Michael Hyatt » Social Media

5 Steps to Building Your Platform [Infographic]

Michael Hyatt — Sat, 26 May 2012 12:45:44 +0000

I thought it would be cool to create an infographic for my new book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World. Thanks to Dave Whitlock of Principle Design for creating this for me. Click here to download the full-size PDF.

Question: What do you think of this inforgraphic? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

7 Reasons to Buy My New Book Now

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:00:27 +0000

UPDATE: Sorry, this bonus offer has now expired!

Today, I am launching my new book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Nashville: Thomas Nelson). To celebrate, I am giving away seven bonuses worth $375.98 to everyone who buys a copy this week and e-mails me the receipt. I’ll share the details in a moment.

If you can’t see this video in your RSS reader or email, then click here.

I won’t spend time in this post telling you about the book. I have created an entire page for that purpose, complete with endorsements from 27 people who were kind enough to read it before publication, including Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Dave Ramsey, John Maxwell, and many, many others.

In addition, more than one hundred people have posted reviews on the major online retailer sites. All of them (so far) are five-star. The words and phrases you’ll find repeated are “specific,” “practical,” “down to earth,” “inspiring,” and “empowering.”

On the product page I go into detail about why I wrote the book and how it can help anyone—authors, public speakers, bloggers, recording artists, business owners, sales people, pastors, brand managers—get visibility for themselves and their message.

The main thing I want to communicate here is that if you buy the book THIS WEEK, I will give you seven FREE bonuses:

Platform Video Jumpstart (a $179.00 six-session video series)
Why Now Is the Best Time Ever to Be an Author (a $47.00 one-session video)
How to Write a Winning Book Proposal (a $47.00, two-session audio series)
Writing a Winning Non-Fiction Book Proposal (a $19.97 e-book)
Writing a Winning Fiction Book Proposal (a $19.97 e-book)
All the Digital Editions of Platform (a $38.06 collection of the Kindle, Nook, iPad, and PDF formats)
Audio Edition of Platform (a $24.99 audio edition of the entire book)

This offer is only valid through the end of the day, May 25th, CDT. At that point, this offer goes away FOREVER. To get these seven FREE bonuses, you must take these three steps:

Purchase Platform from your favorite bookseller. You can chose from one of the online retailers below or your local bookseller. The book retails for $24.99, but many retailers are selling it for less than $15.00

Amazon
Books-a-Million
Family Christian
Mardel Barnes & Noble
Christian Book Distributors
Lifeway
Parable
E-mail me a copy of your receipt. You can simply forward a copy of the receipt from your online retailer to gifts@michaelhyatt.com. If you buy a physical copy from a local retailer, scan the receipt and e-mail it to the same address. It’s that simple.
Confirm your e-mail address. I don’t want to inadvertently spam anyone, so I follow a strict, double opt-in e-mail list procedure. I will reply to your e-mail and ask you to confirm your address before I proceed further. (Actually, this is automated, but you get the idea.)

That’s it!

Once I get your confirmation, I will e-mail you the link to the special Platform Bonus Download Page, where you will get access to all seven bonuses.

If you’re serious about taking yourself, your business, or your product to the next level, order your copy of Platform today and get started.

Again, this offer goes away forever after May 25th, 2012. Don’t miss it!

If you have a question about this offer, please check the FAQ.

Question: If you have already read Platform, what did you think? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

3 Characteristics of the New Marketing

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:00:39 +0000

Every morning while getting dressed I have The Today Show playing in the bathroom. I enjoy catching up on the news and getting the forecast for the day’s weather.

At least until the commercials come on.

It’s not that I am opposed to advertising per se. I’m not. I understand that television producers have to monetize their content.

What I object to is the fact that these commercials—especially the ones from car dealers—are several decibels louder than the program itself. Evidently, the pitch man thinks he can bludgeon me into submission by yelling at me.

This is the old marketing.

More than a decade ago, Seth Godin described this as Interruption Marketing—impersonal, irrelevant, and unanticipated. (If you haven’t read his book, Permission Marketing, do so.)

Thankfully, this kind of marketing is almost dead.

The new marketing is based on building relationships. If you dislike marketing—particularly the thought of marketing yourself—this is good news.

Yesterday, I experienced this first-hand when I took Gail out for brunch at The Southern, a hip new restaurant in downtown Nashville. We had celebrated Mother’s Day with our girls and their families the day before, so it was just the two of us.

In addition to a fabulous dining experience, I enjoyed watching the employees connect with their customers. Here’s what I observed:

The new marketing starts with authenticity. When we arrived at the restaurant, we were welcomed by Tom Morales, the owner. Though my daughter, Marissa, works at the restaurant, we had never met him. For all he knew, we were just new customers.
Tom greeted us warmly, wishing Gail a happy Mother’s Day. He seemed genuinely delighted to see us. He then engaged us in a conversation, asking us several questions about ourselves.
The new marketing is fueled by generosity. As we were looking over the menu, the server brought us free BBQ Shrimp and Oyster Southern appetizers. This was totally unexpected—and wonderfully delicious.
In today’s environment, the way to create wow experiences is to define your customers’ expectations then exceed them. This is exactly what our server did. As it turns out, “It is more blessed to give that to receive” is a brilliant marketing strategy.
The new marketing incorporates story-telling. I ordered “The Cuban,” which the menu described as “pork tenderloin, mojo marinated overnight then pan fried, black beans, yellow rice, skillet debris, and topped with two fried eggs.”
After the server brought our food, Tom wandered over to our table and told me a story. He explained how his grandmother, a refuge from Haiti, had invented The Cuban, wanting to find a way to use her pork tenderloin leftovers. This story made the dish all the more meaningful and memorable.

This simple experience turned us into unpaid evangelists for The Southern. Our first impulse was to share the experience with our family and friends.

The bottom line is that you can’t succeed in today’s environment without generating word-of-mouth publicity. Turning up the volume won’t help. Trying to outshout your competition won’t either.

Instead, you must build authentic relationships with your prospects and customers. This is the new marketing and anyone can do it.

Question: How can you better use authenticity, generosity, and story-telling to market your product or service? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

4 Insights I Gleaned from Building My Own Platform

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:00:46 +0000

Last week, I spoke at the Catalyst Conference in Irvine, California on the topic of my new book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Thomas Nelson, May 22). As part of my introduction, I shared how my audience has grown since I started blogging in April of 2004.

Note that these numbers reflect my average monthly unique visitors. I simply took the total number of unique visitors for the year and divided by twelve months (or in the case of 2004, eight months). With the exception of the first few years, this data came from my Google Analytics account.

I don’t share these numbers to impress you but to encourage you if you are working to build your own platform. Here are four insights I gleaned from taking a look at the big picture:

It took me four years to attract more than 1,000 readers a month. In fact, I blogged for almost three years before I had more than five hundred readers a month. If you are not seeing much growth in traffic, don’t get discouraged. Focus on generating consistent, quality content.
Suddenly, I hit an inflection point in my fifth year of blogging. I am not sure I can fully account for this, but I believe several factors contributed:
- I started blogging more consistently (three days a week).
- I focused more on my reader’s needs rather than my experiences.
- A few big web sites linked to me, including Lifehacker. This gave me exposure to a whole new audience.
- I found my blogging voice.
So many people quit right before they hit the inflection point. I hope you won’t. Getting your message out depends on you sticking with it.
I built a platform long before I needed it. As my audience grew, I was able to use it on behalf of my company to correct the media when they got the story wrong. I was even able to report on stories I felt the media had ignored.
I also used it to promote my own products and, eventually, to generate enough income I was able quit my day job to write and speak full-time.

Perhaps you have heard the old proverb about the best time to plant a tree. It’s also true about building a platform:

Question: When is the best time to build a platform?
Answer: Eight years ago.
Question: When is the second best time?
Answer: Today.
It wouldn’t have taken me so long if I knew then what I know now. I made a lot of mistakes. I didn’t understand much about generating traffic. Social media didn’t even exist at the time.
This is one of the main reasons I wrote my new book. I wanted to distill everything I have learned, so I could share it with people who need a platform but don’t have eight years to build it.

Whether you are an author, recording artist, comedian, small business owner, or corporate marketing director, this book is for you.

Again, I am sharing this detail about my traffic to encourage you. Everything significant starts small. I didn’t achieve success overnight and you probably won’t either. But the great news is that it is possible. In fact, it’s never been easier—especially if you get started now and learn from the mistakes of others.

Question: Where are you in the process of building you own platform? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How Podcasts Can Fuel Your Personal Growth

Michael Hyatt — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:00:36 +0000

As you may know if you are a regular reader of my blog, I started a weekly podcast on February 14th. It is called, "This Is Your Life.” Since that time, I have become a more regular podcast listener myself.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/4112642

As Mike Elgan, opinion columnist for ComputerWorld, said,

Podcasting is the most under-appreciated, under-utilized media ever. Some people never try it. And many who do wind up giving it up unimpressed. Too bad. A new study found that students who listen to lectures on podcasts test better than those who listen in class. Podcasting is a powerful educational medium, second only to books, in my opinion. But unlike reading books, you can listen to podcasts while doing the dishes.

Here are six reasons I enjoy listening to podcasts:

You can find shows for your specific interests. Compared to radio programs, podcasters have almost no overhead. As a result, they don’t have to appeal to a broad audience to recoup their investment. They can target small, narrow niches. All it takes is a someone with a passion and some expertise. As a result, there are podcasts for almost any topic imaginable.
You can listen whenever you want. Podcasts are truly an on-demand medium. Unlike radio, you don’t have to tune in when the show is broadcast. Instead, you can subscribe or download episodes and listen whenever it is convenient for you—whether on your morning run or on your daily commute.
You never have to miss a show. Similar to blogs and news sites, RSS technology makes it possible for you to subscribe to your favorite podcasts and be notified when a new episode is available. In fact, most podcast apps will automatically download these episodes as soon as they are published. If you get behind, no problem. You can listen at your own pace.
You feel connected to the podcaster. Dan Miller pointed this out to me when he was explaining why he loved podcasts. Media doesn’t get much more intimate than having someone else’s voice inside your head via earbuds. Because of this phenomenon, I feel like I really know the podcasters I listen to regularly. I have found myself even more connected than what I experience through following blogs.
You can listen while you are doing something else. This is also why I love listening to audio books. I am able to redeem those times when my mind is otherwise idle—while exercising, on a commute, stuck in traffic, waiting in line, working around the house, mowing the lawn, etc. As a result, I feel like I am constantly being exposed to helpful and even inspirational content.
You can easily share shows with friends and colleagues. If you listen to a great radio show, how do you share it? You can’t—unless, of course, the show also records a podcast. The content evaporates as soon as the show is over. With a podcast, you can share a link to the most recent episode or even shows buried deep in the archives.

The bottom line is that you have more control. You can listen to what you want, whenever you want, as many times as you want.

But what if you have never listened to a podcast? How do you get started? In the old days of podcasting—say a few years ago!—it was a hassle. You had to subscribe to a show in iTunes, download episodes to your computer, and then connect your device, and sync the two together.

Those days are over. Now you can subscribe and download shows directly onto your device, thanks to several inexpensive apps. Here’s how to get started:

Install a dedicated podcast app. I use Downcast on my iPhone. However, Pocket Casts and Instacast are also options. All three programs are excellent and sell for the exact same price: $1.99. You will be pleasantly surprised how easy these programs are to use.
Subscribe to a few shows. Use the programs search function to browse by category (e.g., “Business,” “Health“, or “Technology”) and see the most popular programs. Or search manually to find the more narrow, esoteric programs.
Here are ten podcasts I am currently subscribed to:
- 48 Days Podcast
- Ancient Faith Radio (a podcast network)
- In the Loop with Andy Andrews
- Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast
- Catalyst Podcast
- EntreLeadership Podcast
- Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
- Internet Marketing for Smart People (from Copyblogger)
- Podcast Answer Man
- Smart Passive Income Podcast
Find a regular place to listen. Just decide when and where you will listen to podcasts. I listen every morning when I am exercising. I no longer have a commute, but I also listen while running errands in the car.
Share your favorites with your friends. This is the easy part. Because I get so much valuable information from podcasts, it is natural for me to talk about them. Increasingly, I am finding myself talking to friends about the shows we are listening to.

If you haven’t tried podcasts, I suggest you give it a two-week trial. Experience the value first-hand. Perhaps this medium won’t work for you. But it might just open up a whole new world.

Question: What are some of your favorite podcasts? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

What I’ve Learned About Blogging from Writing More Than 1,000 Posts

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:00:01 +0000

I started blogging eight years ago. Since that time, I have written 1,115 posts. At an average of 750 words per post, that is 836,250 total words—the equivalent of about fourteen full-length books.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/EdStock

During that time, I have learned a great deal about blogging:

I’ve had times when I felt creative and the posts flowed—and times when I couldn’t string two sentences together.
I’ve had times when I loved writing and didn’t want to stop—and times when I hated writing and couldn’t start.
I’ve had times when I thought about starting a second or third blog—and times when I wanted to quit the one I have.

I think I have just about experienced it all.

But I keep going, one post at a time. Why? Because blogging has benefited me in seven specific ways:

Blogging has helped clarify my own thinking. This is the single biggest benefit of blogging to me. It’s why I started blogging to begin with. Sometimes I joke that I don’t really know what I think about a subject until I have blogged about it. Writing helps me untangle my thoughts.
Blogging has given me a way to build a platform. When I started, a platform involved having a radio or television show, a bestselling book, or a highly visible speaking career. It took money, fame, or both. It was mostly unavailable to the average person. Since that time, blogging has provided a way for almost anyone to gain visibility and build an audience.
Blogging has led to new opportunities. Probably half my friends today are people I met through my blog or social media. In addition, almost all my income today is derived either directly or indirectly from my blog—advertising, product sales, speaking, consulting etc. It has even provided the raw material for several books.
Blogging has provided a way to engage with my tribe. My commenting system enables my readers to respond to my posts and to engage with one another. This has gone to a whole new level with the addition of my Community Leaders. These comments provide near-instant feedback and sharpen my own thinking. They have made me a better, more thoughtful writer.
Blogging has resulted in a treasure trove of content. I am increasingly finding new ways to re-purpose the content in my blog archives. In the last year alone, I have used it to write two books (i.e., Creating Your Personal Life Plan and Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, buy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million or CBD), launch a new podcast (i.e., This Is Your Life), and record a new audio program (i.e., Everything You Need to Know to Get Published, forthcoming).
Blogging has established my authority and expertise. It used to be that you had to get a Ph.D. or write a book to establish your expertise in a subject area. While these are still valid paths, blogging provides a third alternative. For example, I do not have a degree in leadership nor have I written a book on that topic. Yet, I am constantly asked to speak on leadership and am interviewed by the media on this topic. Why? Because I have one of the most popular leadership blogs.
Blogging has provided a way to contribute to others. It is the way I share what I have been given. I love curating information and packaging it up so that it is more easily digested. When I hear or read something stimulating, I want to pass it along. For me, blogging is my art. It is a labor of love.

One of the best parts of blogging is that you can learn as you go. Not every post has to be perfect. You can publish and tweak your way to success. The important thing is to start. And, if you have started, keep going.

Questions: If you are a blogger, what have you learned? What are the primary benefits of blogging for you? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Social Media Is Free, But Comes with a Price

JasonStambaugh — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:00:27 +0000

I am mostly offline, attending a business conference. I have asked several bloggers to post in my absence. This is a guest post by Jason Stambaugh, who is a husband, father, founder of Wevival, and blogger. You can connect with him on his blog or follow him on Twitter. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

“The best thing about social media is that it’s free!” I heard this the other day, and cringed. While it’s true that we don’t need a credit card or PayPal account to use Facebook or Twitter, there is still a cost to social media. We pay daily with our time.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/hogie

On an average day, I spend more than an hour engaging on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. Throw in a Tweetchat, a newsletter, a YouTube video, and four blog posts each week, and I spend twenty hours a week, using social media to build my platform.

That’s a part-time job! Multiply seventy to eighty hours per month by any hourly rate, and we’re talking serious money.

It’s no surprise, then, that as business leaders we demand to see a return on our investment. For most of us, the benefits we see from our time spent creating great content, building community, and engaging with others is considered “intangible.”

In other words, there isn’t always a direct link between our time spent using social media and direct sales of our products and services.

I live in this tension and often wrestle with the quantity of time and intellectual capital I invest in my online platform. But then an interaction happens through social media that reminds me of these often overlooked benefits of social media engagement:

Accountability. With every tweet, post, and status update I put more and more skin in the game.
Every day that I choose to create great content, engage with others, and build my online community,I’m becoming more invested in my passions, dreams, and projects. It’s a daily reminder of where I’m going and why I wake up everyday and take my seat in front of the keyboard.

Furthermore, the community I’m building and am connected to holds me accountable to my mission and goals. When my projects hit a dead end or I lose my way, I remember that a community of my friends, peers, and colleagues are watching.
Thought Leadership. Regardless of our business or industry, it is our responsibility and obligation to stay up-to-date on trends, events and news. Social media makes this really easy.
Through social networks I’m able to track with the leading voices in marketing, social media, web technology and church leadership.

This not only helps me to meaningfully contribute to the conversation in my industry and areas of passion, it helps me run a better and more prosperous business. I’m enriched and challenged everyday with new ideas, information, and strategies.
Help. Whether it’s troubleshooting my latest parenting crisis or figuring out new and innovative ways to use Pinterest, the community I’ve built through social media is there and willing to help.
It’s hard to place a value on getting my child to sleep through the night, or finding new ways to serve my customers and solve my latest web development challenge.
Real-Life Connections.Through Twitter, I’ve been introduced to awesome people in my industry. Some of these relationships have made their way from virtual to real life connections.About once a week I’ll have a phone conversation, Skype chat, or meet with someone I’ve connected with on Twitter.
Short of bumping into them at a conference or cornering them after a presentation, I never would have met or had the chance to form a personal relationship with many of these people.
Opportunity. There is often a lot of guesswork involved in marketing new or existing products and services. Through social media, I’m able to track with industry leaders and see what they are doing to meet the needs of their customers.
With little effort, I can see what is working and what isn’t. I’m also able to identify new opportunities to serve my customers and come up with product offerings that are sure to scratch a serious itch in the market place.

These five overlooked benefits keep me writing, tweeting, and connecting. Social media has a price, but I’ve found time and time again that it is, indeed, worth it.

Question: What “intangible” benefits have you seen from engaging in social media? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How to Become a Twitter Ninja in Less Than 30 Minutes a Day

Michael Hyatt — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:00:42 +0000

Twitter is one of key tools in my platform toolbox. It represents about 21 percent of my blog referral traffic. In terms of the return, I don’t know of a better investment.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/by_nicholas

Currently, I have more than 110,000 followers on Twitter. According to TwitterCounter and RetweetRank:

I am adding 73 new followers per day.
I am re-tweeted 260 times per day.
My total daily reach is 418,908.

Yet, I spend less than thirty minutes a day on Twitter. I don’t know where else I could impact that many people with so little effort.

The key is using the right strategy and the right tools. Here’s what my daily routine looks like, Monday through Friday. (All times are CST.)

Post links to my current blog post. At 6:00 a.m. I tweet a link to my newest blog post, using Buffer’s “Post Now” function.

At the same time, I schedule another promotional tweet for 11:20 a.m. using HootSuite. These two actions take less than a minute.
Review and reply to overnight activity. As soon as I am done with the previous tasks, I scan my “streams” (i.e., columns) in HootSuite for messages, mentions, and interesting tweets that might have been posted overnight. I then reply or retweet as appropriate. This usually takes me five minutes, max.
Create tweets with links to interesting news and blog posts. Once I have completed the previous task, I begin reading the days news and blog posts. I refer to this as “content foraging.” I am looking for articles to share with my followers.
I scan more than two hundred news and blog feeds a day, using Google Reader. Note: I do not read two hundred feeds. I only scan, looking for headlines that catch my interest. If they do, I read the article or post.

If I think my followers will benefit from the content, I click the Buffer icon in Chrome (my browser). It automatically grabs the post title and creates a link to it using my custom URL shortener. I usually add a comment and then add it to my Buffer.

My goal is to find 10–12 articles I can share. Buffer is the foundation of my Twitter strategy. It assigns each tweet to the next available slot in my pre-determined Tweeting Schedule.

I only spend about thirty minutes reading like this. Creating the tweets probably takes ten minutes of this time, as I am doing it in real time as I come across a post I think my followers will enjoy.
Review and reply to daily activity. Throughout the day, as I have the opportunity, I will check my streams in HootSuite. I do this during breaks, so it doesn’t interrupt my workflow. (Recently, I heard these breaks referred to as the equivalent of the old smoking break. Remember those?)
HootSuite makes it easy to segment my attention. I have my streams arranged in HootSuite from left to right, with the streams I want to spend the most time on in the left-most column.

In other words, I look at my direct messages first, then my mentions and replies, then my family, my community leaders, friends, sources, etc.

This probably takes me another 15 minutes, depending on what else I have going on that day.

In addition, I bulk-schedule tweets to the most popular posts in my blog archive, using SocialOomph. I have ninety total tweets I use for this. I have set it up, so that the program posts one tweet per day at 6:00 p.m. (It also posts to my various Facebook fan pages.)

This may seem like a lot of activity. But again, using the right tools, I can do all this in about thirty minutes a day. I think the impact is well-worth the investment.

Questions: What is your Twitter strategy? What tools do you use? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

The Power of Video to Sell Your Products and Services

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:00:08 +0000

Today I was talking with a New York Times bestselling author. He was explaining to me how he had used video to drive his most recent book onto the best sellers list. “Nothing sells like video,” he explained.

If you can’t see this video in your RSS reader or email, then click here.

Many authors have done this in the past few years, including Brendon Burchard, Gary Vaynerchuck and Chris Brogan.

While I haven’t yet done this yet with a book, I have certainly seen the impact of video on building my email newsletter list and booking speaking engagements.

In less than nine months, I have gone from 2,500 email subscribers to almost 40,000. In addition, I have more than quadrupled the number of booking requests coming in for my speaking engagements. Video was a key component in both campaigns.

The good news is that video is cheaper to produce than ever. You can get professional quality video produced for a fraction of what it used to cost. And the results can be well-worth the investment.

When I started considering video, I went to Joel Smith, a friend whom I have known for many years. He operates a high-end, video production company in Nashville called Comprehensive Media.

I really just went to Joel for advice, thinking his price would likely be out of my range. He explained that he was launching a new brand called SimplyVideo for people like me—”when simple is all you need.”

I wasn’t looking for a slick product demo or a book trailer. Instead, I simply wanted to look into the camera and tell people why they needed a life plan (in the case of my email subscriber campaign) or show them some demos of me speaking.

Get this: As of yesterday, the life plan video has had 156,610 plays on Vimeo. My speaking demo (a much more limited audience) has had 17,400 plays. These have worked so well, that I can’t envision doing any product launch without video as a key component.

Here’s why I think video works, and why you should consider it for your products or services.

Video is more engaging than other forms of communication. It appeals to more of the senses.
Video provides an opportunity for you to build trust. You can communicate in a casual, conversational style.
Video gives you an opportunity to demonstrate the product—especially if that product is you!

This is why I have begun working on a video for my new book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World. I see it as a key component in the pre-launch campaign.

By the way, if you are interested in creating a video to promote your brand, product, or service, Joel has offered to extend to my readers a special 15% discount on SimplyVideo between now and February 15th. Just enter the coupon code TAYHO112 in the quote page.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth ten thousand. That’s why I intend to use even more of it this coming year.

Question: What has been your experience using video to build your brand or sell your products? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

10 Ways to Generate More Blog Traffic

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:00:50 +0000

Whenever I speak on the topic of platform-building, someone always asks, “How can I generate more traffic for my blog?” Most are hoping I have a silver bullet, something that will instantly get them the recognition they deserve.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/burwellphotography

The bad news is that it’s not quite that simple. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a platform. It takes doing several things right—and doing them over a long period of time.

The good news is that it’s not rocket science. I have used these basic techniques to increase my blog traffic every year since I started tracking it in 2008 using Google Analytics. Some years have been better than others, but all have shown an increase:

Year	Pageviews	Increase
2008	574,778	N/A
2009	1,496,241	160.3%
2010	1,972,497	31.8%
2011	5,060,331	156.5%

Based on my experience, I believe you can dramatically increase your blog traffic by following these ten suggestions. (Forgive me if I cover some of the basics.)

Write content worth sharing. Nothing I suggest in 2–10 below will compensate for weak content. If you are not writing stuff people want to read, smarter marketing will not fix the problem. Begin by creating a killer headline that makes people want to read what you have to say. Read Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich. It’s my secret sauce.
Adhere to a consistent schedule. You can’t expect to increase your traffic if you don’t blog regularly. By this, I mean at least once a week. Three times a week is even better. Five times a week is best—but not if the quality of your content suffers. Frequency equals visibility.
Get your own domain name. Make it easy on your readers to pass along your blog name. What do you think is easier, “yourname.wordpress.com” or “yourname.com”? This is the foundation of branding and making your blog memorable. If you can get your name or a short phrase, it is worth paying (within reason) to do so.
Include your blog address everywhere. In the beginning, you are adding readers, one at a time. You never know when someone with a bigger audience will quote you or link to you. Include your blog address in your email signature, on your business cards, and on your stationery. It should appear virtually everywhere your name appears.
Make it easy to subscribe to your blog. You don’t want to depend on your readers to remember to come back to your blog. Instead, you want them to subscribe, so they get every new post you write. They should be able to do so by either RSS or email. (Use both.) Position these two buttons prominently so that those who want to subscribe don’t have to hunt for them.
Optimize your posts for SEO. You want people to be able to find you when they Google one of your key words or your name. I use two WordPress plugins for this: All-in-One SEO Pack and ScribeSEO. The latter analyzes every blog post you write and suggests how you can optimize it for the search engines. It is not cheap but worth every penny.
Utilize social media. If you want to build visibility for your blog, you must go where the people are. In days gone by, people gathered in the marketplace at the center of the city. Today, they gather online in places like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. Which service is best? The one you will use regularly. Use social media to network, build relationships, and announce new blog posts.
Engage in the conversation. Start by making it easy for your readers to comment. People today want to participate. I recommend the Disqus commenting system. (It’s what I use.) Don’t make them register. This only adds friction. Engage in the conversation yourself, reading your comments and replying as appropriate.
Comment on other blogs. As you read other people’s blog posts, leave comments. I’m not taking about spamming people with invitations to read your blog. Instead, engage in the conversations that interest you and build credibility. Make sure that you register with their commenting system if possible, so there is always a link back to your blog.
Write guest posts for other bloggers. Frankly, this is not something I have done. But most successful bloggers swear by it. Jeff Goins wrote a guest post for me on this very subject. He claims that it grew his own blog traffic more in six months than in the last six years. (If you are interested in guest posting on my site, here are my guidelines.)

You will also want to use a good, SEO-optimized blog theme. There are hundreds on the market. I use StandardTheme for WordPress and love it.

Finally, be patient. Building traffic takes time. Like anything else, the ones who win are the ones who stay at it after everyone else has quit.

Question: What other suggestions do you have for generating more traffic? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

12 Ways to Get More Twitter Followers

Michael Hyatt — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:00:11 +0000

I rarely meet a Twitter user who doesn’t want more followers. A few argue that the numbers aren’t important. They are only concerned with “quality followers.” I’m not sure it is either/or, but I notice that most of the people making this argument have very few followers.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/matspersson0

Why would you want more followers? Three reasons:

More followers provide social authority. Like any other ranking system, the higher your follower count, the more people assume you are an expert—or at least someone interesting. It may not be valid, but it’s the way it works in a world where there is a ranked list for everything.

More followers extend your influence. Twitter is a great tool for spreading ideas. If you have ideas worth sharing, why wouldn’t you want to spread them to as many people as possible? Twitter makes it ridiculously easy. The larger your follower count, the faster your ideas spread.
More followers lead to more sales. You’re likely on Twitter for one of three reasons: to be entertained, to network with others, or to sell your stuff. Whether it’s a brand, a product, a service, or even a cause, more followers provide the opportunity to generate more leads and more conversions.

Before I share with you what I have learned about how to get more Twitter followers, let me tell you how not to do it.

Don’t try to cheat the system. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Unless you are a celebrity who has built a vast audience in some other media channel, attracting followers will take time and effort.

What about buying followers? (Yes, you can do this. Just Google it!) For starters, this is contrary to The Twitter Rules. Worse, these are followers who have no affinity for you. They are like sending direct mail to an un-targeted, generic list. Worthless.

What about using special software that promises to increase your follower count? In the early days of Twitter, I used one of these programs. It did increase my follower count—dramatically. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. However, it didn’t last.

These programs all rely on “aggressive following” and “follower churn” which means you follow people solely in the hope that they will follow you back. If they don’t, you dump them and follow additional people.

My joy was short-lived. Twitter caught on and implemented a policy against this. In fact, I know several people who had their Twitter account shut down for engaging in this behavior. It annoys other Twitter users and degrades the Twitter experience for everyone.

Instead of using these illegitimate ways to build your follower count, I want to share with you nine proven ways you can get more twitter followers.

With the exception of my brief experiment with aggressive following, this is how I have built my own follower count to more than 107,000 followers in the last three-and-a-half years.

Show your face. Make sure that you have uploaded a photo to your Twitter profile. I will not follow anyone without a photo. Why? Because the absence of a photo tells me they are either a spammer or a newbie. Use a good headshot, like I describe in my post, “9 Suggestions for Taking Better Headshots.”
Create an interesting bio. Don’t leave this blank. It is one of the first things potential followers review. Explain who you are and what you do. If you were a brand or a product (crass, I know), what would be your tagline? Include that in your bio. Also, be sure to include a city name. By the way, Twitter will not include you in search results unless you fill out your username, full name, and bio.
Use a custom About page. Your Twitter bio can only include 160 characters. It’s not much room to tell your story or introduce people to all you offer. Consider creating a custom About page on your blog and linking to it on Twitter. Then, when the prospective follower clicks on that link, they will find a page you have created just for them.
Make your Twitter presence visible. I can’t tell you how often I have read an interesting post and wanted to tweet the link, but couldn’t find the author’s Twitter username. So I gave up and moved on. Make it easy for people to follow you. Display links to your Twitter account in your email signature, your blog or website, business cards—everywhere.
Share valuable content. This is probably my most important piece of advice. Point people to helpful resources. Be generous. Be inspiring. Use lots of links. Create content that other people look forward to getting and want to pass on to their own followers. This is the key to getting retweeted. (I think it’s why, on average, I get mentioned in other people’s tweets 173 times a day.)
Post frequently, but don’t flood your followers. I do most of my blog reading early in the morning. I scan over 220 blogs, and love to share the gems I find. I used to do this as I found them, which often meant a flood of 8–10 posts at a time. Now, I use Buffer to spread these throughout the day, so I don’t overwhelm my followers.
Keep your posts short enough to retweet. Retweets are the only to get noticed by people who don’t follow you. Therefore, you must make it easy for your followers to retweet you. Keep your tweets short enough for people to add the RT symbol and your username (“RT @MichaelHyatt”). For me, that takes up 17 characters, including the space. That means my tweets can be no longer than 123 characters (140–17=123).
Reply to others publicly. I used to reply to people via DM, thinking my message was irrelevant to most of my followers. Because I wasn’t replying in public, this made me look unsociable. So now, I reply almost exclusively in public. The only people who see those messages are those who follow both me and the person I am replying to—a small subset of my followers. So, it’s sociable but not annoying.
Practice strategic following. This is not the same as “aggressive following” (which I condemned earlier). By this I mean, follow people in your industry, people who use certain keywords in their bio, or even people who follow the people you follow. Some of these will follow you back. If they retweet you, it will introduce you to their followers. For example, I could use Twitter’s Advanced Search Feature to find everyone within a 50-mile radius of Nashville who has used the word “leadership” in their bio or a post.
Be generous in linking and retweeting others. Twitter fosters a culture of sharing. The more you link to others, the more people will reciprocate. And that’s precisely what must happen for you to grow your follower count. You need others to introduce you to their followers. However, don’t ask for a retweet; simply post content worth retweeting.
Avoid too much promotion. Yes, you can promote your blog posts, products, etc. on Twitter but be careful. There’s an invisible line you must not cross. If you do, you look like a spammer—or just clueless. Not only will you not get additional followers, you will wear out your existing followers and many of them will unfollow you. This is why I advocate the 20-to-1 rule.
Don’t use an auto-responder. I used to use SocialOomph to thank everyone who followed me and provide a link to my “Beginner’s Guide to Twitter.” I thought I was being courteous and helpful. As it turns out, I was being annoying. This is just more clutter in people’s Twitter inbox. Avoid it.

Finally, don’t worry too much about the numbers. If you follow the advice I have given above, the numbers will take care of themselves. Like most things in life, slow and steady wins the race. Don’t underestimate the power of incremental growth over time. I didn’t build my following overnight and neither will you.

Question: What are the best ways you have found to get more Twitter followers? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Wanted: Community Leaders to Help Manage My Blog

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:00:44 +0000

The volume of my blog comments has increased dramatically in the past year. I am so grateful for the robust community that has developed here. People often tell me that they find the comments as helpful as the posts. I agree.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/Photomorphic

As a result, I read every comment and respond to as many as I can. However, this is currently taking me about ten hours a week.

I have come to the conclusion that I just can’t continue. As they say in the business world, “it doesn’t scale.” At the rate my traffic is growing, I will be spending twenty hours a week on comments nine months from now.

I need to find another solution, so that I can focus on what I do best: write and speak. In 2012, I intend to produce four audio programs and write a new book. I can’t do that with my current workload.

What Should I Do?

As I have thought about this over the last few weeks, I see three alternatives:

Disable commenting. The problem with this is that it reduces my blog to a broadcast medium—a monologue. Instead, I want to encourage conversation. The content in the comments provides a rich source of additional content.
Stop moderating comments. The problem with this is that the conversation can quickly degenerate into ugly rants and personal attacks. It’s like what happens when someone abandons a building. It soon falls prey to vandalism and graffiti.
Recruit additional moderators. This seems like the most viable alternative. However, I have been stuck thinking I needed to hire someone. I felt like I would lose something in the process.

So what to do?

Why Not Get Out of the Way?

Last week, I was having lunch with my manager, Brian Scheer, and a new friend, Andy Traub. We were brainstorming about some of the audio programs we wanted to create next year.

I became really excited but quickly realized that I would have a difficult time pulling it off unless I could find the margin in my schedule to do so. I then explained the dilemma with my blog comments and how much time they were requiring.

Andy said, “You need to get out of your community’s way and let them do it. By thinking that you need to do it yourself, you are keeping other people from jumping in and helping.”

As soon as he said it, I knew he was right.

So here’s what I am going to do. I want to recruit five Community Leaders to oversee my blog comments. These leaders will take responsibility for answering my reader’s questions, making sure that conversations are civil, and flagging the comments that I need to address personally.

Please note: This does not mean that I will be inactive in the comments. I won’t disappear entirely. It just means that I will be much less involved than I was before. This will free me up to focus on creating the best content I can produce—for you. I think it will also result in even more conversation in the comments.

Would you be interested in becoming a Community Leader here at MichaelHyatt.com?

What’s in It for You?

While this is not a paid position, there are four benefits in becoming a Community Leader:

Contribution. You will be helping real people with real problems. You may be doing this here already, but this will make it official.
Recognition. I will create a new Community page with a photo and brief bio on each of the Community Leaders. I will also post a new set of Community Guidelines.
Freebies. I will send you a free copy of every new product I create this next year. In addition, I will give you free admission to my public speaking engagements (subject to availability).
Access. You will have access to my private email address. I will also follow you on Twitter, so that we can DM one another there.

Who Qualifies?

Community Leaders should meet the following four requirements:

You need to have a servant’s heart. I really believe in giving back to the community. I want to serve my readers by providing appropriate resources and adding value to their lives.
You need to be familiar with my content. You don’t have to remember every post. But you need to be familiar with my basic philosophy and approach to life and leadership.
You need to be willing to invest the time. Scanning and responding to comments will take 30–45 minutes of your time daily. Some days it will take more; some less. I expect you to reply personally to 10–12 comments a day.
You need to be able to resolve conflict. You can’t be ruffled by the occasional snarky comment. You have to rise above the heat of the battle and respond in a thoughtful way without over-reacting.

What Do You Need to Do Next?

If you are interested in applying to become a Community Leader, please send an email to my assistant, Tricia. Tell her in 100 words or less why you want to do this and why you qualify. We want to make our selection before the end of the week, so we can have our new system in place by the first of the year.

Question: What do you think about this idea of using Community Leaders? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Social Media Tools That Will Save You Time

Michael Hyatt — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:00:23 +0000

If you are serious about building a platform, you must be actively engaged in social media. Whether it is Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+—or all four—you need to develop a tribe of loyal followers and super fans who want to hear what you have to say.

But who has the time? Social media can become a full-time job if you are not careful! And this leaves little time for doing your real job, whether it is writing, composing, programming, or doing something else.

However, if you take advantage of the latest social media software tools, you can leverage your time. With a small investment, you can produce big results. This is how I have built my platform.

Here are the three primary social media tasks and the software tools I am using to manage them:

Creating. I use Buffer to create most of my social media content. This is the most used tool in my toolbox. I use it for both Twitter and Facebook.
The basic idea is that you add posts to Buffer and it spreads them throughout the day, posting them at times you have predetermined. This ensures that you are posting on a regular basis without overwhelming your followers.

I do most of my reading in the morning. I scan 200+ blogs, using Google Reader. When I find something I think my followers would find helpful, I share it on Twitter and occasionally Facebook. The only problem is that this pattern can create a flood of posts. It quickly becomes annoying to my followers.

Now, when I find something I want to share, I simply click the Buffer icon in my browser. (Buffer offers browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, and FireFox. It even works with Google Reader.) I then compose my post, select which accounts I want to share it on, and then add it to my queue. Buffer then schedules these posts throughout the day.

The cool thing is that you can set up your own schedules. For example, I have determined that I will tweet thirteen times a day. But I want to update my status on Facebook only twice a day. When I add a post, Buffer put it in the next available slot. I can always rearrange these later, moving posts around in an easy-to-use, intuitive interface.

I still use HootSuite for direct messages, replies, and ad hoc posts, but I compose 80 percent or so of my tweets in Buffer.
Monitoring. I use HootSuite to monitor my social media accounts. This is my social media dashboard. It allows me to manage all my social media accounts: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The biggest benefit of this software for me is that I can segregate my followers into “streams” (or columns) and follow different groups of people.
For example, with my Twitter account, I have the following streams:
- Direct messages
- Mentions (or replies)
- Family
- Friends
- Sources
- Publishing
Because I am interested in some streams more than others, I can focus my attention on those columns. For example, I check my Family stream several times a day but my Sources stream only once.

You can also create streams out of search terms. I often do this when I am participating in a conference. I simply search for the “hashtag” and create a stream from the results. The stream is updated in real time as new tweets are added.

You can manage individual Twitter followers as well. You can follow, unfollow, direct message, reply, or add a follower to a Twitter list. You can also report spammers with one click.

You can also use HootSuite to schedule tweets. This comes in handy for posting messages while you are traveling or in a meeting—or just so you won’t forget.

You can also invite your teammates to co-manage accounts with you. You can have several people monitoring one account and responding to comments and feedback. This is particularly helpful for organizations and larger brands.

You can add multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts and pages (I have five). HootSuite is adding more all the time. The only glaring omission is Google+ but that should be coming soon.
Analyzing. I use a variety of tools to analyze my social media performance. Both Buffer and HootSuite offer built-in analytical tools. However, I am only using Buffer at the moment. It tells me exactly how many clicks and retweets each tweet generated.
In addition, I use these two tools:
- TweetCounter. I use this to monitor the growth in my Twitter follower count.
- Tweet Grader. I use this to analyze my Twitter effectiveness.

As social media have become mainstream, the tools have continued to improve. Don’t think that what you are using today will be state-of-the-art a year from now—or even three months from now. Keep an open mind and continue to experiment. If you are using the right tools, you can build your platform and still find the time to create great content.

Question: What software tools are you using to manage your social media accounts? What do you like about your tools? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How to Get a Ton of New Subscribers to Your Blog

Michael Hyatt — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:00:55 +0000

The goal of marketing is to attract more customers. Businesses make an enormous investment to get people in the doors the first time. But what happens after that?

If the customer walks out the door, never to return, the investment is wasted. “Blood on the ground,” as they say. Instead, marketers want the customer to come back—and, hopefully, bring a few friends.

The same is true in the world of blogging. I have never yet met a blogger who didn’t want more traffic. Writers write to be read!

If that’s true for you, then you need to stop focusing on growing your traffic. Instead, you need to concentrate on growing your subscriber list.

Why? Because this list represents your hard-core followers—the ones who are more likely to recruit other readers. This means you don’t have to do it on your own. It is the difference between addition and multiplication.

At the beginning of this year, I realized that I had been guilty of this myself. I was trying to grow my traffic, but wasn’t paying attention to growing my list. I made the RSS button prominent and thought that was enough.

But after reading the advice of several professional bloggers, I realized that I needed to focus on building an email subscription list. From the bloggers perspective, an email list provides bloggers with several advantages over RSS subscriptions:

It is more personal. With email, you know who your subscribers are. It also moves the conversation from the impersonal world of RSS readers to the more personal environment of your reader’s inbox.
It provides more control. If Google has a glitch and deletes all my RSS subscribers, they are gone. There’s no way to get them back. With my email list management program, I can backup my subscribers on a regular basis.
It enables two-way communication. I use my real address when I send out my email newsletter. This enables people to reply and give me their feedback. That email comes straight to me and allows me to respond if necessary.
It enables you to track your effectiveness. With RSS, I know how many people subscribe, but I don’t know much beyond this. With my email list software, I have access to numerous reports. For example, I know how many actually opened the email, clicked on the links, unsubscribed, etc.
It gives you the opportunity to promote products. I haven’t done this yet, but I will, especially with my new book coming out in May. With RSS, I have to write a blog post to communicate with my subscribers. With email, I can send out a communique any time I want.
It provides an easy way to share your content. I have a lot of readers who share my posts on Facebook and Twitter. For that, I am grateful. But I still have thousands of readers who don’t use social media. With email, they can simply forward it to their friends.

Okay, so how do you actually build your email subscriber list? Let me tell you what I did.

Last March, I had just 2,771 email subscribers. That may sound like a lot—I don’t know. It probably depends on where you are. I didn’t think it was very impressive, given the fact that I was getting about 150,000 unique visitors a month. I didn’t seem to be converting many readers into subscribers.

However, in the last nine months, I have grown my list to 30,855 email subscribers (as of this writing). In the same period of time, I have doubled my blog’s traffic, reaching more than 310,000 unique visitors a month.

Here are the seven strategies I used to grow my email subscriber list:

Generate content worth reading. I know this is basic, but I can’t emphasize it enough. No one will subscribe to something they don’t want to read. You have to write quality content—and leave them wanting more.
Use a dedicated list subscription system. You can use Google’s free Feedburner service. In fact, I do use that for RSS. But it doesn’t provide the same level of control you get with paid services like MailChimp or AWeber, I personally use MailChimp. It’s pricey, but I love the control.
Make your signup form highly visible. At the very least, it should be “above the fold,” preferably in the right-hand sidebar. Take a look at how the signup form is positioned on the CopyBlogger or ProBlogger sites. I choose to make mine a pop-up at the bottom of the page. I had my web developer write the code.
Offer an incentive for subscribing. This was huge for me. I wrote an ebook called Creating Your Personal Life Plan and offered it free to anyone who would signup. If you want to consider doing something similar, I posted about the process previously. You could start with a series of posts you have written. Just format it as an e-Book.
Design a branded email template. I hired a developer to design an email template in MailChimp. I wanted the “branding” to match my blog. I also wanted built-in social media buttons, so people could share my posts with their friends and followers. I wanted my subscribers to feel they were getting a high-quality product.
Follow-up with your subscribers. I use MailChimp’s auto-responder feature to send out a welcome message after they confirm their subscription. I thank them for subscribing and tell them what to expect. After three weeks, I send out another message, again thanking them and inviting them to share my posts with their friends. By this time, I am hoping they have found value in what I write.
Remind your readers to signup. My pop-up disappears after the first three times a reader visits. (I think it gets annoying after this.) As a result, I inserted a sign-up form at the bottom of each post. This serves as a reminder, once they have finished reading the post. It may take some people several posts before they get comfortable subscribing.

Your tactics may vary, depending on where you are as a blogger. Still, I think the principles I employed are applicable at every level. With a little focused effort—and perhaps a modest investment of time and money—you can dramatically increase the number of people who subscribe to your blog.

While you are at it, go ahead and subscribe to my blog and see how the pieces all fit together.

Question: What can you apply from this to your blog? What do you need to do next? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 10:00:47 +0000

I originally wrote this post in May 2008. I have learned a lot since then. Twitter has also changed since then. I have updated this post to reflect both.

This post is a 20-minute guide to Twitter for non-techies. If you don’t know what Twitter is, start with my first post on the topic, Twitter-dee, Twitter-dum. If you still aren’t convinced it’s worth your time, then read my 12 Reasons to Start Twittering.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/ymgerman

Over the last few years, I have helped several friends and a few family members get setup on Twitter. I found myself explaining the basics over and over again, so I decided to write a simple, step-by-step guide.

If you are new to Twitter, this will get you up and running fast. If you know someone who needs a little help or motivation getting started, send them a link to this post.

Just follow these eight steps.

Set up your account. Go to Twitter to get started. Enter your name, email, and a password. Click Sign up.
You will now be taken to a second screen where can select a username. This is the name by which you will be known on Twitter. What name should you use?

Your real name is best—if it’s available. If not, you can try using a middle initial or prefacing it with something like “the” or “real” (e.g., “TheFrankDavis” or “Real FrankDavis”).

Also, I recommend using initial caps and in-word caps. It will make your username more readable and memorable. For example: I use “MichaelHyatt” rather than simply “michaelhyatt.”

Now click on the Create my account button. That’s it. You are now official a member of the Twitter community. Congratulations!

Next, Twitter will assist you in getting started. It will explain what a tweet is and give you the opportunity to “follow” a few friends, popular people, or brands. You can opt out of these steps for now if you wish. Simply click the Skip this step link.

Twitter will also give you a chance to see if some of your friends are on Twitter by checking your online address book. However, your contacts will have to be in one of the supported services: GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL. Also, you’ll only see users who have allowed their accounts to be found by email address.

This wasn’t that helpful to me when I initially started, since my contacts resided in Microsoft Outlook. However, I had a GMail account, so I just exported my contacts from Outlook and then imported them into Gmail. It worked flawlessly. However, if you get stuck, forget this step. You can add your friends later.
Tweak your settings. Make sure you are on your Twitter home page. Click on the Settings link. You should be on the Account tab. Set the time zone.
Do not check “Protect my updates” unless you only want those whom you approve to be able to get your updates. Personally, if you check this, it will seriously limit the fun. Make whatever other changes you want. Click the Save button.

Now click on the Profile tab. Upload your picture. This is important. Many Twitter users (including me) will not follow users without photos, because it is a tell-tale sign of a spammer. Remember that the maximum upload size of your photo is 700k, so you may have to re-size your image to meet this requirement.

Enter the rest of your information, including your location, website or blog (if any), and a brief bio. This, too, is important to keep you from getting flagged as a possible spammer. Your bio can either be serious or fun, but it must be brief—no more than 160 characters.

Note that you can also connect your Twitter account to Facebook on this page. This will post all your Tweets directly to Facebook. Personally, I don’t recommend this, but you may want to do it. You can always change the setting later.

When you are finished, click the Save button.
Setup your phone. Twitter is much more fun if you connect it to your cell phone. By doing so, you can receive updates from those you are following (or just some of them) as well as send your own updates. It’s all done through text messaging (e.g., SMS).
However, be forewarned: While Twitter doesn’t charge anything for this service, your phone carrier might. It’s a good idea to check with them and make sure you are on an “unlimited text messaging plan.” You don’t want to be surprised with a big phone bill.

Again, under the Settings link, click on the Mobile tab. Enter your mobile phone number and click on the Start button. Now take your cell phone and text message the code Twitter gives you to 40404 (the number will be different if you are outside the U.S.). Be patient. Eventually, Twitter will confirm to you that your device is registered.

If you are using an iPhone, Twitter is built into the operating system (at least if you are using iOS 5 and up). You can set it up by opening the Preferences app, scrolling down the screen, and touching the Twitter section. This will give you the ability to post updates to Twitter from within many iPhone applications, including the Photo app.

Now, while still on your cell phone, set up a contact named “Twitter.” For the mobile phone number, use 40404. Now every time you want to send a Twitter update, you will send it to this contact name.
Follow family and friends. If you haven’t done so already, add your family and friends by clicking in the “Search” field at the top of your home page. You can type in a username or first and last name. When you do, you will get a list of users who match your search criteria.
You can also do a more advanced search (e.g., searching by location) by clicking on “Refine results” or by going directly to the Advanced Search page.

You can begin “following” them by simply clicking on the Follow button. If you want to also follow them on your cell phone, then you can turn the “Device Updates” to “on.” Personally, I only follow my family and a few close friends on my cell phone. Regardless, you will be able to see everyone you follow on your Twitter home page.
Learn the basic commands. Think of Twitter as a room full of people, all sitting in a circle. It’s a conversation. When you update your status, you are speaking to the whole group. Everyone can hear what you have to say.
- Replies. If you want to direct your comments to one specific person in the circle, but loud enough that everyone else can hear, use the “Reply” function. You address the person by using their Twitter user name preceded by the “@” symbol. For example:
  
  @spencesmith I get my haircut at Dion’s South in downtown Franklin.
  
  Everyone who is following Spence and me will see the message, but I am specifically directing it to Spence. (Those who are not following both of us will not see the message.)
  
  You can also use the Reply function to refer to someone by name. For example:
  
  I’m headed to dinner at Tin Angel with @gailhyatt and @meghmiller. I am looking forward to trying the new menu.
  
  The thing about replies is that they are “clickable links.” If someone who is following me, clicks on one of the names, they will automatically go to that person’s Twitter page. This will give them the opportunity to follow that person, too.
- Direct Messages. Continuing with the metaphor of a conversation with a room full of people, you can also use the “direct message” function. This is like whispering in one person’s ear. They can hear you, but no one else can. You are directing the message to them and only them. For example:
  d lnobles Can you bring my Business Review notebook down to the cafeteria conference room?
  
  Or:
  
  d gailhyatt It looks like I will not be able to leave the office for another 30 minutes. Bummer.
  
  Twitter direct messages have largely replaced simple text messaging for me and many people I know.
- Hash tags. You are probably familiar with tagging photos with a short piece of text. Twitter has this capability, too.
  The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. If you click on a hash tag, it will show you all the other tweets associated with a hashtag.
  
  I have attended many conferences where an official hashtag was announced. This enables everyone at the conference to track what everyone is saying about the conference.
  
  For example, someone might say:
  
  Man, I loved @AndyStanley’s opening talk. He never ceases to speak to me. #cat2011
  
  #Cat2011 was the hashtag for the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta in the fall of 2011.
- Other Commands. You can add people you want to follow from your cell phone. Just type in “follow [username].” For example:
  Follow kendavislive
  
  You can check your stats–the number of people you are following plus the number of people following you–from your cell phone by typing “stats” without any additional text.
  
  To stop all Twitter updates to your phone, send:
  
  off
  
  To turn them back on send:
  
  on
  
  You can find answers to almost every other Twitter question in the Twitter Help Center.
Start twittering. So now you are all setup. It’s time to start Twittering. You can do this from your Twitter home page or from your cell phone.
The main thing you need to know is that the message can be no longer than 140 characters long. If you use the Web page, the entry field will automatically count your characters. After a while, you’ll instinctively know how long this is. I rarely go over the limit. But if you do, it’s no big deal. Your message will just be truncated.

How often should you Twitter? That’s the 30-character question. My daughter @meghmiller says, “Don’t Twitter more than six times a day.” Personally, I think 10–12 is the upper limit. Obviously, there’s a balance here. Some of the people I follow, post way more updates than that.

The real issue is whether or not you are adding something of value. There’s an old Jerry Seinfeld comedy routine called “Air Travel.” In it, he talks about airline pilots who insist on telling us all about the route they are taking. (Like anyone cares.)

He says, as passengers, we don’t knock on the cockpit door and say, “Oh, by the way, I’m eating the peanuts now.” (Obviously this was pre-911.) So why do pilots feel the need to update us? All we care about is getting to the destination.

In like manner, no one probably wants to hear the blow-by-blow of your life. However, some color commentary is good. However, this is definitely art not science, so there are no hard, fast rules.

Regardless, you should consider every Twitter update as a branding impression. You are developing a reputation with your online friends, so make sure you are adding something to the conversation.

This is really no different than a face-to-face conversation. You want to say something that is interesting, helpful, or just plain entertaining. I don’t think you should over-think it, but I don’t think you should just text the first thing that pops in your mind.
Be careful. You definitely need to be cautious. It’s probably not a good idea to say something like, “I’m headed to the west coast for a week. My poor, beautiful wife is going to be home all alone.” Bad idea. For obvious reasons.
You need to think about the fact that crazy people and criminals have Twitter accounts, too. You especially need to be cautious about sharing too much private information that could compromise your safety or that of your loved ones.

I have also had some experience with stalkers, so you may only want to Twitter after you have gone somewhere, not before. Otherwise, you might find people showing up to watch you. (Don’t laugh. It has happened to me on several occasions.)
Consider third-party apps. An entire eco-system has sprung up around Twitter. Here are some of my favorite applications:
- HootSuite. This is the application I use to manage Twitter on my desktop. It will even manage Facebook profiles and pages, LinkedIn, and several other social media services. It is great because it allows you to segment people by groups (or columns). I have groups for my family, close friends, colleagues, etc. It is available for both desktop systems and mobile devices.
- BufferApp. I use this application to post my tweets, so I don’t flood my followers with a string of posts. Instead, I put them in Buffer, and it spreads my tweets throughout the day. It gives you tremendous control. You can determine how often and at what times you tweet. It comes with extensions for the most popular browsers, so you can buffer a tweet directly from a web page. It also allows you to buffer Facebook status updates.
- SocialOomph. I use this application to bulk-schedule a whole series of tweets. For example, I have identified my 90 most popular blog posts. I have written a tweet promoting each one. Via SocialOomph, I schedule one tweet per day at a specific time. I upload the text file to SocialOomph and forget about it. Everything is on auto-pilot. It will also post to Facebook.
It is easy to get overwhelmed with all the third-party Twitter apps. Don’t. Start with HootSuite and then grow from there as you have the time and interest.

Twitter is one of those apps that is best learned by using it. The most important thing you can do is get started. You really can’t make that many mistakes. Just remember to have fun and enjoy the people you meet online.

Questions: What questions do you have about Twitter? What else would you recommend to Twitter beginners? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

13 Blog Post Ideas for Novelists

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:00:52 +0000

In case you are new here, I am a big advocate of blogging. I don’t know of a better way to build a platform than starting with a blog as your “homebase” and building from there. This is especially true for authors.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/JamesBrey

Occasionally, when I speak on the topic of social media, I get push-back from novelists. “Yes, a blog maybe great for non-fiction authors, but what about novelists? What can we write about?”

Good question. Here are thirteen post ideas to get you started—a baker’s dozen:

Excerpts from Your Novel. This is probably the easiest. It has the added advantage of allowing us, your potential readers, to “sample the brew.” Just write a paragraph to set up the excerpt. Oh, and be sure to link to your book, so we can buy it (duh).
Backstory of Your Novel. Tell us why you wrote your novel. How did you settle on this story? How did you come up with the main characters? Why did you chose the setting you did? What research did you have to do before you could start writing?
A Behind-the-Scenes Look. Give us a sense of what it is like to be a novelist. How did you feel when you finally landed an agent? What does a typical writing day look like for you? What’s it like to see your book in print and hold a copy in your hand for the first time?
“Directors” Notes. This is the kind of thing you occasionally see with extended versions of movies. Explain why you chose to start with a particular scene. Talk about the scenes you had to delete—or those you had to add to improve the story. Don’t underestimate the curiosity of your readers.
Interview with Yourself. Authors often complain that professional reviewers haven’t read their book or don’t “get it.” Fine. Who knows your novel better than you? No one. So interview yourself. Have fun with it. What questions do you wish you would be asked?
Interviews with Your Characters. Imagine your novel was a movie and you could interview the actors who played the main characters. What would you ask them? What would they say? Another idea: if your novel was made into a movie and you could select the cast, what famous actors would you have play the main roles?
Interview with Other Novelists. Find other novelists in your genre and interview them. In fact, build a circle of novelists who are similar to you and grow your tribe together. Interview one another. Perhaps even do book giveaways.
Interview with Your Editor. Publishing still has a mystique about it and people want a peek behind the curtain. I find that my readers love this. Ask your editor what it’s like to work with novelists. (If you’re brave, ask what it was like to work with you.) Get him or her to tell stories about working with the best and the worst!
Interview with Marketers. This is another variation on the last idea. Talk to the marketing people. What’s it like to market fiction? How is it different than non-fiction? How is it like marketing a movie? What makes it fun? What makes it challenging?
Advice for Other Writers. What tips and hacks do you have to offer other aspiring novelists? What advice do you have on coming up with the right story, securing an agent, meeting a deadline, or reviewing a marketing plan? Just answer the question, “What do I wish I had known then that I know now.”
Common Obstacles. What are the challenges you face as a writer? What was it like to be rejected (as you undoubtedly were)? What kept you going when you wanted to quit? How do you deal with “writer’s block” or getting a negative review? Being honest and transparent humanizes you and strengthens the bond with your readers.
Emotional Challenges. These could be an extension of the last idea, but focus on emotions. Certainly the writing experience brings out the best and the worst in us. Do you ever feel inadequate? Stuck? Overwhelmed? Disappointed? How do you deal with these emotions as a writer? How do you keep them from derailing you?
Lessons Learned. If you have written a novel, you have done what millions aspire to but few ever accomplish. What have you learned along the way—about writing, about publishing, about marketing—about yourself. Tell us so we don’t have to learn the hard way.

I’m sure I am just scratching the surface. The key is to make it creative and fun.

If you have other ideas, I’d love to hear from you. In fact, I’d love to collect fifty solid ideas, as a way of helping out novelists who are working hard to build their platform.

Question: What blog post ideas do you have for novelists? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How to Monetize Your Blog without Selling Your Soul

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:00:56 +0000

I didn’t start blogging to make money from it. The thought never occurred to me. When someone suggested I start accepting advertising, I resisted. I thought some how it would compromise my integrity.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/JoKMedia

Then I realized that all professional creatives charge for their work. In fact, this is what separates the professionals from the amateurs. For example:

Authors receive royalties.
Musicians sell tickets.
Artists sell paintings.
Speakers are paid fees.

If you want to blog as a hobby, fine. But art and money aren’t enemies. In fact, in most cases the former isn’t possible without the latter.

You really can monetize your art without selling your soul. I make several thousand dollars a month using a combination of these three methods:

Sell advertising. You can start small with any number of WordPress plugins (one major reason to use self-hosted WordPress). I started with WP125 and started selling small 125 x 125 pixel ads. It generated enough income to cover my hosting costs and a little “fun money.”
As I developed momentum, I created a full-blown Advertising Kit for potential advertisers. I used Google Analytics to gather the key metrics and then conducted a Reader Survey to collect demographic and psychographic information.

When my traffic got to about 40,000 pageviews a month, I applied to the Beacon Ad Network. It is an online service that manages your ad sales. You can charge whatever you want per ad, but they take a 30% commission. They specialize in the Christian marketplace. Their sister-company, BuySellAds.com, handles the general market.

By the way, I have never used Google AdSense. I just hate the way it looks. However, it may have changed since I last evaluated it. If you are interested, John Saddington at TentBlogger.com has a terrific set of posts about AdSense.
Promote affiliates. Here again, I started small. I signed up as an Amazon Associate and started using my affiliate code in my links to books and other products. (I disclose this at the bottom of each post.) I now consistently make $600–700 a month from these links.
Later, I graduated to other products. For example, I promote Brett Kelly’s Evernote Essentials: Second Edition whenever I write about Evernote. I do this with complete integrity, believing it is the single best place to start if you want to get up and running quickly.

I am also an affiliate for various other products like: StandardTheme, Nozbe, and ScribeSEO. The key is to find products you actually use and you believe will be beneficial to your readers. My own rule is that if I don’t use it, I don’t promote it.

If there is a product you are crazy about—especially an information product—it is worth checking to see if the publisher or manufacturer has an affiliate program available. You might also check Amazon. They sell way more than books.
Sell products. A few years ago, I wrote an ebook called Writing a Winning Non-Fiction Book Proposal. I decided to turn it into a PDF file and sell it on my blog. (Here’s how you can Create an eBook in Seven Steps.) It has sold consistently, month after month. In fact, I have yet to see a sales decline.
Last year, I decided to write a fiction edition called Writing a Winning Fiction Book Proposal. It only sells about 50% of what the non-fiction one does, but it was still well-worth the effort. I also sell both books as a bundle.

The best thing about selling products like these—especially digital ones—is that they work while you sleep. The whole system is turn-key. Customers buy the books, the system provides a download link, and then deposits the money in your PayPal account.

Ultimately, I believe most of my revenue will come from product sales. I have several more ebooks in the works, based primarily on blog series I have written.

These methods are just the direct methods you can use to monetize your blog. You can also use your blog to generate leads for speaking, coaching, or consulting services—something I also do.

They key to monetizing your art without selling your soul is to offer ads, products, and services that are congruent with your brand and will add value to your readers.

Question: What do you need to do next to monetize your blog—or take it to the next level? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

4 Reasons It’s Easier Than Ever to Be an Author

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 09:00:21 +0000

Early in my career, everyone else seemed to be control. I interviewed for a job, then waited for the hiring manager to offer me the position. I worked hard, then waited for my boss to give me a raise. I achieved bottom-line results, then waited for the vice president to approve my promotion.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/[photographer]

When I started writing, it also seemed like everyone else was in control. I prepared a book proposal, then waited for a publisher to offer me a contract. I wrote the manuscript, then waited for booksellers to order the book. I published the book, the waited for the media to book me.

We spent a lot of time waiting. And then waiting some more. And, if we didn’t get picked, it wasn’t our fault (or so we thought).

But something extraordinary has happened in the last decade—even more so in the last three years.

The power has shifted.

As an aspiring author, you no longer have to wait on someone else to pick you. (Re-read that sentence again. Let it settle into your heart.)

You can pick yourself and get started today. The tools are available like never before. You can get published. You can build your own platform.

It’s easier than ever before.

It is easier to get into print. Today you have options. Lots of them. For example, you can take the path of traditional publishing if that suits you. (That’s exactly what I am doing with my new book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World.)
But you can also engage in assisted self-publishing or just do the whole thing yourself. It is simply a matter of your goals and resources.
It is easier to build a tribe. You can build a direct relationship with people who share your passion. You no longer have to go through an intermediary, though you can still do that if you wish.
Through the use of a blog, a YouTube channel, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, you can reach thousands of people—perhaps tens of thousands of people—who want to hear from you and engage with you.
It is easier to succeed. In the old days of publishing, publishers and authors had no real way to do market research—at least not at the level of individual books. Instead, they made the best decisions they could and then published the book. It was always a grand experiment. The outcome was uncertain.
Today, we can solicit input from our tribe in advance of publication. We can test the content via our blogs and even get input on jacket design as I did last week. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it harnesses the wisdom of crowds to increase the odds.
It is easier to build a business. Your book doesn’t have to be your one-shot at success. It can be the front-end of an entire enterprise. In fact, I view non-fiction books as the very top of the sales funnel. They are a way to introduce a large audience to what you offer.
You can then go on to monetize the same content through live presentations, coaching, consulting, paid forums, on-line audio and video packages, and a variety of product line extensions. Even novelists can build a business around their books if they get creative.

Note: I am not saying any of this is easy. It’s not. It will require extraordinary focus and discipline, long hours spent perfecting your craft, and above all else, perseverance in building your platform.

But while it is not easy, it is easier. Building your own platform is, perhaps for the first time in history, possible for anyone willing to make the commitment.

Note: this post was inspired by Seth Godin’s short, inspiring book, Poke the Box. I highly recommend it.

Question: So, what are you waiting for? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Why You Need to Be Building Your Platform Now

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:00:26 +0000

This is a guest post by Carrie Wilkerson. She is the author of the newly published book, The Barefoot Executive: The Ultimate Guide for Being Your Own Boss and Achieving Financial Freedom (Thomas Nelson). You can read her blog and follow her on Twitter. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” This philosophical question doesn’t seem to have an answer. I mean, there is only a sound if someone is there to perceive the sound waves, right?

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/ZargonDesign

Your message, your story, your speech, and your book are much the same way. The sound they make is—dare I say it—irrelevant, if there is no one there to watch you, hear you, or read you.

Too often, as speakers, teachers, and writers, we get wrapped up in “the thing.” We spend so much time reading, editing, practicing, and perfecting for our “someday” audience that we lose sight of the fact that we don’t have an audience … yet.

Call it a platform, a database, or a following on social media, you must have someone listening in order to make an impact of any kind.

Unlike the fictional account in the famous Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams, just because we build it, doesn’t mean they will come. We will not draw crowds of raving fans or hordes of like-minded believers simply because we take the microphone or the pen in hand—no matter how great we believe our message is or our skills are.

The truth is counterintuitive. Must we really gather a crowd in the forest before we begin to chop the tree? Yes!

Now is the time to start surrounding yourself with others who will (or might) be interested in what you have to say. Audience-building now Is just as important as book proposal writing, creating your speaker reel, or even polishing your shoes, your suit, or your presentation.

Perhaps a less philosophical example is teen pop sensation Justin Bieber. Justin didn’t work his way through the ranks of the Disney or Nickelodeon star-makers. He didn’t pitch studio after studio on his music until he found someone to listen. Justin honed his craft while building his audience through YouTube videos and social media channels.

Whether you are a “Belieber” or not, Justin hosted mini-concerts at public venues and invited fans and friends through social media. Eventually, his self-selected audience roared so loud and so big that a major label could not deny his stardom. His platform demanded it.

So how does apply to us today? Establish some credibility by publishing yourself first.

Consistently publish to your blog.
Guest post to other blogs with similar markets.
Collect emails on your blog and keep in touch.
Consider producing a podcast.
Create a Facebook Fan/Like Page.
Start a LinkedIn or Facebook Group.
Be a guest interview for other blogs, podcasts, BlogTalk Radio, teleconference calls, webinars and more.
Make short YouTube videos for your own channel.

In short, publish yourself. If you are waiting for a book deal or a big speaking contract to validate your work, your message or to make you famous, you’re going to be waiting and waiting and waiting.

Wouldn’t you rather be helping others now? Wouldn’t you rather be making ripples and waves right away? I know I would!

The competitive asset you bring to any publisher or producer is not merely your manuscript or your demo reel, but the audience you bring with you.

An old riddle says, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” In this context, the riddle says, “Which came first, the platform or the publishing?” The answer is … “Yes!”

I gave away 100 copies of The Barefoot Executive. To qualify, my readers had to comment below. You can find the list of winners here.

Question: How is your platform development coming? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Build Your Personal Brand with These 5 Simple Tools

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:00:55 +0000

If you are trying to establish a personal brand or build your own platform, you may be overlooking some of the simple tools at your disposal. Literally, every point-of-contact is an opportunity to create a positive brand impression—if you are intentional.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/VCTStyle

Here are five basic personal branding tools you should take advantage of before you move on to more complex ones.

Email address. The other day, I received an email message from someone who claimed to be a social media expert, specializing in personal branding. Only problem was that his email address was something like rooster763@aol.com. That instantly killed his credibility with me.
If you are using an AOL email address, stop. Nothing screams “I am stuck in the 90s!” like AOL. The same is true for yahoo.com and hotmail.com. The only exception is Gmail. Use this format: firstname.lastname@gmail.com. This looks way more professional than lovecat23@gmail.com.

Better yet, buy your own domain name for $10.00–20.00 per year. You really have no excuse for not doing this. You will then have an email address that looks like yourname@yourdomain.com. This makes a positive, powerful brand impression.
Email signature. Your email signature is an opportunity to create another branding impression. But be careful. If you include too much information, it just becomes a big gnarly ad. If you include too little, you miss a great opportunity.
Ask yourself, What information do people really need? Maybe they need your phone number. Or maybe, they don’t. (I don’t provide mine, because I don’t want anyone calling me who doesn’t already have my number.)

I do think it’s a good idea to include links to your blog or website, links to your social media profiles, and perhaps a mention of your newest project. (Don’t overdo it.) I also include a disclaimer at the bottom.

Here’s my current signature:
Business cards. This is another way to create a powerful branding impression and also pass along important information. I am amazed at how creative people are with this. But don’t go overboard.
Communicate the basics: your logo, your name, contact information, and perhaps a tagline. Make sure to include your social media contact information. I have seen some cards with just a Twitter username or a Website address. That can be effective, too, depending on your purpose.

You can do this yourself with software like Photoshop or (my favorite) Acorn. Or, if you want a dedicated software program, try Business Card Composer.

If you want to kickstart your creativity, here are hundreds of creative examples from a website called CardFaves. The great thing is that you will also find links to designers and suppliers.
Website. This is undoubtedly the single most important branding tool you can have. It is the first way in which most people will encounter you. Even if they meet you first or hear you speak, they will inevitably visit your website or blog. It will shape their opinion of you. That’s why you must get it right.
Hire a web designer if you can afford one. Talk to him or her about your brand and what you want to communicate. Write down a few words that you hope visitors will use to describe you. Pay attention to colors and fonts. These all communicate in subtle and subliminal ways.

If you can’t afford a web designer yet, at least start with a professional theme. When I moved to WordPress, I started with WooThemes. I have family members and friends who use ElegantThemes. I am currently using a customized version of Standard Theme, which I love. (Here are five reasons why.) You can purchase a great theme for $50.00–$100.00.
Social media profiles. Once you have blog or web theme, incorporate as many elements as you can into your social media profiles. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others allow you to customize the background graphics and other elements.
The goal is to have your fans and followers have a consistent brand experience. Use the same logo, color palette, and fonts on every platform. You want them to land on one of your social media profiles and know instantly that it is your profile.

I used TweetPages to design mine. I spent a couple hundred dollars to have them design a custom background for my Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages. For a high-quality graphic artist, this was a bargain. As a bonus, it was one of the best customer service experiences I’ve ever had.

These five tools can go a long way toward creating a positive first or second impression. Don’t think of them in isolation, but rather as part of your overall brand management program.

Question: How well are you using these tools for personal branding? What tools have I missed? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

9 Suggestions for Taking Better Headshots

Michael Hyatt — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:00:53 +0000

If you are attempting to build your own platform, you need photos—of yourself. Why? Because people want to connect with people not merely brands, products, or causes.

The right photo can help establish credibility, build trust, and promote engagement. These are at the heart of connecting in the world of social media and essential if you ever hope to sell someone on what you have to offer.

The key is in getting the right headshot. This is not about creating a Photoshopped, glamour photo (gag). It is about capturing the real, authentic you—just as the people who know you best experience you.

So how do you get a headshot for your product, website, or other marketing materials? Here are nine suggestions.

Hire a professional. Don’t simply ask a family member or friend to snap a few quick pictures. And don’t settle for Olan Mills or some portrait factory. Instead, search the web for “photography headshot [your city].” Review online portfolios and ask for recommendations from your local camera shop. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars.
Negotiate for all rights. Make sure you do this on the front-end. You don’t want to pay a licensing fee every time you use the photo in a different context. Some high-end photographers will not agree to this. If so, keep looking. Photographers are plentiful, and you will readily find one who will work with you.
Don’t shoot in a studio. I know some will disagree with this, but few things look more sterile than a studio. Instead, shoot the photos on your turf, in familiar surroundings. This is so much more interesting and adds more of your personality to the final result.
Wear something appropriate. The focus should be on your face, not your clothes. By “appropriate,” I mean something not dated and not too trendy. I always ask myself, “what can I wear that I won’t be embarrassed by ten years from now?” You might even want to make a few wardrobe changes during the shoot.
Take lots of photos. You are not looking for a posed photo. You want something more natural, where your personality is fully expressed. The more photos you take, the more likely you will find ones that work. A good photographer can take a couple of hundred photos (sometimes more) in an hour.
Look into the lens. You want to make a personal connection. This is really no different than meeting someone for the first time—look directly into their eyes. The eyes truly are “the window to the soul.” One exception is photos of you speaking or performing. However, these aren’t technically headshots.
Smile—with your whole face. I’m not talking about one of those big, cheesy, smiles where you force yourself to hold the smile about two seconds longer than you are comfortable. I’m talking about a natural smile with your mouth and your eyes. You want to look likable. This is more important than looking professional—whatever that is.
Crop the photo tightly. We don’t need to see your whole body or even your upper torso. We want to focus on your face. While you’re at it, ask the photographer to blur the background slightly (photographers call this “bokeh”). This will emphasize your face even more.
Pick one main photo. Use this on your products, your website, and as an avatar on all your social media profiles. You want a consistent brand impression. You can also pick a few alternatives, so that your strategic partners have a few options. I do this on a special Promotional Materials page. One someone needs a photo, I direct them there.

These are not absolute rules; they are merely suggestions. You can violate these so long as you are doing it for a specific purpose.

Finally, it is a good idea to get your headshots re-done every few years. Nothing is quite as jarring as meeting someone who looks ten years older than their photograph.

Question: Do you have a good headshot? If not, what do you need to do first? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

7 Characteristics of Landing Pages That Get Results

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:00:45 +0000

A “landing page” is a page on your website that highlights one specific product offering. It is called a landing page, because it is the page you want people to land on when you direct them to it from email newsletters, social media, affiliate links, etc.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/ishoot63

The goal of the landing page is to convert interest into leads or–better yet–sales. In a sense, it is a salesperson who works for you non-stop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

For example:

The Speaking page on my blog is designed to convince meeting planners to book me to speak at their event.
The Creating Your Personal Life Plan page on my blog is designed to convert casual readers into loyal subscribers.
The Writing a Winning Book Proposal page on my blog is designed to sell aspiring authors one or both of my book proposal ebooks.

The problem is that many landing pages are confusing. Visitors don’t know what action to take once they get there. As a result, they don’t produce the intended outcome.

Just for fun, here are three landing pages that are truly the worst I have ever seen. These were sent to me when I made a request for examples to my Twitter followers. Click on these links to get a sense for what NOT to do. Brace yourself:

Example 1: John Hutchins, candidate for U.S. congressman in the state of North Carolina
Example 2: Web King, Internet service provider
Example 3: Alien Ears, a supplier of in-ear monitors

This is a case where no landing page would be better than what these proprietors have developed. This only serves to damage–if not destroy–their brand.

But rather than focus on the negative, let’s focus on the positive.

If you are launching a new product, service, or cause, you need a landing page. It may be your home page. It may be a separate page altogether (as in my personal examples). But it needs to be a destination.

I have learned the hard way how to create pages that get results. I created a landing page in 2002 that generated over $100,000 in the first year. (I can’t share a link, because the page is no longer active.) I created a landing page in 2004 that completely failed, generating less than $5,000 after a $12,000 investment. (Obviously, I took this link down.) I thought this one was a sure-fire winner.

More recently, I created a landing page for my two ebooks, Writing a Winning Non-Fiction Book Proposal and Writing a Winning Fiction Book Proposal. I sell each ebook separately and together as a bundle.

In the 12 months ending August 31, 2011, I sold 1,097 copies of these ebooks for total revenue of $23,730.64. Since the ebooks went on sale in October of 2009 (two years ago), I have sold a total of 2,239 units for total revenue of $44,681.45. My only cost has been the payment processing fees.

This is completely passive income. I set up the page, connected it with e-junkie and PayPal, and have done nothing else. The sales, download links, and credit card processing are all handled automatically. The money is automatically deposited to my PayPal account.

Amazingly, these ebooks generate the same amount every month—about $2,000. Several weeks ago, I decided to analyze the landing page and see if I could improve the conversion. I thought, If this can generate $2,000 a month from a fairly lame landing page, what could it do if I optimized it. As a result, I completely retooled it.

I am happy to say that the results have been dramatic. I have gone from generating an average of 3.8 sales a day to 10.6—a 279% increase. This is after throwing out the launch day result of 43 sales, which I felt was an anomaly. If this average holds, it will result in annual sales of $85,264—not too shabby for two self-published ebooks.

Based on my experience—both positive and negative—I have identified seven characteristics of landing pages that get results:

Headline. You need a strong, compelling headline. Nothing else on your page is more important than this. If they aren’t drawn in by the headline, they won’t see everything else. I highly recommend David Garfinkle’s book, Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich: Create Winning Ads, Web Pages, Sales Letters and More. Priceless.
Sales Copy. You need to write compelling sales copy that starts with your prospects problems and concerns, explains why your product is the solution, and makes a compelling offer. Again, I strongly recommend David Garfinkle. You can’t do better than his course, Fast, Effective Copy. I refer to it weekly. It is worth every penny.
Product Photos. I mentioned this in my post about “How to Create the Ultimate Online Media Kit.” I use BoxShot 3D. It gives you the tools to make the product the hero. For an example, check out the product photos on my Writing a Winning Book Proposal product page.
Testimonials. Nothing convinces prospect like testimonials. In fact, I have written an entire post on their importance and how to get them. I try to get both celebrity endorsements and user or reader endorsements.
Guarantee. People may be nervous about buying a product online. They may not know you. There are a thousand and one reasons why they can’t pull the trigger. Make it easy. Take the risk out of the transaction. Promise to refund their money promptly if they are not satisfied. I have only had five refund requests after thousands of sales. If your product us good, it is not a risk.
An Offer. This is where the rubber meets the road. You have to establish a price and make an offer. Don’t sell yourself short. I price-tested my ebooks at $9.99, $19.99 and $29.99. I actually sold more at $19.99 than $9.99. I think this is partly due to the fact people impute value based on price. If you charge more (within reason), they assume the product is worth more.
Call-to-Action. You must have a clear call-to-action. It must also be positioned in a prominent place. I suggest the upper-right-hand corner of the page. Ask yourself, What is the single action I want visitors to this page to take as a result of reading my copy? I indicate my call-to-action with a big red button.

If you are launching a new product, service, or cause, you need a landing page that delivers results. This is essential if you are going to convert readers to customers, and hopefully, tribe members.

Question: What action do you need to take as a result of this post? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How to Create the Ultimate Online Media Kit

Michael Hyatt — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:00:40 +0000

Once you have completed your work on a new product—whether it is a book, a record, a new CD series, or even a blog—you will probably have some time before it is available to the market. This is the perfect opportunity to get your ducks in a row and prepare for the launch.

One of the first things you need to create is a great online media kit. This is a page on your website or blog where you will want to send:

Strategic partners
Media producers
Product reviewers
Event planners
Super fans

This is a resource page designed to equip them with all the tools they will need to do their job and help you get the word out.

I suggest that you include the following eight components. You can alternatively split these into separate pages. I’ll provide some examples at the end of this post.

Headline. Make it clear what this page is. It might be as simple as “The name of your product and the words, “Media Kit.”
Navigation. Provide a “table of contents.” This provides an overview of the page and a quick way for your visitor to navigate to the parts of the page that are most relevant to him or her. For example, I did this on my Speaking page. Though it’s not a Media Kit per se, it will give you the idea.
Contact Information. Make it easy on the media, events planners, and your fans. This is often all they are looking for. Put it near the top. Tell people who to contact for:
- Media inquiries
- Event inquiries
- Review copy requests
- Fan Inquiries
- Social media links
- All other inquiries
If you are going to provide an email address, use a link and encode it, so you don’t attract a lot of spam. Also, provide links to your social media profiles, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.
Product Information. Provide all the basic product information in one place. Don’t make your readers hunt.
- Sales Copy. Provide both short (1oo words) and long versions (300–500 words) of your sales copy.
- Product Specs. List the simple product or technical specs. For a book, this would include format (hardcover, paperback, etc.), publisher, publication or availability date, ISBN or product number, product dimensions, shipping weight, and suggested retail price.
- Product Formats. List any additional product formats the product might be available in. For a book, this could include digital formats, foreign editions, etc.
- Ancillary Products. List any ancillary products: premium editions, signed editions, DVD study materials, merchandise, workbooks, seminars, conferences, etc. This could be anything organically-related to the primary product.
- Product Photos. Provide more than one photo, preferably from different angles and in 3d. I use a program called Box Shot 3D. It is amazing, allowing me to create product shots like this:
- Product Trailers. First, there were movie trailers. Then there were music videos. Now, there are great trailers for books. In fact, some creatives produce more than one. Make sure they are uploaded to a site like Vimeo (my personal preference) or YouTube, so people reading the page can embed them on their own site or blog.
- Full Bio. I would also provide a short version (100 words) and a longer one (300–500 words). Don’t make this look like a resume. You only need to include what is relevant to this page’s audience.
- Headshots. Provide several headshots of yourself. You should provide several photos in several sizes. I provide formal, casual, and “action” shots.
- Product Endorsements. This is where you include all the celebrity endorsements. Try to get authority figures in your category. If you can’t get that, shoot for people with impressive credentials. If you can’t get that, customer endorsements are better than nothing. I explain how to do this in a previous post.
Promotion Information. Most readers won’t be interested in every aspect of your marketing strategy. However, your live appearances (e.g., speaking events, concerts, etc.) and media appearances (e.g., radio, television, etc.) will be relevant to both professionals and fans.
- Live Appearances. Provide a list of your upcoming speaking or concert dates. Include links so readers can get additional information. Here’s an example from my own Speaking page.
- Media Appearances. Provide a list of your upcoming media appearances, so that producers, event planners, and fans can tune in. You might also include highlights from previous appearances.
Interviewer Resources. You want to make it easy for producers to book you. Provide the following items:
- Bio Talking Points. This is similar to your bio, but in a talk points format instead of a narrative. This makes it easier for the interviewer to make it sound natural. Here’s an example (PDF) of something similar I provide to those who introduce me before I speak.
- How to Sound Like You’ve Read the Book (or used the product). This is a brilliant idea that I got from Robert Smith, Andy Andrews’ manager. He recognized that 95% of interviewers will never read Andy’s book. This is my experience as well. But they want to sound like they have read the book. This is an opportunity for you to summarize your product and make the interviewer look smart.
- List of Interview Topics and Angles. Again, in the spirit of making it easy for producers to book you, provide a list of interview topics and angles. Make them relevant to what people are already talking about. This is one section you will likely need to update as the current news changes.
- Sample Interview Questions. This is the single most important thing you can do to get more, high quality interviews. Develop a list of 7–10 interview questions. This allows both you and the interviewer to look smart.
Fan Resources. It’s great to have fans. It is even better to turn fans into evangelists. But in order to do this, you have to equip them to work on your behalf.
- Sample Chapters. Give your fans something to share with others. One great tool is Scribd. Why? Because your fans can embed the sample chapters in their own blog in order to share it with others.
- Twitter Post Samples. I wrote about this a few days ago, but, again, make it easy. Give your followers 10–30 sample tweets. Suggest a hashtag, so you can track all the tweets in one place.
- Banner Ads. Commission the design of banner ads that your fans can put on their own blogs or websites. These are cheaper than you think. Just search Google for “cheap banner ad design.” You want to create ads for all the standard banner ad sizes.
- Incentives. Give people an opportunity to connect with you based on how many of their products you buy or what they are willing to do to promote them. Gary Vaynerchuck and Phil Cooke are two examples of this. Be creative!
- Wallpaper. Some of your fans want “digital bling.” They identify with your brand or your product more than you may thing. They will proudly display it on their computer. What can be more personal than that? A good designer can crank out wallpaper using your exiting graphics in less than 30 minutes.
- Merchandise. Some of your fans want “physical bling.” Again, they identify with your brand or your product so much that they are willing to wear it, display it, or drink from it. My friend, John Richardson, recently outlined several possibilities, including links to vendors.
Media Reactions. This is basically a “wall of fame.” Include your best:
- Product Reviews
- Customer Reviews
- Twitter Comments
- Facebook Comments
- Google+ Comments
The idea here is to share endorsements and enthusiasm from your fans to fuel even more enthusiasm.

The best example of a media kit I have ever seen is the most recent one for Andy Andrews newest book, The Final Summit. It meets nearly all my criteria. (And it gave me a lot of ideas I had not thought of.) Make sure you download the PDF as well.

Also, check out the online media kits for Dave Ramsey’s new book, EntreLeadership, Dov Seldman’s book, How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything, and Jenny Blake’s book, Life After College.

If you want to equip your potential partners and fans to get the word out, you will take the time to to build a great online media kit.

Question: How could an online media kit like I have described help you mobilize the troops? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

The 4 Components of a Compelling Elevator Pitch

Michael Hyatt — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:00:06 +0000

Before you launch your product, service, or cause, you need “an elevator pitch.” This is a short summary of your product offering, including your target market and your value proposition.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/PlushStudios

The name comes from the idea that you should be able to deliver a succinct, compelling description of what you offer in the time it takes to ride an elevator up a few floors—approximately 30 seconds to two minutes.

The idea originated with entrepreneurs who needed to pitch their business proposals quickly to potential investors in order to secure funding. This enabled those same investors to quickly eliminate ideas that were ill-conceived or simply didn’t fit their investment profile.

Entrepreneurs often spend hours honing and practicing their elevator pitches. The stakes are huge. If they are successful and connect with a potential investor, they win the opportunity to present a more detailed business plan. If they don’t, they are sent packing.

The elevator pitch has become so effective that it is used in other fields as well. This includes publishing, movie-making, job interviewing, and even dating. It is a great way for both parties to cut to the chase and determine if there is a connection.

Why do you need an elevator pitch? I can think of at least three reasons:

It forces you to achieve clarity yourself. I can’t tell you how many authors I have spoken with over the years who could not summarize what their book was about. They should have achieved clarity on this before they began writing. This is one of the main reasons publishers say “no.” It is also why you should strive for a clear elevator pitch before you do anything else. (This is the first thing I teach you to do in Writing a Winning Book Proposal.
It helps you understand your prospect’s perspective. If you are going to connect with your target prospects, you must see your offering from their perspective. Moreover, you must understand their problems, their concerns, their hopes, and their dreams. Only then, can you put together an offering that they will find compelling.
It provides a tool for enrolling strategic partners. In order to be successful in launching anything significant, you need help. You can’t do it all yourself. Whether it is a publisher, a record company, a booking agent, a publicist, a retailer, or a corporate sponsor, you need to be able to explain quickly what you are about. Only then can your potential partner decide whether or not he or she can help you.

Okay, so you’re convinced. But how do you craft a good elevator pitch?

First, understand that the pitch will be different depending on whether you are offering an information product (e.g., non-fiction book, speech, consulting service, etc.) or an entertainment product (e.g, novel, screenplay, comedy act, etc.). Note that when I use the term “product,” I am referring to your creative output regardless of the form. It could be an actual product, a service, or even a cause.

An elevator pitch for an information product should consist of four components:

Component 1: Your product name and category.
Component 2: The problem you are attempting to solve.
Component 3: Your proposed solution.
Component 4: The key benefit of your solution.

Here’s an example from my current project:

I am writing a new [Component 1] business book called Platform. [Component 2] It is designed for anyone who is trying to get attention for their product, service, or cause. [Component 3] I teach my readers how to build a tribe of loyal followers, using social media and other new technologies. [Component 4] I explain that it has never been easier, less expensive, or more possible than right now.”

An elevator pitch for an entertainment product should also consist of four components:

Component 1: Your product name and category.
Component 2: The main character’s ambition.
Component 3: The conflict he or she encounters.
Component 4: The real significance of the story.

Here’s an example from a mythical project about the modern composer, Eric Whitacre:

I am shooting an [Component 1] inspirational documentary called Cloudburst. [Component 2] It is about a young, extremely gifted musician who dreams of becoming a symphony conductor. [Component 3] The only problem is he can’t read music. As a result, no one in the music business will give him a chance. [Component 4] Yet he ultimately succeeds because of his honesty, optimism, and hard work.”

Obviously, pitches can vary widely, depending on your offering. Regardless, you want to create an elevator pitch that is clear and compelling. This is a prerequisite to attracting the partners and prospects you need to succeed.

Once you get your elevator pitch fine-tune, don’t deliver it like a mechanical parrot. Instead, do what Michael Port suggest in his excellent book, Book Yourself Solid, Chapter 4: use it as the foundation of a meaningful sales conversation.

Question: What is your elevator pitch? I’d love to get some great examples for my book! You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How to Use Twitter to Promote Your New Book (or Other Product)

Michael Hyatt — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:00:45 +0000

Twitter can be a fantastic tool for promoting your book. But I see very, very few authors and publishers doing this well. They post some random tweets with no singular call to action and then wonder why their return on investment was so low.

Instead, Twitter can be a key marketing tool for driving sales and the bestseller lists. I have participated in both. BUT this only works if you take Twitter into account early enough in the product design and marketing process.

Here are nine ways to insure that you get the full benefit of Twitter for your marketing campaign:

Make sure the book’s title is short enough to tweet. One word titles are perfect (e.g., StandOut, Unbroken, Rework). Short phrases can also work (e.g., House Rules, Confidence Men, Do the Work). Long titles make it tough (e.g., Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There or, my personal favorite, All You Can Do Is All You Can Do But All You Can Do Is Enough!)
Use a hashtag so you can collect the buzz. A “hashtag” is used to mark keyword or topics within tweets. It was created organically by Twitter users to categorize messages. Messages with the same hashtag show up together in Twitter search. If you click on a hashtag, you will see all other messages with that hashtag. It is best if you can use a word in the book title or a shortened form of the title.
Make sure the author’s twitter username is relatively short. If it goes beyond 12–13 characters, consider using the first initial or two plus the last name (e.g., @MWBuckingham). The goal is to allow as much room as possible for the actual tweet.
Decide on a landing page. Where do you want to direct your followers for more information? It could be a custom website for the book (e.g., EntreLeadership), a product page on your main website (e.g., Nancy Duarte) or a the product page on an e-tail site like Amazon.
Use a URL shortener. I use bit.ly, but I have mapped a custom domain to it, so I get the value of branding. Mine is mhyatt.us. This enables me to turn something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Real-Little-Astounding-Story/dp/0849946158/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316621485&sr=8-1

into this:

http://mhyatt.us/qnplTs

Try it. Both links get you to the same place, but one is dramatically shorter.
Determine how long your tweet can be. Everything up to this point is essentially metadata. It is not going to get anyone to click on the link or retweet the message. For that, you need an actual tweet. But how long can it be? To figure this out, deduct the length of the title, author name, hashtag, and landing page from 140 (the maximum length of a tweet).
For example, let’s say I was creating a tweet for Andy Andrews newest book, The Final Summit. I might have the following metadata. Note that I converted the title to a hashtag:
- Title: #FinalSummit (12 characters)
- Author: @AndyAndrews (12 characters)
- Landing Page: http://mhyatt.us/i6wQmo (23 characters)
If you total this, plus add three characters for spaces, you get 50. Now subtract this from 140. This gives you 90 characters for your actual message. But wait. You should also allow room for retweeting (e.g., “RT @MichaelHyatt”). In my case, that is an additional 17 characters, including the space. This means my message can only be 73 characters.

This doesn’t sound like much room—and it’s not—but you can make it work. Stay with me.
Identify a series of “tweetable” quotes from the book. As you are writing the book, try to come up with short, pithy statements that can be used as tweets. They should be insightful, provocative, or intriguing. And, in the case of Andy’s book (the example above), they can’t be more than 73 characters long.
Here are some examples from The Final Summit:
- “A dazzling gem cannot be polished without great friction.”
- “A beautiful flower cannot be created without fertilizer.”
- “Do not squander time, for that is the stuff of which life is made.”
- “The winds of adversity fill the sails of accomplishment.”
- “Nothing shows a person’s character more than his habits.”
Shoot for 20–30 of these for each book.
Put each tweet together, using the actual message. I do this in a plain text editor like TextEdit on Mac or NotePad on Windows. Now you can copy and paste these into Twitter or automate the whole process. (More about that in a minute.) You can also make these tweets available to your brand evangelists on a special promotional page you have created for your fans in helping to get the word out.
Automate the delivery of your tweets. Caution: don’t flood your followers with these messages or they will start to think of you as a spammer. I would post no more than one tweet a day—at the most two. See my post, “The 20–to-1 Rule” for the reason why.
Having said that, you can subscribe to a service like SocialOomph, load your entire text file, and then schedule your tweets to appear 24 hours apart at a specific time of day. (You can also use HootSuite, but the options are more limited.)

Here is an example of a promotional tweet for a new book that includes all the elements I have described:

Yes, you can use Twitter as an integral part of your marketing campaign. The secret is to weave it in early, before either the product or the marketing plan is set in stone.

Question: How else have you seen Twitter used to promote books or other products successfully? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How to Write a Blog Post in 70 Minutes or Less

Michael Hyatt — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:00:52 +0000

Blogging is an important part of my life. It the primary way I have built and communicate with my tribe. However, it is not the only thing I do. I’ll bet it’s not for you, either.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/slobo

If you are like most bloggers, you are trying to squeeze it in between your job, your family, and a thousand other activities. It can be really tough to be consistent.

After writing more than 1,000 posts, I have gotten better and faster with practice. Now, on average, it takes me 60–70 minutes to write and format a single post. I thought I would share eleven of the tricks I use to write more efficiently.

Start the night before. I try to determine what I am going to write about tomorrow before I go to bed. This allows my mind to begin engaging with the topic in advance. It’s like putting a roast in a crockpot and letting it simmer overnight.
Use downtime to think. I run or workout for 60 minutes almost every morning. During this time, I listen to an audio book for 30 minutes. This often provides raw material for future posts. Then I turn it off and just think. I primarily focus on what I am going to blog about that day. I usually create my main premise and outline in my head.
Go offline. When it is time to write, I go offline. Sort of. I can’t be completely offline, because I need to be able to use the web for research. However, I don’t need to be checking email, Twitter, or Facebook. Enter AntiSocial. This little program enables me to turn off email and all my social networks. I can’t get back to them without rebooting my computer. If you are a PC user, Cold Turkey is similar.
Turn on some music. Years ago, I discovered that certain kinds of music put me in my “zone.” I have a playlist of music in iTunes that I call “Background Music for Writing.” It consists mostly of soundtracks like The Bucket List, Seabiscuit, and The Horse Whisperer. I also occasionally listen to Lifescapes Music.
Set a timer. Writing is not difficult for me. The challenge is getting started. I can find an endless array of distractions. Starting a timer for 70 minutes creates a sense of urgency. I am very competitive with myself, and I find myself engaging immediately and racing the clock to finish. I simply use the timer on my iPhone.
Use a template. This helps, too. I use a formula based on the SCORRE method taught by Ken Davis at the Dynamic Communicators Workshop. (If you haven’t attended DCW, put this on your bucket list. It’s one of the best things I have ever done professionally.) I start with an Evernote template and then actually do the writing in ByWord, a stripped-down word processor.
Create an outline. In case you haven’t noticed, I like lists. This makes my posts highly scannable, which also makes them easier for my readers to digest. It also makes it very easy for me to write. I know the overview before I begin. It then almost becomes an exercise in fill-in-the-blank.
Write without editing. Don’t try to write and edit. If you do, you will drive yourself crazy. Worse, you won’t make much progress. Writing is primarily a right-brain function. Editing is a left-brain function. Switching back and forth between these two hemispheres slows you down. You don’t really get into the grove like you should. Instead, I just write continuously without stopping.
Now edit and format. Once I have a first draft, I begin the editing process. I read back through my post a few times, cleaning up the spelling, grammar, and syntax. I also try to shorten everything I can. I want to use simple words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. This is one of the most important things you can do to make your posts read faster.
Add graphics, links, and metadata. Once I am happy with my post, I copy and paste everything from ByWord to MarsEdit. (This is my offline blogging software.) There I add graphics, usually a single photo from iStockPhoto.com. In addition, I add internal and external links and the all important metadata (e.g., category, post description, key words, etc.).
Publish a draft. Once I am done, I set the publication date and time in MarsEdit and publish the post. Technically, this creates a scheduled post. It won’t be live on my site until the appointed date and time. Now I go into my WordPress Admin panel and run the post through the Scribe Content Optimizer. Once I am happy with the score (I always shoot for 100%), I update the post. I’m done!

Sometimes it takes a little longer than 70 minutes. Sometimes it takes less. For the record, this post took 69 minutes and 20 seconds. But I find that I get more written when I focus on these short deadlines than when I don’t. This sense of progress encourages me to write more.

Questions: How long does it take you to write your typical blog post? Any ideas here that could help you be more efficient? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Marketing Is Dead

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:00:51 +0000

Most creatives I know hate marketing. They want to write, speak, or entertain. But they hate the thought of promoting themselves or selling their art.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/FrankVinken

If this describes you, I have good news. Marketing is dead.

Okay, maybe I am overstating my case.

Marketing may not be dead, but, in the world of social media, it has morphed. Dramatically.

Tribe-building is the new marketing.

Marketing is no longer about shouting in a crowded marketplace. It is about participating in a dialogue with fellow travelers.
Marketing is no longer about generating transactions. It is about building relationships.
Marketing is no longer about exploiting a market for your own benefit. It is about serving those who share your passion—for your mutual benefit.

In his groundbreaking book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Seth Godin defines a tribe as “a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.”

I reviewed this book right after it came out in 2008. It is just as relevant today as it was then. It is the first book I give to new authors. It is must reading if you are serious about building an enduring career as a creative.

Seth says that a tribe only has two requirements:

A shared interest
A way to communicate.

It is easy to think of examples:

Apple users—Just visit a local Apple retail store. People aren’t just there to buy products. They come to share their passion and interact with other enthusiasts. While other retailers struggle, Apple can barely keep up with the demand.
Dave Ramsey fans—He has built an immense tribe of people who are passionate about getting out of debt and taking control of their money. It borders on religious fervor. No wonder. His philosophy has given hope to millions.
Don Miller readers—His first book, Blue Like Jazz was on the New York Times bestsellers list for months. He tried to make a movie based on the book but couldn’t raise the money. But his tribe wouldn’t let it die. They raised the money themselves.
Evernote users—Who would ever think that a simple software database would engender such a large and burgeoning tribe. But with over 12 million registered users, Evernote has attracted a diverse and passionate group of users.

I am a proud member of all four tribes.

But here’s the key for creatives. Building a tribe is your ticket to enduring success. This is what platform is all about. It is a way for you to connect to your tribe.

How do you build a tribe? Let me suggest four ways:

Discover your passion. Marketing is the act of sharing what you are passionate about. Nothing more. Nothing less.
For example, Gary Vaynerchuk runs Wine Library TV. He has a huge tribe that didn’t exist a few years ago. It all began when he discovered his passion for wine.

Millions of people tune into Gary’s short video program daily to discover new wines and better understand the wines they love.
Volunteer to lead. This is everything. Without a leader, you don’t have a tribe. You only have a crowd.
Marketing is really about leading people who already want to follow. They just need a leader to take them where they already want to go.
Be generous. The old marketing was about taking from people. As it turns out, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (see Acts 20:35) is a brilliant marketing strategy. When you lead by serving and by giving, people follow.
Provide a way to communicate. People need a way to communicate. They need a way to share their stories.
In Tribes, Seth outlines four kinds of tribal leadership. If you are going to be serious about building tribes, you have to provide for all four kinds of communication.
- Tribe leader to tribe member.
- Tribe member to tribe leader.
- Tribe member to tribe member.
- Tribe member to outsiders.

The real issue is no longer whether or not your publishing company or record label will market your product and give you the visibility your need to succeed. It is really about whether or not you are willing to step up and provide leadership to a tribe of fellow travelers who share your passion.

Question: What is your passion? What are you doing to serve your tribe? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How I Unfollowed 108,698 People on Twitter and Reclaimed My Inbox

Michael Hyatt — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 09:00:25 +0000

Last weekend, I determined that my Twitter direct message inbox was unmanageable. I was inundated with spam and requests from people I didn’t know. As a result, I decided to declare Twitter bankruptcy, unfollow everyone, and start over. I wrote about it earlier this week.

I had thought about doing this for months, but was nervous about the unintended consequences. However, after learning that Chris Brogan, Spence Smith, and Vicky Beeching had done the same thing and lived to tell about it, I decided to go for it.

I will outline the procedure I followed in a minute. But to cut to the chase, I am very happy with the outcome. I have finally reclaimed my Twitter inbox. I have not lost much in the process. I am still able to be “social.” I just have 99% of conversations in public, using Twitter’s reply feature.

In terms of the numbers, I have gone from following 108,698 to 157 (or so). I lost a total of 5,622 followers, going from 110,336 followers before I began to 104,714 now—about 5%. My Klout score has improved slightly, going from 75.9 to 76.2. (This isn’t really a big deal, but I expect that number to improve as Klout recalculates my follower-to-following ratio.)

In case you are considering doing this for yourself, I thought I would document the procedure I used here. I took the following seven actions:

I evaluated my options. I should have not been following everyone to begin with. (Yes, I have already been scolded for this.) I explained my rationale in my last post.
Regardless, I didn’t feel I had any options. I was getting dozens of spam messages like these every day (the last message is not spam):

These are only what was waiting for me when I woke up on Tuesday morning.

Only you can decide whether or not it’s time to clean house. Regardless of what others might think or say, there is no right answer.
I put those I wanted to follow on a list. Most people who are following more than 50 people have a mechanism for segmenting their followers. (You may be disappointed to know that I didn’t really pay attention to 108,698 people.) I use HootSuite. My wife, Gail, uses TweetDeck. Both are excellent.
In addition, I also made use of Twitter lists. Everyone who is on a list will survive a mass unfollow, since you can put people on a list without following them. Just to make sure, I took a screenshot of each of my lists, using SnagIt. Here’s an example:
I warned my followers before I started. Though I realized I wouldn’t eliminate being misunderstood, I wanted to minimize it. I also did this as a courtesy. I didn’t want people to think it was personal. It wasn’t.
I tweeted several times about what I was going to do. I also wrote an entire blog post on the topic. I also engaged in the comments and Twitter replies, attempting to answer questions people had.
I expected to be misunderstood. And, of course, I wasn’t disappointed. Chris Brogan’s post prepared me for this. People don’t always understand how Twitter works, disagree with how I am using it, or attach more importance to me following them than is warranted.
Some thought I was stupid for auto-following everyone (which I was). Others thought I didn’t really understand social media. For example:

Some thought I was just arrogant, like this one:

One even asked, “What would Jesus do?”

Regardless, the amount of negative responses was pretty minimal—about 10 out of 108,698.
I used an automated script. One person thought I should go through and do this manually. If you do the math, you quickly see that this is impossible. Assuming I could evaluate 20 per minute, that would take me 90 hours—two full work weeks.
Instead. I used an automated script. There are several available. I used SocialOomph Professional. I was already a member of this service, so it didn’t cost anything additional. I just clicked on one button and SocialOomph did the rest:
I had to be patient—it took a while! I naively assumed that I would click the button, take my place in the queue, and, in a few hours, the whole thing would be done. Wrong.
Twitter itself limits the number of API calls that third-party apps can make per hour. This is programmer-speak for the fact that third-party apps can only unfollow about 1,200–1,500 people per hour. It took SocialOomph a approximately 75 hours to unfollow everyone on my list.
I re-followed those on my lists. This was the easy part. Once I had unfollowed everyone, I simply went to my Twitter list, displayed them, and followed everyone on the list, one-at-a-time. This took a total of less than ten minutes. I didn’t have to change anything in HootSuite, since these lists already corresponded to my HootSuite columns:

By the way, you can still engage me in a conversation on Twitter. Simply, address your post to @MichaelHyatt.” It will appear in my “Mentions” stream and I will reply publicly. This is even more social—like a dinner party—because others can listen in and join the conversation.

Again, I don’t think a mass unfollowing is for everyone. But it has served me well. I am glad I did it. I have experienced very little negative impact. Moreover, it has allowed me to reclaim my Twitter inbox. It is now, once again, useful for private messages between my family and friends.

Question: Is this something you need to consider? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

3 Blogging Experiments That Might Make You a Better Writer

GuestBlogger — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:00:48 +0000

This is a guest post by John Saddington. He is a professional blogger who loves sharing his blogging tips, tricks, tools, and practical teaching. He covers such topics as SEO, WordPress and making money with your blog. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Sometimes we need to stretch ourselves outside of our comfort zones in an effort to improve our writing. But it’s not natural to make yourself uncomfortable. No one willingly jumps out of box without a bit of helpful prodding or a direct challenge.

I’m here to help.

Here’s an opportunity to “up” your writing game with a few activities that can expand your mind, give you a much-needed fresh perspective, and an opportunity to flex a bit of mind-muscle that you haven’t touched in a while.

Ready to feel a bit of discomfort for the sake of a better blog? Try one of these experiments. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results!

The Environment Experiment. Like most people you’ve probably created a unique environment for you to do your best writing, thinking, and publishing. This might be a home office or a specific area of the house or even that favorite couch in the living room that just seems to “work” and help you get things moving.
What if you were to write in an entirely different place today? What if you were to go to another part of the house that’s never seen the light of your laptop? What if you were to go outside? What if you were to even leave your house and goto the local coffee shop? What if you were to stay home instead of heading to the local roast? What would that do for your perspective?

Challenge yourself to work in a different environment and you might find that you actually like the change. Heck, you might even be more productive! Make sure to take good notes about your experience so you can replicate it later.
Output Experiment. You might be used to publishing once or twice a week on your blog and you’re pretty comfortable with that rhythm and your community appreciates your consistency.
But what if you were to accept an increased output challenge? If you typically post twice a week, why not publish three times or four times this week? What would happen if you were to double the amount of blog posts this week? Do you think you could do it? What would happen if you did (or didn’t)?

See if you can break outside of your existing publishing quota and go for broke with more posts than you would typically do. You might find the change of pace exciting, and your blog might benefit greatly by an additional post (or two). You might even see more traffic, more shares via Twitter and Facebook, or even a viral push from a social network. Again, take good notes about your productivity boost to see if it’s something that’s sustainable long-term.
The Media Experiment. Perhaps you’re pretty comfortable with your current fare of blog posts—a mix of copy and a picture here and there. Have you ever done a video blog post? A videolog? Have you ever communicated to your audience audibly and visually through video?
There are a lot of reasons for attempting this challenge, but here are two that I’ll mention explicitly:
- Increased authenticity. The people know who you are but they’ve never seen you communicate in this fashion. There’s a deeper level of connection with your audience that you’ll be able to take to the bank.
- Better communication. There’s a fine art of being able to communicate audibly and it shows, especially when you capture it on video. Many professionals have discovered that practicing this form of communication you ultimately help one to become a better writer.

I hope that you’ll try one these experiments today and will seek to execute on them in the upcoming week. Who knows what will happen or how your community will respond!

Question: Which of these experiments appeals to you the most? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Why I Stopped Following You on Twitter

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:00:27 +0000

Soon after I joined Twitter, I began auto-following everyone who followed me. I did it as a courtesy, so that it would make it easy for my followers to send me a private or direct message. I engaged in many one-on-one conversations that way, because I believed they were irrelevant to my other followers.

However, I have since changed my philosophy, choosing to reply publicly to most Twitter mentions. Why? Because the only people who see these replies are people who follow both me and the sender. In other words, only the people for whom the message might be relevant.

Nevertheless, I continued to use auto-follow. As a result, I am following about the same number of people who follow me—some 108,000.

This has not really been a problem until recently. I use HootSuite to filter my followers into relevant lists (e.g., Family, Friends, Sources, Industry Professionals, etc.), keeping the noise to a minimum. Obviously, I am not scanning the tweets of 108,000 people!

However, as my follower count has grown, and with the increase in direct message spam, my direct message inbox has become a jungle. Daily, I get numerous messages like these:

“haha i cant stop laughing, your facial expression here is priceless!”
“lmao…omg i am laughing so hard at this pic of you u i just found”
“Someone is posting a pic of you all over twitter ;(”

These messages are just from “accidental spammers”—newbies who clicked on a link, forked over their Twitter credentials or authorized a third-party app, and then unknowingly began spamming their followers.

This doesn’t include the scores of intentional spammers. Nor does it include all the well-meaning people asking me to promote their cause, give to their project, or review their blog or manuscript.

As a result, I have decided to unfollow all my followers and start over.

Yes, I know. Drastic.

But thankfully, I can learn from the experience of @ChrisBrogan, @SpenceSmith, and @VickyBeeching, who did the same and survived.

The benefits? I can think of three:

It will eliminate my DM spam. This will reclaim my Twitter inbox as a tool for private messages with family and friends.
It will eliminate questionable associations. As a result of auto-following, I can’t control what appears in my timeline (at least not without a lot of work). Sadly, this now includes spammers, porn stars, and other dubious characters who chose to follow me first. As such, it raises questions for some about me and my character. Unfollowing everyone will clean this up.
It will improve my Klout score. As you may know, Klout is a service that measures your social media reach and impact. However, it penalizes people who have too high a following-to-follower-count ratio.

I do anticipate some negative reactions. Some people will misunderstand and take offense. Others, I am sure, will unfollow me in response. That’s okay. That’s why I am writing this post, hoping to explain my rationale and minimize the negative impact.

If you suddenly discover that I have unfollowed you, please don’t take it personally. And if you are a family member or friend, be patient. I will re-follow you once I’ve cleaned the pipes.

I also plan to do a follow-up post, sharing the tools I used and what I learned in the process.

Question: Have you considered unfollowing all of your Twitter followers? What concerns do you have? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Can You Change Your Online Brand?

Michael Hyatt — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:00:36 +0000

This is a guest post by Mary DeMuth. She is an author, speaker and book mentor. She has published twelve books, including her most e-book recent, The 11 Secrets of Getting Published, and her most recent novel, The Muir House. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Sometimes we think our world is set in concrete, that to alter it means wielding sledge hammers and heavy equipment. Particularly on the web, we feel stuck in the persona we’ve shared with our cyber-friends.

Here’s a joyful, scary, invitational truth, though: God is always at work.

I’ve experienced the sledgehammer of God this past year, though His blows felt more like a rainstorm of grace. It started with several unrelated people (some strangers) who shared a word with me: “Abundance,” they said. “God is steering you toward abundance.”

After so many people from so many backgrounds whispered the same word, I realized God wanted to reshape me. For several years my tagline has been “turning trials to triumph.” I lived there, sometimes too much. In my introspection and looking back, I did heal (thankfully), but I tended to look backward. Living with the pain from the past was my comfort zone, my way of living.

But God said abundance. Which connotes anticipation. Expectation. Forward thinking.

And the word “trials” didn’t seem to define me as much anymore. Nor did I like the word triumph, as it connoted a personal triumphalism, as if I bootstrapped myself.

In my last post for Michael on passion I shared how I found my passion. I used similar methods to discern my new direction, look and tagline. You can follow these steps too, if you sense it’s time to change your online presence:

Investigate the past twelve months. Scavenge your journal, the words of others that took you aback, the persistent message of your spouse or kids, the thoughts that keep you awake at night. What are the patterns? What keeps jumping out at you? What do you try to ignore, but God keeps pestering you about?
Ask your friends. I sent an email to my prayer team, and I also tweeted and Facebooked my new adventure, asking people to give me feedback on my new direction.
Find dominant Scriptures. One thing that really helped me was looking back over the year and seeing the verses that God spotlighted for me. The similarities were shocking, actually. God really did want me to change directions!
Pray about it. Ultimately, after all the investigation, inquiries, and Scriptures, it was God’s voice that whispered my new tagline into my heart. It came unexpectedly, but perfectly.

If you’d like to read more about my journey and find out about my new tagline, click here.

You’re not off the hook, though. It’s one thing to delve and discover your new direction, it’s quite another to implement it. Don’t be so caught up in what is easy that you fail to risk for the next task God has for you. Don’t be caged by your current brand, look, and presence on the web. It cost me relatively little to change my tagline and look. But I had to decide to.

I’ll end this sledgehammer-of-grace post with my favorite Oswald Chambers quote. It embodies my new direction, and it speaks to our fear of letting go of the past and moving forward. He writes, “Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him.”

Questions: How has God changed you over the past year? What holds you back from changing your brand/tagline/online presence? What convicted you about this post? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

3 Benefits of Building Your Own Platform

Michael Hyatt — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:00:11 +0000

Successful creatives—authors, speakers, musicians, and even comedians—must possess two strategic assets: a compelling product and a meaningful platform. While the former is essential, it is not enough. Without a meaningful platform, you simply can’t get the attention your product, your brand, or your cause needs to succeed.

Think of it like this: If content is king, platform is queen. You can not build a personal media empire without the help of both monarchs.

What is a platform?

A platform is the means by which you connect with your existing and potential fans.

It might include a blog, your Twitter and Facebook accounts, an online video show, or podcast. It may also include your personal appearances as a public speaker, musician, or entertainer. It might even include traditional media like a newspaper column, magazine articles, or radio show. It most likely will include a combination of all these items.

I am writing a book on this topic right now, based on what I have learned in working in the book publishing industry over the last thirty years. (I was also an artist manager for about three years.) In addition, I am also drawing on my personal experience in building my own platform. I am really excited to share what I have learned.

I can tell you this: Building a platform is no longer about:

Being picked by a gatekeeper;
Investing thousands of dollars in consultants; or
Understanding complex and confusing technology

This may have been the ticket five years ago. But not today. Social media technologies have changed everything. Now, for the first time in history, non-celebrities can get noticed—and win big—in an increasingly noisy world.

Authors Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuck, and John Locke did it.
Speakers Scott Stratten, Rob McNealy and Judy Wasserman have done it.
Recording artists Jonathan Coulton, Mute Math, and The Civil Wars also did it.

You can, too.

But before you begin building or expanding your existing platform, it is worth revisiting the benefits of doing so. I believe there are at least three:

A platform provides visibility. The word platform itself is a metaphor. It brings to mind a “stage,” where the speaker or entertainer is elevated above the crowd. It makes it possible for everyone in the audience to see you. This is especially important in a world where more and more people and organizations are screaming for our attention.
A platform provides amplification. It enables you to be heard above the noise in the crowd. Even before modern sound systems, preachers and politicians would stand on platforms in order to be heard. Modern sound systems leverage natural acoustics and make it possible to speak before tens of thousands of people. Today, modern media—especially social media—provide an opportunity for you to extend your reach like never before.
A platform provides connection. Traditional media platforms make possible a kind of unilateral intimacy. You “know” the talk show host, the performing artist, or the conference speaker. But social media has taken this to a whole new level. It makes possible bilateral intimacy—engagement. The result is that you can be more connected to your fans, customers, and supporters than ever before.

Building a platform is easier than ever but still requires hard work. Before you begin, you must be convinced of the benefits.

By the way, I have set up a special Facebook page for people who are interested in learning how to build a platform. It is called My Own Platform, emphasizing that if it’s going to happen, you must take responsibility for it.

Question: What other benefits do you see to building your own platform? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Seven Steps to Writing a Successful Guest Post

GuestBlogger — Fri, 27 May 2011 09:00:27 +0000

This is a guest post by Jeff Goins. He is a writer and missions mobilizer. He lives in Nashville with his wife and dog. You can read his blog and follow him on Twitter. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Although I’ve been blogging since 2005, I still feel like a newbie, sometimes. For years, I’ve wondered, “Why is nobody reading what I’m writing?” Maybe you’ve asked the same question.

I’m beginning to discover the answer. It has to do with community.

I’ve stumbled upon a secret: Blogging is communal, and those who participate in the community win.

My blog readership and influence has grown more in the past six months than it has in the past six years. Why? Because I’ve been guest posting more in the past six months than I have in the past six years.

Most bloggers spin their wheels trying to increase traffic on their own blogs, while overlooking the essential discipline of writing guest posts for other blogs. Nothing can grow your platform quite like it.

Consider the following bloggers: Leo Babauta (of Zen Habits), Brian Clark (of Copyblogger), and Chris Brogan (of Chrisbrogan.com). All have used guest posting as a means of growing the reach of their blogs. And you can, too.

Guest posting is great for search engines, introduces you to new communities (and them to you), and allows your ideas to more freely spread. This is an essential marketing strategy for any blogger, but few know how to do it well.

Here are seven steps to successful guest posting:

Check the guidelines. Many established blogs, including this one, have a list of guidelines that you can follow to make a guest post. Before submitting your post, read the guidelines and follow them.
Study the blog. Do some research to understand the subject and voice of the blog and to see what topics haven’t been covered yet. If you know someone who has guest posted for the blog, ask him how he did it.
Contact the blogger. Email is probably best. In the message, get right to the point. Either pitch an idea or send the whole article, but don’t waste time with unnecessary flattery or self-deprecation. Don’t say “sorry,” and don’t be arrogant. Just be yourself.
Write the best post you can. (This may happen concurrently with #3). Once you’ve made contact with the blogger, you can begin writing. Fight the temptation to hold back your “A” content for your own blog. Guest posts are your best marketing collateral, so don’t submit something less than your best. Once finished, send the ready-to-publish post to the blogger with a byline and link to your website.
Follow up. Depending on the guidelines, give the blogger some time (usually a week) before following up. When you do follow up, keep it positive and polite. You can follow up again a week or two later. If you don’t hear back in a month, tell the blogger that you’d like to take the article elsewhere.
Engage and promote. If the blogger posts your article, first thank her. Then, treat it as you would one of your own posts, if not better. Tweet it, share it, email it, etc. Post an excerpt on your own blog and link to the whole article. Interact in the comments and engage readers who respond. This is a must.
Repeat. Whether you succeed or not, start the whole process over again. If you get rejected, don’t get discouraged. And don’t let it be the last time you try to guest post. Sometimes, the topic is just wrong. Other times, it’s the wrong audience. Regardless, you need to guest post more than once for it to be an effective strategy. So, don’t give up.

One final thought: If the blogger is local (or a traveler), try meeting up with him for coffee. The best blogging relationships are birthed out of real-life relationship.

The most elite bloggers on the Internet have grown their blog readerships through this simple, but effective strategy of guest posting. And you can grow your blog by doing the same.

For more on guest posting, check out Chris Garrett’s program, Guest Posting for Quality Links and Targeted Traffic.

Questions: Do you guest post? What tips or suggestions do you have for more successful guest posting? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Do You Have to Respond to Every Blog Comment?

Michael Hyatt — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:00:46 +0000

As a blogger, I love getting comments. This is one major way in which blogging is different from all other forms of writing. You get near-instant feedback. This is tremendously gratifying, but it can also be a challenge to keep up with them.

Over the last six months, I have seen my average number of comments per post double. This has been due, I think, to four reasons:

Making the comment counts more visible. You’ll notice next to my post title three “talk bubbles”: one for Facebook shares, one for Twitter posts, and one for blog comments. (Note: this is not a WordPress plugin. It is custom code I had written.) This lets people know that a conversation is happening and subtly invites then to join in.
Providing an incentive to comment. Each month, I post my top blog posts and commenters for the previous month. I also give my top 10 commenters a free book. This has its downside in that some commenters are just motivated by volume. But, on average, I think it is been helpful in “jump-starting” the conversation. I plan to continue.
Installing the Disqus commenting system. Not only can my readers login using just about any method they chose, they can even post anonymously. I also don’t require authentication or approval before the comments are posted. (In my opinion, this just penalizes 99% of my commenters who play by the rules.) Most importantly, I can respond to comments via email, which makes it very easy to keep the conversation going.
Engaging in the conversation myself. I think this is huge. The comments provide a forum for people to ask follow-up questions, provide additional links, or even disagree with me. But for this to work like it should, I have to engage with my readers. I have also styled (via CSS) my own comments, so they stand out from the rest.

The problem is that this system doesn’t scale if I think I need to respond to every comment. If your blog audience grows, it won’t scale for you either. Think about it: if you get fifty-plus comments per post, can you really reply to all of them. I doubt it—at least not consistently.

The good news is that you don’t have to. I don’t, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. Here’s why:

A blog conversation is like a dinner party. You have invited everyone to your home for some food and conversation. Your content is like the appetizers. You offer it up to get things rolling.
The main course is the conversation itself. Sure, the food is important, but the difference between a good dinner party and a great one is not the food. It’s the interactions with the other people at the table.
As the host, you don’t have to respond to every comment. In fact, at a real dinner party, it would seem downright weird. It would draw too much attention to you. Instead, the party has to be about them—your guests.
You should be present and add value as appropriate. I comment occasionally just to let know people I haven’t invited them over and then disappeared. I also comment when I think I can add value by answering a question, clarifying something I said, or pointing my guests to additional resources.

The bottom line is that you don’t need to respond to every comment. Though this isn’t scientific, I tend to respond to about 20 percent of them. You may want to do more or less. For me—for right now—this seems about right.

Question: What is your practice in responding to comments? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Should You Hire Someone to Proofread Your Blog Posts?

Michael Hyatt — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 09:00:25 +0000

I usually get one or two emails a day from readers who have caught typos in my blog posts. Most go out of their way to apologize for bringing the subject up. Regardless, I am always appreciative. I fix the error, thank the reader, and move on.

However, on occasion, I get an email from a self-appointed member of the Grammar Police. They feel compelled, not only to point out my errors, but to chide me.

Someone wrote last week,

You should be ashamed. How can you be a book publisher and allow such embarrassing errors on your blog? I am disappointed by your lack of commitment to excellence. It makes me think less of your company. Please: do us all a favor and hire a proofreader!”

I am just grateful I am not this poor woman’s husband!

Should you hire someone to proofread your blog posts? In my opinion, “no.” Here’s why:

It will delay “shipping.” You can fiddle with your writing until it is perfect (an illusion, by the way), or you can publish and move on to the next thing. Perfectionism is the mother of procrastination.
Blogs are not books. If you have an error in a book, it is permanent—at least until the next edition. Not so with blogs. You can make corrections on the fly and re-publish the post immediately.
Even proofreaders don’t catch every typo. We use multiple proofers on every book at Thomas Nelson. Still, those pesky little errors hide in the shadows and only show up once the book is printed. (I swear!) How much proofing is enough? Most of us can’t afford perfection.

I think the better approach is to stay focused on your writing and your output. Churn out the posts. The more you write, the better you will get.

Obviously, you will want to read your post several times personally before you upload it. I go through the following process:

Read through it twice after I have written it.
Read it once out loud.
Publish as a draft and read through it on the blog itself.

Some errors will still slip through the cracks. But at some point, it’s time to hit the “Publish” button and be done with it.

From there, I “crowd-source” my proofreading. My regular readers are happy to do it. I would rather spend my time writing content that adds value than obsessing over every typo, misspelling, and grammatical error.

Question: Do you agree with me? Why or why not? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

How to Record a Video Interview in Eight Steps

Michael Hyatt — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:00:59 +0000

In the last few months, I posted several video interviews with authors (e.g., interviews with Todd Burpo, Guy Kawasaki, and Scott Schwertly). Personally, I think this is more interesting for my readers than simply reading a written review. Both have their place, but a video interview provides a unique perspective on the book from the author’s vantage point.

Editing a Video Interview from Within iMovie

Initially, I had a difficult time getting used to the lower production quality. These kinds of video interviews are no rival for professionally produced ones. But I think it actually works in this case and adds to the credibility of the author and the message.

In the last few days several bloggers have written to me about my workflow. They’ve asked, “How do you create those videos, especially with the side-by-side presentation inside of Skype?”

Rather than answer these queries individually, I thought I’d write a post on it. While you might not have access to book authors, but you might have access to others that would be of interest to your readers.

For me, video interviews are super easy to do. I can record the video, do the editing, and write the post in an hour or less (not including the time I spend reading the book and writing the questions). It is a very efficient use of my time.

Here are the steps I typically go through:

Schedule the video interview. I ask the author to block 30 minutes for the call. (If everything is working on both ends, we should be done in 15 minutes.) I confirm that they have Skype installed and ask for their Skype username. I then put the call on my calendar and include their Skype username in the notes.
Prepare for the interview. Since I am interviewing authors, this means reading their book. I highlight and mark it as I go. Then, when I’m done, I type out a list of 5–7 questions. I then display these questions in a text editor directly under my webcam.
Send the questions to the author. Some authors prefer to respond live, without preparation. (This is actually my preference when I am interviewed.) Others want to prepare. Regardless, I send the questions with a page reference for the answer next to each question. I want the author to know what I am referencing. I also confirm the call time.
Call the author using Skype. I then use Call Recorder for Skype to actually record the video and audio. My preference settings, accessed from within the Skype Preference panel, are set as follows:

Notice that I have the Recording Options: Record Video set to “Split Screen.”
Record the video interview. Make sure you are both ready, and then click the record button on Call Recorder. Try to look into the webcam as much as possible, though you’ll be tempted to look at the image of the person you are interviewing. When you are finished, turn the recorder off. The call will be saved in the folder you designated under your preference settings.
Edit the video with your favorite editor. You can use something as simple as QuickTime Pro. I use iMovie. I generally don’t edit anything within the body of the video itself. I simply trim off the beginning (when we are getting setup) and the end. I also insert a video intro and outro at the beginning and the end. I had these professionally created by Duarte Design. I use a simple cross-fade transition between each element.
Upload to your favorite video sharing site. I upload directly to YouTube from within iMovie. You can also upload to Vimeo or even Facebook. I set the video to “Make this movie personal.” I want to double-check it on the YouTube site before going live to the world. (Once I am happy with the meta-data and thumbnail, I flip the settings on YouTube to “Public.”)
Embed a link to the video into your blog. This will vary, depending on your blogging platform and the software you use to access it. I do mine with a code from within MarsEdit, my blogging software. I have the embed code mapped to a single keystroke. I also write a brief post around the video, introducing it, and including the questions I asked the author. I find that this helps draw people into the video itself.

In addition to this, I send a “preview link” of the post to the author before I go live with it. (I do this with WordPress using a plugin called Public Post Preview. This enables me to give a link to them for public preview of a post before it is published.

All in all, this is pretty straight-forward process. It creates some variety in my content delivery and gives my readers a perspective they might not otherwise get.

Question: What additional questions or comments do you have about this process? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

My Advice to Beginning Bloggers

Michael Hyatt — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:00:22 +0000

Recently, my daughter Marissa asked my advice on starting a blog. What I told her is very different from what I would have said a year ago. Many experienced bloggers might disagree with me, but I thought I would share my advice here.

Many people get excited about blogging. When they start exploring the options, an entire world opens up to them. There are so many choices to make. For example:

Should you go with a hosted blogging platform WordPress.com or a self-hosted one like WordPress.org.
If self-hosted, which hosting service should you use to host it? There are literally hundreds of services available.
And which theme should you pick? There are thousands of free themes, not to mention the premium ones like StandardTheme (which I use).
What about a name and logo? And who will you hire to design it?
What commenting software will you use? Will you go with native WordPress or a third-party system like Disqus (which I use)?
Will you include ads or go add-free?

The number of decisions can be overwhelming. But I think they put the cart before the horse. They are not the questions you should ask first.

People often decide to jump immediately to self-hosted WordPress. (This is what I use, for example.) It is what most of the big bloggers use, with the exception of Seth Godin, who is still on TypePad. (And, oh, by the way, it seems to be working fine for him.)

WordPress.org is enticing, because the basic software is free and you can get space on a server for as little as $6.95 a month. And then you can customize it to your heart’s content.

But don’t be deceived. While the basic WordPress self-host software is free, it is like a crack cocaine sample. It is designed to get you hooked. Once that happens, the expenses begin to mount.

I spend more than $1,000 a month on my blog. I know: this is shocking to most people.

This amount includes hosting, server administration, custom programming, software services, trouble-shooting, and more. Sometimes, I feel like it is a black hole.

For me, it is worth it, because of the traffic I generate and the income it produces from ads affiliate commissions. But it has taken me years to get to this place.

The truth is that most people who start a blog quit within a few months. (Re-read that sentence again and let it sink in.)

Setting up a blog is the easy part; actual blogging is the hard part. Once the initial enthusiasm wanes, it is difficult to keep posting. Most would-be bloggers post less and less until they simply quit and abandon their blog.

I am not trying to discourage you. Honestly. But before you invest a bunch of time and money in self-hosted WordPress, you need to answer two questions:

Can you generate high quality content on a regular basis? (And by “regular” I mean at least three times a week, minimum.)
Will my content attract a loyal and growing audience? This might not be your goal, but you won’t generate enough income to cover your costs unless you do.

In my opinion, until you can answer these questions with a resounding “Yes,” you have no business investing the time and money on self-hosted WordPress.

Instead, here’s what I recommended to Marissa, as a beginning blogger. It’s what I would also recommend to you if you are thinking about starting a blog:

Set up a blog at WordPress.com. It’s simple and free.
Upgrade to the Premium version. It is only $12–$17 per year. It will allow you to map your unique domain name to your WordPress.com site (e.g., michaelhyatt.com vs. michaelhyatt.wordpress.com).
Select a theme. WordPress.com now has over 100 to choose from. You can upload your own logo if you want, and do some other customization. This is way cheaper than paying a designer the $2,500 to $10,000 they will charge to create a custom design.
Start writing. Anything that stands between you and this is a distraction.

Too many bloggers I know spend way too much time tweaking their design and fiddling with plugins instead of writing. If you write compelling content on a regular basis, you will build an audience. You will then be able to monetize your traffic and upgrade to a different platform. In the meantime, stay focused—and write!

Update: Many of the most popular blogs in the world are on WordPress.com. Here is a list of the top ones. Also, as your blog becomes successful, you can migrate it to WordPress.com VIP. It is for uber-bloggers who don’t want the hassle of creating a self-hosted site.

Question: What advice do you have for beginning bloggers? You can leave a comment by clicking here.