Social Media

Fascinating Sharing Secrets You Need to Know

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

Although the actual act of sharing online is simple, the affect on your relationship-building efforts is huge. The act of sharing content actually helps others process your information better. Because of the implied commitment, those who share pay closer attention to what they are sharing. Another New York Times study on sharing found that:

  • 73% of participants say they process information “more deeply, thoroughly, and thoughtfully” when they share it.
  • 85% say reading content that others share helps them understand and process information and events.
  • 49% say sharing allows them to inform others of products they care about, potentially changing opinions or encouraging action.
So by creating ideal conditions for content-sharing, you build power for your brand AND create new value by helping your audience understand you and become authentic evangelists for your products and ideas.  Obviously, getting to this cannot be reduced to SEO techniques or “buy-ten-thousand-Tweets” schemes to drive traffic. Mark Schaefer says, “Shareability requires connection of some kind; your content must fill a need or perhaps even reflect on a trusted relationship.“

Continue reading →

Why Does No One Share Your Sensational Content?

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

So, let me share an uncomfortable truth: generally, no one wants to share your content.

Research by Cornell University, HP Labs and EPFL shows that people typically don’t share content they read on the web, even “great” content. The vast majority are passive information consumers. For example, the average Twitter user retweets only 1 in 318 content links they receive. Facebook reports that just 0.5% of those who see a Facebook post share it.

Does this mean all your hard work to create terrific content is wasted? No…but it does suggest that actively finding and nurturing that minuscule number of the most active users is critical to spreading your information online. Popularity, the nature of the content, and audience size alone don’t predict that this passivity will be overcome and they will “click to share.” You must employ strategies to overcome this passivity and systematically find those predisposed to love and share the content you create.

Continue reading →

Content Shock: Liking, Sharing and Committing

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

It’s probably pretty clear by now that the starting line for this race is great content. Just like the expectations around customer service I mentioned in an earlier post, this no longer a differentiator, it is a given. So once you’ve created that stellar content, what happens? In a lot of companies, it gets slapped onto the web site, the Facebook Page or the YouTube channel and that’s about it.

Needless to say, that doesn’t work so well.

I’m going to cover several factors that will help your work rise up, get discovered and shared. While there’s no simple strategy that works for every single kind of business and the overall mix you use to execute your plan is up to you, each of these factors should be considered for your situation.  Then pick out a couple that fit for you and you will be ahead of the competition.

Continue reading →

Content Shock and the Search for Impact

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

So now you’ve done a bit of research and found that not only is your market saturated with content, but you’re up against some “heavy hitters”. Competition seems hopeless and you don’t see how you can make any real headway. Well, there are three tactics you can use that can provide you some leverage and opportunity. Continue reading →

Content Shock, Saturation and Niche Research

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

Content Saturation

Unless you have a existing niche service or product, you’re heading face-first into a highly competitive environment in this content arms race….and the status quo will not work. How do you differentiate yourself and your business? How do you finish the sentence, “Only we….”? For example, I regularly hear any number of small business owners tout their customer service, but, frankly, everyone does that. Unless you deliver your customers’ products to their homes via a Rolls Royce driven by a billionaire, hand carried by an A-list Hollywood star in a diamond-crusted case and installed by a sparkling robot, with an instant, full money, no questions asked returns policy after a lifetime of use, excellent customer service is what everyone expects. It’s not a differentiator, it’s a given.
Continue reading →

Content Shock and Cutting Through The Noise

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

As if things aren’t hard enough for entrepreneurs and small business folks, the challenges of digital presence and discoverability just keep mutating. I just started reading Mark Schaefer’s new book, “The Content Code” in which he describes this evolution of digital marketing so far.

He outlines three phases that, to date, bring us here. The first was a focus on Presence. You may remember this…in the mid-1990s when AOL, Prodigy and others staked their claims on what was then the Internet? As a business, if you could just get out there and establish a web site, you won. You were So Far Ahead of the curve…
Then, however, you needed to be found. The early search engines like Alta Vista, Yahoo and eventually Google enabled this. So by the later 1990s the emphasis turned to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Discovery was the focus for the second digital revolution. Get found and you won.

Continue reading →

Trusting [?] Facebook

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

What you can find on Facebook is all over the map! As a channel for conversation, community, communication and entertainment, it has really grown and branched out. For a lot of small business owners that I talk to, it is both an opportunity and a jungle. They are aware that the chances to grow their audience, deepen their engagement and conversation with their customers and fans, and build a trusted presence online are available. But somewhere, deep down, they’re just a little unsure of it all. When they go to their profile pages and scroll down their timelines, they see So Much that is not business. Cute videos, political barking, blatant advertising (including ads for things that they, IN NO WAY, want to have anything to do with…) and just A Lot Of Stuff. How can they trust their message to all that?

Continue reading →

Get the Internet to Work for Your Company

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

A question I received this week was, “What is the single most important thing to do so the Internet works best for your company?”

Ask this of 5 consultants and you will likely get about 43 different answers.  That said, I put forth my answer with the caveat that the Internet is so insanely dynamic that things can change rapidly and pretty radically.  OK, then….

Continue reading →

The Challenge of “Always On”

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

Embed from Getty Images

A question I received this week was, “How do you balance the 24/7 of social media with an 8-to-5 work day?”

“Always on”, 24-by-7 is kind of scary. I live an area that, this winter, has lost power about 7 or 8 times in the past 2 months, so “always on” is kind of relative, but I digress…

The availability of the Internet is terrific when you need to do that search, find that restaurant, message your friend, research that project or notify the world of some truly significant event. However, if you’re a business owner, it can be intimidating. Since the Internet is always there, you may feel you need to be, too.

Well, maybe not….

Continue reading →

Open the Box – A Fish?!

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

Awhile back I was working through a visualization exercise mentioned in Steven Pressfield’s book “Do the Work”. My first post regarding this can be found here and if you search my blog you’ll a number of other visualizations that I’ve found useful using this. Let me summarize what this entails:

  • Imagine a box with a lid. Hold the box in your hand. Now open it.
  • What’s inside?
  • It might be a frog, a silk scarf, a gold coin of Persia.
  • But here’s the trick: no matter how many times you open the box, there is always something in it.

Over time I’ve found a golden table, a pressure washer, wood floors and a few others.

I hadn’t exercised my imagination in this way for a while, so I decided to give it a go and opened the box afresh. Today I found……a fish.
Continue reading →