Social Media

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?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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How to unlock your authentic and remarkable voice!

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
A spectrogram (0-5000 Hz) of the sentence &quo...

A spectrogram (0-5000 Hz) of the sentence “it’s all Greek to me” spoken by a female voice  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You have an untold number of things that make you different from the next person. Just ask your roommate, significant other, or neighbor!  You may feel, like I do sometimes, that you don’t have something truly unique to say.  Don’t get hung up on that.  Just say it better and say it your way.

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Say What?! Do You Know The Odd Truth About Reviews?

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

How often do you get honest feedback about how you’re doing? I mean, honest….it doesn’t NEED to be brutal, just a truthful, balanced opinion from someone, based on their experience. A large number of businesses are scared of feedback and reviews on their various social media pages. This is despite the fact that this is an important form of social transmission and enhances the word of mouth referrals they value so much in the off-line world. These can make or break a business.

Social proof is a fuzzy concept to some, but basically it is an accumulation of the clues in our environment we use to make decisions when we don’t know the truth (a H/T [Hat Tip] to Mark Schaefer for this clear definition!) Reviews are one avenue for prospects to check you out if they’ve never heard of you before and are considering buying what you offer. Nielsen reports that 84% of people say that online reviews influence their buying decision.

There are two components to successfully working with customer reviews.

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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…

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Words Are Actually Too Hard! Can You Picture This?

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment
This image was selected as a picture of the we...

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Farsi Wikipedia for the 13th week, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You have a different way of learning than I do. There are a lot of terms like “Cognitive Styles” and “Learning Strategies” that describe this, but it’s really pretty basic. Still, there are some commonalities across the various Styles. Read a piece of information and 3 days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Simply add a picture and you’ll remember 65%! I also benefit from the inclusion of samples, stories and examples or templates that help me to fill in the mental construct. You probably have other things that help you, too.

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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.

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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.

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