Blogging | Mason Media Today

Streamlining Your URL’s

June 2, 2011 By Mason 1 Comment

In my opinion, URL’s are digital real estate because once they have been reserved, they’re gone! To keep your websites/blogs as streamlined as possible it’s no longer enough to see if your URL is available only for your website. I recommend to my clients to check their URL with LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook as well BEFORE they purchase their domain.

For example, lets say your new website idea is “MyBusiness.com” and let’s pretend that specific URL was available for purchase. Before you purchase it, make sure you go to Twitter first and see if “Twitter.com/MyBusiness” is available too. Then, go to Facebook and see if Facebook.com/MyBusiness is taken and so on. If you can find the right wording or phrasing that is not only available for your main website, but also available on various social media networks, it will create a clean, simple and familiar brand online across your various networks. It will also make it easy for people to find you on those networks.

If the URL you’re desiring doesn’t bring anything up on Facebook and Twitter, it doesn’t guarantee that the URL is not reserved, but the odds are definitely good if nothing loads up on the page. I would check in this order: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube then LinkedIn. If it looks like the URL is available, create it on Twitter and YouTube first. Once you see that it’s available, then go ahead and purchase your main domain URL. Facebook is tougher, because even if the URL doesn’t show up initially, it doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t reserved it necessarily. You will have to wait until you have launched your page and attained 25+ Fans before you can confirm the availability.

May I make another suggestion in regards to your choice of URL? I recommend doing your best to find a URL with .COM (as opposed to .ORG, .NET, etc). People are more familiar with .COM and usually assume that’s where your website is at. I have been involved with a .ORG website, and many people typed in our URL after hearing about the website from us, but then ended it with .COM and had trouble finding us.

The simpler you can keep your various URL’s, the stronger your association between your brand and your social media sites you will have.

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media

Which Social Media Perform the Best?

February 2, 2011 By Mason 2 Comments

As an internet marketer, people ask me all the time which forms of internet marketing/social media get the best results? I always answer the question with a disclaimer. The disclaimer is: what works best for one business may not work the best for you depending on what type of business you have and what type of results you’re looking to achieve.

As far as internet marketing is concerned, if you have very little time to put in and very little money, I would always recommend to start out with a bi-weekly or monthly electronic newsletter (aka email marketing). This yields an acceptable ROI when considering the small amount of time and money it takes to make it happen. If you have more than a little bit of time and money, you still want to make sure that you have an electronic newsletter.

If you want to do more than that, you begin to get into different forms of social media. There are now an endless amount of options when it comes to social media. If you would have asked me 2-3 weeks ago to prioritize the most effective forms of internet marketing/social media I would have shared the following:

1.Electronic Newsletter

2. Internet Forums

3. YouTube/Video Podcasting

4. LinkedIn

5. Twitter

6. Facebook

That usually surprises people because Facebook isn’t near the top of my list. Now, this list may change depending on what your business is and what kind of goals you have, but as a general answer, that is what I would share. Now, my answer is based purely on experience with my customers and where their customers tell them they’re coming from.

Well, a study was recently released where social media marketers revealed what platforms were giving them the best return. The image below is from the article, “Where Are Social Media Marketers Seeing the Most Success?“, on eMarketer.com.

Message/bulletin boards are also known as “Forums.” I can confirm that Forums can be a highly effective way of marketing. I have one customer on eight different forums and he gets most of his business from those communities. Not all industries have popular forums relevant to a specific context, but if there is one out there related to your niche, see what it takes to be a sponsor and start posting content and answering questions.

Podcasting can be audio content (for audio podcasts) or a close cousin to YouTube (video podcasts). If you’re already posting video content on YouTube, you might want to consider duplicating your content in the form of a video podcast on iTunes.

Blogging comes in third, which isn’t a surprise. I don’t really see blogging as a form of social media. Blogging, to me, should be your website that is an anchor for all of your social media. If you don’t have a website or are considering what kind of website to build for your business, build it with a blogging component.

Notice that “online video” (aka YouTube), comes ahead of Twitter and Facebook. I completely agree with this feedback. If you only have the capacity to post up one video a month, that’s more than enough reason to get started. There’s something about consistent video content that entices people to talk to the real person and/or experience the real product. After watching a number of your videos on a consistent basis, people will be compelled to take the next action step in your sales funnel.

If you’re looking for more web traffic for your site, than Twitter would probably be higher on this list. A growing Twitter page is a blog’s best friend in my opinion.

In regards to Facebook’s place on this list, I am not surprised. Facebook is good place to reinforce your message/brand and remind people you exist. The bottom line is, people still go on Facebook to socialize more than they do to spend money. This dynamic could change down the road though.

An interesting surprise on this list is the absence of LinkedIn and the presence of Foursquare. Was LinkedIn even a part of the survey? Is Foursquare the next Facebook? Who knows. What I do know is that LinkedIn has been very effective for my business as well as my customers.

Filed Under: Blogging, Featured Articles, Social Media, Video Content, Video Tips, Tricks, & Info Tagged With: Email, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube

ESP Options

January 11, 2011 By Mason 2 Comments

ESP is short for “Email Service Provider.” If you have a blog that you’re looking to drive traffic to, email is key component. Using a blog combined with an email and integrated social networking strategy is an effective and practical plan for bloggers just starting out

Bloggers that are in the habit of bookmarking and web surfing will come back for return visits to your page to see what your latest content is. Non-bloggers aren’t always in the habit of returning to blogs of their own volition. This is why email is such a powerful component: It reminds people of your blog and provides links for them to click on and see your latest content. For the cost, it is one of the best forms of internet marketing out there.

When it comes to choosing an ESP, it really depends on what you’re trying to do. Here are three options I would consider depending on what you’re doing (of course this is not a comprehensive list of options):

1. AWeber

I like Aweber for two reasons: They provide effective Hover Forms for email capture and they work great with blogs with virtually no time input.

The Aweber Hover Form automatically appears when a user brings up your site. It emphasizes the option visitors have to sign up for your email list. You can customize the form in regards to appearance, how it appears, and how often it appears. I recommend setting it to appear once, so return visitors don’t have be interrupted by it on future visits. The other feature I like about Aweber is that you can design emails that are created automatically around new posts on your blog. For me, I designed an email that goes out once-a-week to subscribers with all the latest blog posts from the previous week. The only time investment with Aweber hover forms and emails is on the front-end of the process.

2. Constant Contact

I like Constant Contact because of their user friendly email template design system. If you want emails that are visually appealing and easy to design, I would recommend Constant Contact. They’ve also recently added social media integration features with their email templates as well.

3. Google Feedburner

Google Feedburner is the only option of these three that is free. Google Feedburner is a free Google App. It allows people to sign-up and receive an email version of each of your articles when they are posted. I recommend Google Feedburner because it’s free. Personally, I don’t like the idea of clogging up peoples’ email inbox on a daily basis (because I write articles on a daily basis), but there are a lot of people who don’t mind it. If you only blog 2-3 times a week or less, this would be something I would definitely recommend looking into.

Either way you go, it’s important to implement an email component along with social media if you’re looking to drive traffic to your blog and disseminate your information effectively.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: AWeber, Blogging, Constant Contact, Email, Google Feedburner

Content Is King – Part 2

January 7, 2011 By Mason 2 Comments

Here are the last 4 Keys to Valuable Content for your social media and /or blog. All together there are 7 Keys which I began discussing in the previous post, “Content Is King.”

4. Diverse

Make sure to change-up the context of your content from time-to-time. Obviously, the majority of the time you want to add value to your readers regarding your specific niche, but it’s okay to sporadically mix-in content about your personal life, what’s happening with your business, or a customer testimony. These types of posts help to build the relational connection with your audience. You can also post links to other articles or invite another blogger to write an article for your site.

5. English

I’m not going to present this principle like I’m a professional writer, because I is not : ) I have definitely posted content with misspellings and incorrect grammar. I do take the time to proofread my posts before I publish them. A couple hours after I publish them, I return to read it once more just to make sure (and “yes,” I still miss things). All I am encouraging you to do here is to commit yourself to do your best to make your content easy to understand. Use spell check tools available to you and be disciplined to proofread.

6. Oldy But Goody

It’s okay, from time to time, to pull out a popular article or quote from the past and re-post it. Don’t do this too much, or your audience will feel like you’re wasting their time, especially if you’re just starting out. As long as it is still relevant and beneficial, emphasize it’s importance with a second edition.

7. Your Passion

You must be interested in what your sharing. If you’re not interested, it will show between the lines. You’re level of interest and passion will create a tractor beam of energy (Stars Wars reference) that will pull in and grab your audience’s attention.

If you’re only blogging for money, you will eventually run out of passion. If you’re blogging because you enjoy talking about your topic and/or you enjoy helping people with your knowledge and experience, you’ll have a fire that is easily fanned. Interested readers follow interested authors.

In review, valuable content will be Relevant, Consistent, Opinionated, Diverse, English, an Oldy But Goody, and last but not least, it will be Your Passion.

Click Here For Part 1 of CONTENT IS KING

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media Tagged With: Blogging, Content, Content Is King, Social Media

Content Is King

January 6, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

Posting something stupid like, “Eating an egg salad sandwich,” isn’t going to grow your electronic influence. What is the highest priority when it comes to social media and blogging? Content. Why? Because Content is King. Content is the information you publish in your status updates, blog articles, photos and videos. Your content determines the value (or lack of value) you create for your online audience. Your content keeps your readers coming back to your pages/blog OR it leaves them realizing they’ll never get those two minutes of their life back. Let’s look at 7 Keys to Valuable Content:

1. Relevant

Hopefully you’ve already defined your niche. Once you’ve defined your niche it’s important to know your audience. What are they interested in? What are the main questions they’re asking? What is the information they don’t know about, that you do know about it?

As long as your content is relevant to you’re audience, you will always have an audience.

Staying relevant is like the blade of a knife; just because you were sharp yesterday doesn’t mean you won’t be dull today. Make sure you take notice of the content you publish that creates interaction and make sure you take notice of the content you publish that doesn’t create any interaction. It’s also valuable to visit popular sites to see what’s being talked about and learn as much as you can.

2. Consistent

You’re content needs to be consistent. By consistent, I mean there needs to be a pattern to your frequency of posting. Posting once every three or four months isn’t going to build a community around your content. I hate to break this to you, but if you only post every 3 or 4 months, YOUR PAGE IS DEAD! The least I would recommend is once a week. The ideal is once a day. I currently hold myself to blogging Monday thru Friday once a day and if I feel like it, Saturday and/or Sunday too.

Decide what amount of content you can publish and commit yourself to a schedule. Maybe you can only post 3 times a week…fine. Post an article/update every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The point is, your audience will become familiar with your frequency and learn how often they can return to your site/pages to see what’s new.

3. Opinionated

What will make your content unique is your opinion. Your opinion is your brand. You may post certain information that has been posted before, but it’s your opinion about it that will make it stick out. I’m not recommending you provoke people into a flame war, but if it’s your page/blog it should be your personality that comes across. In the words of a great philosopher, “Express yourself.”

I will share the remaining “Keys” tomorrow…

Click Here For Part 2 of CONTENT IS KING

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media Tagged With: Blogging, Content, Content Is King

The Law of Reciprocity

January 3, 2011 By Mason 3 Comments

This is actually a continuation from the article Participation, posted a few days ago. In the first article I discussed the importance of trying to build an online community instead of trying to coerce everybody to engage with your content. I also layed out three different levels of community involvement: Absent, Lurking, Participation. Obviously, participation is what is required to build an active and engaged community but the next question that arises is, “How much time does that take?”

This all depends on what kind of results your looking for and how much time you have to put into it. There are three levels of “Participation Frequency” and only two of them will yield positive results. Even if you don’t have a lot of time to participate, one of the two are practical for anyone. So let’s dig in:

3 Participation Frequency Levels

1. Hit And Miss

This level of participation has no intention driving it. This is where you are not absent or lurking, but you are leaving comments on articles, using retweets or @ replies on Twitter, and “liking” updates on Facebook. The problem here is that you don’t do it consistently. You read a higher percentage of social media content than you interact with. Unless you know the person, or the content really makes you laugh, you probably will just read it and move on. This is where the majority of people in social media and blogging are at. There is nothing wrong with this amount of participation… unless you have a blog, Facebook page, or Twitter account that you are looking to build an online community with.

2. Looking To Participate

This level of participation is different from the “Hit and Miss” person. This person is looking for a way to participate with each bit of content they come across. 9 out of 10 times they read something, they leave a comment, “like” it, etc. This person may not read the same amount of content as the “Hit and Miss” participant or “Lurker” because they are losing a small amount of their reading time in order to participate. Why would someone do this?

Everytime you leave a comment or interact within today’s social media environments, you are indirectly advertising your own social media/blog. In fact, the most practical way for a blogger to advertise his/her blog is to leave comments on other blog articles (especially the ones that allow you to link your name back to your blog). Not only do readers see your comment and click on your link, but there is a good chance that the author of the blog article will reciprocate your participation back to your blog. This is “The Law of Reciprocity.” You “like” my Facebook content, I’ll probably be more inclined to “like” yours. You “retweet” my tweets, I will “retweet yours too. A lot of people do this on a subconscious level without realizing it. You just naturally end up interacting with people online that started interacting with you more than others did.

If this concept is true, why would you waste an opportunity to interact with content if you’ve already invested the time to read it??? Think about it, you’ve already read the status update or article; how much more time does it take to “like” or leave a comment? 5, 10, 15 seconds at the most, right? Why not take the extra seconds to participate and build up the community you would like be a part of? It is a much more efficient use of time, business-wise, than “lurking” or being “hit and miss.”

For the person or business owner that doesn’t have a lot of time to participate in the online community, this level is the most practical to implement. You can simply set aside 10-15 minutes a day to not only browse content, but interact with it. I promise you, if you consistently interact with online content 3-5 days a week consistently, you will start seeing more interaction with your own content in six short months. Over time, you will begin to identify pages and sites that actually participate in the online community themselves. Those are the people you’ll want to prioritize your participation with because they will reciprocate it back.

3. Exploring To Participate

This is the person that is really looking to “crush it” online. This is where a person not only participates with the majority of content they come across, they are diligent to explore new frontiers of cyberspace to participate with. They scientifically evaluate which sites and/or users are the most influential to participate with along with the amount of reciprocation that is experienced. They are disciplined at browsing for extended periods of time or they browse each morning and night to stay up on everything. This type of user is probably looking for click-through traffic and is selling products/services that are not limited to a geographical location.

Again, the 2^nd level is probably going to be the most practical for most people. I encourage you to coach yourself up on, not just reading online content, but interacting with it as well. You’d be surprised at the relationships you’ll develop, the amount you’ll learn from others that respond to your questions, and the partnerships that form when people reach out to you as a result of your participation.

Filed Under: Blogging, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Blogging, participation, reciprocity, Social Media

Participation

December 31, 2010 By Mason Leave a Comment

When it comes to blogging and social media for business, people are always asking, “How can I get more fans/followers?” or “How I can get more people to visit my blog?” The perspective of this question is all wrong. The perspective of this question needs to be framed, not from the website owner, but from the website visitor. A better question would be, “What can I do to build an engaged online community?”

The former question has a one-way result in mind. The latter has an interactive result in mind. Trying to build an “engaged online community” assumes a level of participation in what others are doing. We’ll talk more about that in little bit…

There are many services that you can pay for to bring more exposure to your social media and blogging. There are many strategies I could share with you that would bring more exposure to your pages. Today though, I want to focus on a core principle of getting your pages out there to be seen: Community Involvement. At first this may sound like a big commitment, but I promise you it’s not. Let’s look at three levels of Community Involvement:

1. Absent

This is a rather humorous level. This is the user who builds their website and their social media with much anticipation. They do a bunch of planning and finally hit the “publish” button and/or the “status update” function. Then they sit back and wait for the visitors, traffic, comments, replies, likes, followers, and connections to roll in. Then, after several weeks of very little interaction (sometimes after days), they begin to lose faith in their online endeavors and get discouraged. They stop posting content and updates less and less until they finally stop all-together.

This sad story is more common than you may realize. The problem here is rooted in a famous movie called “Field of Dreams.” In that movie there is a memorable line: If you build it, they will come. This is how people approach blogging and social media: “If I create my website and all of my pages, they will come.” Nothing could be farther from the truth.

What’s missing from the story is this user’s involvement in the online community. Their commitment is very self-involved which is also known as “absent.”

2. Lurking

This is a user that is part of the online community. They visit different sites and check on different social media pages of their friends and acquaintances. Despite their active surfing though, they’re kind of shy when it comes to posting comments and such.

There wouldn’t be anything wrong with this if this lurker didn’t have his/her own site/pages that desperately needed some interaction.

3. Participation

This is a person who is interested in other people’s lives, projects, businesses, sites, and so-on. They’re not just interested, but they show they’re interest with their comments, replies, and different forms of interaction.

Coincidentally, this person’s site and social media pages are buzzing with traffic, fans, followers, comments, and private messages. Why? In a very naïve fashion (or possibly not-so naïve), this person has been indirectly advertising themselves and their sites/pages to other members of the online community. Since they have shown interest in other people’s content, others have shown interest in their content. It’s a very profound concept right?

Now this did not cost any amount of money (other than the cost for their computer and internet). I am aware though, that some people that are reading this are thinking, “Yes Mason, but how much TIME does that take?” I am so glad you asked because I will be addressing that in my next article : )

Until then, ask yourself, “Am I a member of the online community?”

Click Here To Read Part 2: “The Law of Reciprocity”

Filed Under: Blogging, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Advertising, Blogging, reciprocity, Social Media, Traffic

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