Mike’s Points

“he’s going to ask for a glass of milk.”

Everyone knows that. Right?

And, of course, “When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw.”

And so on.

Just as with mice, in blogger outreach there are actions you can count on with a very high level of confidence.

My belief that, if a person blogs, he or she is naturally opinionated — or at least the blogger likes to have a soap box. (Hey, I do.)

In traditional media relations, you don’t ask a reporter to do a story on your client. You develop a news release or story idea, and send it to a reporter with a line that so-and-so topic might be of interest to the reporter’s readers (or viewers if we’re talking TV, or listeners, if we’re talking radio).

You don’t directly ask for a story.

The reporter is in the business of writing stories, so it’s assumed that is what you want.

And, there are similar assumptions with bloggers. As I said, most are naturally opinionated and all of them want valuable content for their blogs.

So, don’t ask a blogger for a blog post on your client or employer.

You can ask for feedback on a product, issue or whatever subject you are sending to the blogger. Unbiased market research is a great benefit in social media marketing.

You can say that IF the blogger does use the information for a post, here’s links to other info, images, video or whatever that might be of interest. In addition, you could offer a special price break or other advantage for the blogger’s readers — helping the blogger add value to his/her blog and better serve the readers.

Of course, sometimes the mouse may just want a smaller glass and not a straw. And, every so often, a blogger will really just give you feedback directly or say a post will be published but it never is. Remember that most — at least many — bloggers are every-day people with a passion about a particular subject. Life does get in the way of blogging at times.

If so, move on. Just like there will be other mice, there are plenty of other bloggers to contact.

-Mike

On a regular basis, early adopters and so called experts say that social media is the death of public relations. 

In reality, social media allows more opportunity for PR pros. One area that social media has opened up is managing the information, images and other accessories related to getting clients or employer’s news out. You do not need to know programming to create and manage an online newsroom that:

• Provides value for media by giving them access to information from which they get to choose for their use (information that you put up)
• Enables customers and prospects to easily find information about your employer or clients

Last week, I was fortunate to be part of Denise Dahl’s half-day seminar for non-profit organizations. My focus? “Socializing Your PR Efforts.”

The rationale behind why you should open up your online newsroom and make it social are these two stats:

• 91% of journalists use standard search engines to perform activities such as research companies, past media coverage and subject matter experts (2008 TopRank blog survey)

And…

• “81% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses.”(acccording to the 2009 Social Media Marketing Industry Report)

That “exposure” included, according to the survey, improved search engine results.

So, if journalists are incorporating search as part of their stories, and a strong social media presence enables you to be more findable — it makes sense to have your news online in social media.

If interested, you can find my presentation — which includes examples, and free resources for your PR efforts — at SlideShare.net.

-Mike

Of course, if you want to talk about or want assistance in socializing your PR efforts, let me know.

And, if this post looks familiar, yes, it is similar to the one I did for my Toledo Social Media Examiner column last week.

During the last couple days, I looked at using search — or better, social media monitoring — to help with blogger outreach, and search to help improve one’s Twitter community.

Today (yes, I know I’m very late with this post), let’s take a look at LinkedIn for building business prospects. This can be used for various objectives, but, in my example, I’m looking at it as a small agency or solo practitioner using it in business development.

LinkedIn has many great ways to find people within your community — professionally and/or geographically — that are open to business relationships. While LinkedIn offers many ways to search, you do business with people, not “companies,” right?

So, use the advanced people search: see right.

While there are many ways to filter your search, I want to point out a few key ways:

Keywords: You can search for prospects based on terms related to vertical industries you have experience in. Sure, you can filter by Industry, but using keywords allow you to refine your search around specific industry terms.

Geography: Looking to do business near you or in your favorite city? LinkedIn has a lot of flexibility to help you search by geography.

Open to potential: The bottom box highlighted is the real key: It shows you who on LinkedIn is interested in what. I have the “interested in: Consultants/contractors” option. There’s also:

• Potential employees
• Entrepreneurs
• Hiring managers
• Industry experts
• Deal-making contacts

And, the ever-there: all option.

Once you get your results, you can sort various ways, from relationship to you, recommendation, keywords and relevance.

So, what are your good LinkedIn tips?

Since business is all about relationships, be sure you are networking with local Social Media Breakfast groups, Social Media Clubs, PRSA, chamber groups, etc. And, be sure you check out LinkedIn to see who is closely connected to you — but you don’t yet know.

-Mike

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can use social media to build business — either having me talk with your group or help your social media marketing efforts — I would appreciate it if you’d contact me.

Yesterday, I offered some tips to use social media monitoring to help lay a solid foundation for blogger outreach. And, Tonja Deegan of Airfoil Public Relations offered additional valuable information in learning about bloggers you might reach out to.

Today, let’s look at how you can use Twitter for prospecting.

Say you’re a car dealership in a decent metro area. Use a service like Nearbytweets.com or search for your #city’s name on Twitter — like #Toledo, for example — to get a feel for the locals on Twitter. Assuming there’s a good size local community, set up Twitter searches for terms like:

• The names of the car brands you sell.
• The names of key competitive brands.
• Terms like “buy” with “car” or “truck” or “minivan” or other type of vehicle you sell.
• Terms like “car” with “repair” or “service”

When people in your sales and service area show up in results, see if you can contribute (another one of my Three Cs of social media) and add value. For example, you can reply with a tip/suggestion around automotive questions, provide links to information to help them research (third-party links; not your site), and other replies that demonstrate your value and service.

In doing so, you create top-of-mind awareness with potential customers — without trying to sell them a car.

You also start to develop a relationship with potential customers in your sales area, and build followers. The bigger and stronger community you develop, the more these prospects become solid prospects.

They begin to think positively of you — because you add value to their Twitter network.

And, when they need to purchase a vehicle, who do you think they’re going to strongly consider?

You — if you’ve done it right.

Tomorrow, let’s take a look at LinkedIn.

-Mike

While I definitely hope the above was helpful, it’s definitely not any earth-shattering Twitter secret. It’s simply smart social media. For other perspectives in using Twitter for business development see:

• Techrigy’s Connie Bensen’s case study
• Curve Detroit’s Charlie Wollborg’s talk at Social Media Breakfast-Toledo on Oct. 2. I’m one of the founding members of SMB-Toledo and was responsible for inviting and coordinating Charlie’s visit.

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can use social media to build business — either having me talk with your group or help your social media marketing efforts — contact me.

Cold-calling stinks. It’s a numbers game, and the nos don’t matter.

After graduating from college, I was fortunate to be brought on board with an Ithaca, Mich., personal finance advising firm. From hearing of the lavish company trips, the job offered great rewards. But, the bulk of the day was sitting in a phone bank room, calling people out of the phone book with script telling them how Social Security was changing and how I could help.

It wasn’t for me (though, I did set up two appointments before quitting after a few days).

If enough of your targeted audience is on social media platforms like blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn, you can use search to eliminate cold calling and develop a connection to open the door for a possible sales or marketing contact. As I’ve posted before, social media is about the Three Cs: Connecting, Contributing, Community.

And, search is a great connecting tool. Starting today and continuing Tuesday and Wednesday, let’s look at three ways to use search to improve your social media marketing or business efforts.

Blogger outreach

Say you have a new diaper that is super absorbent, does no harm to any baby and decomposes within five days of being tossed out in the garden. Cool, eh? And, you want to do some sampling to mommy bloggers.

But there are so many — do you contact just the most popular? Or, the ones that only do product reviews?

No, you conduct a search — with a free service like Google Alerts or a comprehensive social media monitoring tool — with terms like:

• “cloth diapers”: Chances are these moms want to be green and don’t want too have disposables clogging up landfills. There’s a connection.
• “disposable diapers”: If your new diapers have a small price differential vs regular diapers, most people would switch to being green if the effort doesn’t cost more. There’s a connection.
• “composting” or “gardening” with “mom” or “family”: You’re looking for moms who also have an interest in gardening or composting. They may not have kids in diapers, but they may have readers who do — and your product would be of interest. There’s a connection.

Of course, you may have to adjust your terms depending on if your first set of results achieves enough possible bloggers: That is, moms who already are blogging about subjects centered around your product.

Once you find these moms, do your research into their popularity to find the ones that have a sizable audience. Use services like Quantcast, Compete and Sitemeter (if they use it).

Also determine if they do product reviews.

From that list you develop based on the above two filters, read and become familiar with them before contacting them.

With the knowledge of their past related posts and your familiarity with them, you can establish a connection.

Next, I’ll take a look at how to use Twitter for sales efforts.

-Mike

Sales pitch: I’ve conducted numerous blogger outreach using the above method. If you’re interested in me talking to your organization about social media marketing, or in us possibly working together, contact me.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/denverjeffrey/ / CC BY-ND 2.0