Content marketing

What is Social Proof and Why Should I Care?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

You’re always looking for quality shortcuts. Anyway and anything that can help you make a good decision (I don’t Need help making bad decisions…). The Internet has taught us all very well:

  • 80% of consumers search for a product or service online before purchasing it.
  • 70% read online reviews before making purchase decisions.
  • 68% of consumers begin their decision-making while searching for a keyword.
I know that I always begin my search for a purchase or more information about something that may result in a purchase (even something like the weather differences between the Oregon coast and the California coast….could result in a short vacation decision sometime…) by reading reviews and recommendations of many kinds. It’s a way of figuring out who to trust.  Unfortunately, we’ve all heard tales of the system being gamed: bogus reviews on Amazon, Expedia, or Yelp, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest followers purchased, questionable endorsements on LinkedIn, and numerous “thumbs-up”s or “+1″s purchased or comped in some way.

What’s real and what isn’t?

Continue reading →

What is the ROI of an Awesome Quality Relationship?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

Like you, I have a hard time balancing “all the stuff I need to do” as an entrepreneur with things like spending time with my family, detaching from the Internet and screens, and nurturing a creative hobby that doesn’t entail playing Civilization for an afternoon. One of my halfway measures is I take a little time on the weekend to catch up on my reading: I’m three weeks behind on my stack of The Economist, I want to make headway on at least a couple of the books I have going on my Kindle that DON’T have to do with social media, business, or consulting, and catch-up on the handful of truly magnetic posts from my favorite bloggers.

Continue reading →

Do You Know The Truth About Connection and Appearance?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Connect Four

Connect Four (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I belong to a few business and networking groups, as well as a service organization. Only at one of them do I have the luxury of spending time with the members (about 25) on a weekly basis and the ongoing encouragement to get together with a couple of them every week to really get to know them, their businesses and their lives. I am able to connect and as a result I feel almost as invested in their work as they are (I’m still working on birthdays and favorite foods, but, hey, we’ll get there!). I am fans of them and their work and actively seek out ways to promote and assist each one, if I can.

How can the Silent Majority Unlock your Bottom Line?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Silent Majority

The Silent Majority


Do you remember “The Silent Majority”? While the phrase has been around for a very long time, it was popularized by Richard Nixon in 1969 in a speech, and also referred to by journalist Theodore White as the “mute masses.” In a different context, this phrase also represents the voices you hear (or don’t…) on social media. Research shows that almost 90% of what you hear there comes from less than 30% of the most vocal users….and they are different from the the quieter folks that make up the bulk of your online audience.

Continue reading →

How Do You Set the Table for Unparalleled Awesomeness?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

Can you remember the single best dining out experience you’ve ever had? Whether it was the best steak ever, stir-fry to die for, or that anniversary dinner at the Killer Italian Place, do you remember what it was that made the meal memorable? The company probably had a lot to do with it, but the context and environment had a BIG part in the whole thing, too.

This same principle holds for your content and whether it is share-worthy or not. If that serving of shrimp linguine had arrived in a Styrofoam container with a packet of generic grated cheese and a plastic fork, the night might have been memorable for entirely different reasons! You expect premium content to look like premium content, too.

Continue reading →

How Remarkable and Evergreen Are You? Prove It!

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

The Social Web is a fire hose. How do you stay current as a content creator and anticipate the Internet’s next move? Is anything you wrote last week even relevant?

Yes!

There’s a subset of your content that remains valuable over time. How much of your “old content” (for some that would anything posted 2 weeks ago!) falls into this category of so-called evergreen content? For example, if you have a catering business that regularly posts tips on hosting a party and providing exciting recipes for your audience, I imagine those recipes will still be great tasting next week….or so I’d hope…

Continue reading →

Conversation, Controversy, and What’s Really Important

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

Controversy legend

Nothing gets your hackles up more than spotting a post that you passionately disagree with. You smack the REPLY link and start banging away on your keyboard….you’ll set ’em straight!

Aren’t social media grand?

Well, while controversy does ignite content, and can fascinate and engage people in a way few other approaches can, it is not a sustainable strategy for your business. Passion is one thing, screaming online is another.

Continue reading →

How To Approach Fun Numbers and Shrewd Sizes

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

Here’s the deal: I don’t go onto the web to be sold to. I look for information. I look for content that will tell me something I don’t know and satisfies my curiosity. I want to be intrigued. I want to learn and join conversations.

Mostly, however, I want to have fun.

Continue reading →

Don’t just write. Ignite.

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

English: Buttons with just three holes. Italia...

You work like a crazy person, obsessing about the appropriate, attractive graphic, the relevance and utility, even entertainment value, of the content, the “grab” of the headline, inclusion of targeted hashtags….everything. Now, ready to post….how do you light a fire underneath it?

You’ve heard a lot from me about Content Shock…now I’m going to move onto what Mark Schaefer (whom I quote in the title of this post…) calls Content Ignition. Over the next few posts you’re going to find out about some very specific actions you can take. Not every one is right for each post, but there are enough options to cover most every scenario you run into. Overall, you need to do whatever you can to make it easy for others to share what you publish.

Continue reading →

Want the Ultimate Quickie List for Social Media?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

I’ve been writing a lot about the cognitive research around sharing, content shock and emotions. You’re ready for that to be done. You want the “5 Things You Can Do Today to Rock Facebook!” post.

Sorry….it’s just not that simple.

Continue reading →