Instead of tweeting the article title, pull your favorite quote from that article.
5. Pull Tips.  Tips are not necessarily quotes…tips are actionable.
6. Provide a Counter Point.  But tread carefully. If you disagree with something the author said, you could be jeopardizing a relationship.
7. Be Recent. Pick something that was written within the last month.
8. Be Relevant. Tweet an article that relates to your pitch, if possible.

Tweets That Get Ignored

The more popular the author, the more difficult it will be to get their attention. Keep in mind the following tweets will probably yield a low response rate…

• Tweeting an article that someone wrote over a year ago.
• Tweeting an article and providing credit to the publication, not the author.
• Retweeting a well-known author and not including your genuine input.

Managing Twitter Relationships

Have you ever left Twitter up, to come back a minute later to see you need to refresh for 52 new tweets? #headdesk

No one has time to sit and watch their Twitter streams flood with noise (and if you do, let me know your secret). In order to keep up with editors and publishers, focus your Twitter stream by creating lists.

Custom lists I love using include:

• Placed Content. Great for keeping in touch with editors that have previously published your content.
• Top Tier Contacts. Group all of your top-tier publishers and editors who are on Twitter.
• Publishers by Vertical. Group editors and publishers by the vertical they write for the most.

Depending on the amount of outreach you do, you can further segment your groups. Be careful, too many lists is just as overwhelming as not having any lists.

Another key point: always create private lists, never public lists. People you add to private lists will be unaware they’re on your list and only you will have access to the list.

Conclusion

Twitter is one of the best networks for getting in direct contact with editors and publishers. Since social media is plugged into our smartphones, laptops, emails and more, these networks serve as a platform for 24/7 access. Use it, don’t abuse it.

Rand Fishkin had a great point in a recent SEOmoz whiteboard Friday, “[On social media] I highly recommend a minimum of four weeks of interaction with your [guest post] target, before you send them the request. Let them know that you’re a real person, you know who they are, you’ve researched them, you’ve been in touch.”

Your goal is to develop a long lasting relationship, so be personal, interested, and genuine.

Successful blogger outreach depends on relationship building. Not a single tweet or email, but a genuine interest in another person. This relationship building starts at the ground up, from the vertical to the blog and ultimately to your contact.

Don’t spread yourself thin researching 50 blogs. Find 5 blogs that you want to reach out to, and really get to know each one.

In this post you’ll learn the 4 research stages that will help you provide a mutual benefit and place your content.

Stage I:  Evaluate Your Content

Stop pushing content, start providing it.

When reaching out to a blog, you either already have a piece of content you want to place or want to work with that specific blog to create content together.

In the first scenario…

You already have content and you’re looking to place it on a blog. Before pitching this content, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is the selling point of my content? Is it timely, newsworthy, or exclusive?
2. What tone does my content take?
3. What audience does this content speak to?
4. What verticals would this content fit into?

Once you have an idea of what your content brings to the table, you can match it with blogs that have similar interests.

In the second scenario…

You collaborate with the potential publisher to create content. Together, you can come up with a piece of content that provides a mutual benefit to both of you.  But to get to this point, you’ll need to follow steps 2-4 in this post.

As with all quality content, the content you pitch or create with the blogger should fit the following:

1. Simple - The content should be easy to understand and easy to convey.
2. Unexpected - The content should provide new information, or look at old information in a new way.
3. Concrete - The content should be easy to relate to, and concrete in concept. Ambiguity is the enemy.
4. Credible - The content needs to be authoritative and trustworthy. The publisher is trusting you to have done this well. If you fail here, you will ruin the relationship.
5. Emotional - The content needs to evoke emotion in order to matter. For content you are looking to place, make sure the emotion is a positive one.
6. Relatable -  People are inherently selfish. Make your content relatable by clearly understanding the audience.

Stage II: Evaluate The Vertical

Work from the ground up.

Before you can understand the blog and the individual behind it, you need to be  fully aware of the biases and commonalities that exist within the niches you’re reaching out to.

If you want to connect with individuals of high authority, you need to understand the culture of their vertical. Some verticals require you to proceed with caution, whereas others are warm and welcoming.

To understand a vertical, first identify the following:

• What are the three core components of this vertical?
• Who are the leaders in this vertical?
• How are current trends impacting this vertical?
• Who are the competitors of this vertical?

From there, you can get into more granular research…

3 Steps to Evaluating a Vertical

Using these three steps, you can familiarize yourself with a niche in thirty minutes.

1. Complete Keyword Research

To find leaders in your vertical of interest, start with a basic keyword search. A few of our favorite blog research tools include:

• All Top
• Technorati
• Google Blog Search
• MuckRack
• Group High
• LinkedIn

2. Identify the Theme

On each blog, find out what’s trending.  Identify the “popular content,” “most read,” or “special features.” Is there a recurring topic among the top content of these blogs?

Grow your content ideas from these trending topics and aim for your content to take these ideas a step further. The content you are pitching should provide value beyond the typical content found on the site you are pitching to. This can only be done by understanding the scope of content currently on the site and the type of content that resonates with that site’s readership.

3. Understand The Audience

Reading comments gives you a better understanding of the blog’s audience. Find the posts that get the most comments. Read the article, but also read the comment thread in full. The comment section is also a great place to get content ideas.

DO

• Discover the type of feedback the audience gives, is it hypercritical or justified?
• Understand what the audience likes and dislikes.
• Build your content around unanswered questions in the comment thread.
• Identify recurring comments and topics of interest to the audience.
• Ask a thought provoking question in the comment thread.

DON’T

• Pitch content to a blog that has a mostly negative audience.
• Add a comment in a promotional manner for your client.
• Pitch content to a blog that wrote a post, confessing their undying hatred for your topic.

Stage III: Evaluate The Blog

The following questions will help determine if the blog you want to reach out to will be open to placing your content.

1. Does this blog accept guest posts?

Don’t waste your time pitching content to blogs that do not publish guest posts. Do a quick search within the blog for “guest post,” or do a  Google search for site:url.com “guest post.”

If your search doesn’t reveal guest posts, then don’t try to force your content here. Some blogs will list whether or not they accept blogs in their “Contact us” or “About Us” sections.

2. What type of content do they publish?

Are you pitching an article, an infographic, or something else? Review the types of content the blog publishes to make sure your content fits.

If the blog has never published an infographic before, it’s unlikely that they will for you. If the recipient detects you’re pushing content, it will hinder a future relationship. 

3. What is the tone of this blog?

The tone of the blog is its core and all content should match that tone, whether it’s content coming from the blog author or a guest author.

What is the tone of the blog? If it’s a multi-author blog, focus on the tone of the author you are trying to reach out to.

Your content needs to reflect the tone of the blog.  Again, don’t try to force your content to fit.

4. Who is the audience of this blog?

As mentioned previously, you can get a better understanding of the audience by reading the blog’s comments and social shares.

Remember, your goal is to publish your content on this blog. Ultimately, your content will be in the front of these readers. What type of audience do you want commenting on and sharing your content?

Stage IV: Evaluate Your Contact

Evaluating your contact is the most important step in your research. This person will determine the ultimate success or failure of placing your content.  Before you pitch, you should become familiar with the different types of influential bloggers; each one requires a different type of outreach.

With the more popular blogs you reach out to, the more personal you need to be. These people get hundreds of outreach emails a week. You need to stand out by understanding the individual, not the entity. 

The following questions will help you discover important details about your contact. Let’s call our contact Molly.

Blog Research

• Which category within the blog is Molly a contributor on?
• Is Molly a contributor, editor or publisher of the blog?
• Is Molly a regular contributor, or intermittent contributor?
• What type of content does Molly post? (articles, infographics, etc)
• What is Molly’s tone of writing in his posts and comments? Is he sarcastic, matter of fact, friendly?
• Does the blog Molly contributes on have a personal Q&A, where you can get to know him better?

Social Research

• LinkedIn: Does Molly’s previous work experience or education make him an authority in the industry?
• Twitter: What does Molly’s Twitter presence say about his personality and interests?

External Research

What other blogs does Charlie contribute to? Do a Google name search.

Pitching Your Content

If you can align your content with a vertical, blog and contact, you have the green light to sending your pitch. If your content fit in any one of these stages, then don’t send your pitch.

Don’t throw away your research on editors@blueglass.com. Finding the right contact information is crucial for getting your pitch read.

You took the time to get to know the individual, not the entity, right? So, send your email to the individual…

• Personal Email: klibert@tourism.org #winning
• General Email: editors@tourism.org#failing

Conclusion

With enough research, you will be able to provide content that is mutually beneficial to the person you reach out to. If you stop extracting value and start providing it, you will establish the ground work for years of fruitful collaboration.