Seth Godin is one of my favorite writers. I love the way he sees things differently and makes me think. Most of his books are on my book shelf. Here is a video of the interview he did at the B2B Marketing Forum in Holland.
In the video he explains why a company should blog. Why Seth has no comments on his blog and why he is not using Twitter. All very valid and interesting reasons. Where so many of us just do what we are supposed to do: “Be on Twitter” “Be on Facebook”. Seth thinks about the advantages and disadvantages, “Do I want to spend time here?” and then comes to a decision.
Also they talk about his latest book Linchpin that has nothing to do with marketing. Very interesting espacially when you work at an organisation. The chapters about Thinking about your choice, The resistance and Making the Choice.
During a workshop one of the attendees, Patrick, was really skeptical about LinkedIn. It was clear that he was not going to use LinkedIn. He sat there with his arms crossed and listened. After 5 minutes or so he interrupted the presentation and asked a question.
“This is all great”, he says, “but I still don’t see why I should use LinkedIn. I use Outlook, all my mail comes in there and all my contacts are in there. So why should I start using LinkedIn when I am already using Outlook?”
It was clear that Patrick was not ready to use LinkedIn. So I had to bring it down one notch and talk about the Why? Why do you want to use LinkedIn? In this case I want to make clear what the advantages are over an email program with a database of contacts, Outlook.
In the video I talk about 3 advantages of LinkedIn compared to Outlook:
In Outlook, or any other program with contacts on your computer, you are the person whom is changing and entering the details of your contacts. When a contact changes address or phone number you will have to make those changes in the software. In LinkedIn the owner of the profile will change their details. So any changes are being maintained by the owner not you.
In Outlook you can not see what the connections are between your contacts. You will have to find out about the connections in conversations and enter those manually in Outlook. LinkedIn is a great software. All your details and that of your contacts is data. LinkedIn is able to find connections. The software will reveal connections between people that you are connected to and even to people that you are not connected to. LinkedIn can show you your connections, their connections and even their connections. So up to the 3rd grade. Suddenly you get access to a huge database of people that could help you.
The workshop was about getting clients via LinkedIn. So the last point is about attracting clients. You use Outlook to receive email from your contacts and send email to these contacts. In LinkedIn you can profile yourself in a way that when contacts of your contact land on your profile see what you offer and may contact you. If you are clear about who your target audiance is and what you do for this group you will attract clients.
After the workshop I had a longer talk with Patrick and he is a happy signage supplier. He has some great customers all over Europe and is not really looking for new business at the moment. He did have an issue with finding trainees whom really wanted to learn his trade.
Patrick teaches about his trade in school and sees that there only a few young people interested in really want to learn about all aspects of signage. He wants the best of the best to come and learn from him.
So I showed him that these young people are also some sort of a client that you could attract. Then he really saw the light and wanted to learn more about using LinkedIn to attract the best and most interested trainees. At this point I suggested that Facebook would probably be the best tool to use for his needs.
Do you use Outlook or LinkedIn or Facebook for your contact database?
At the last day of SOBCon 2010 we worked in groups on 4 charity projects. The first day was Hank Wasiak shared a great story with us about Asset Based Thinking.
Just before we all departed on this last day of SOBCon, Hank did me this favor of a short video. He is sharing that Social Media is not about media anymore it is about the 5th P in your marketing mix. The P of People. Watch Hank rand.
This is post was inspired by Justin McCullough. Justin is building an ebook about Twitter, for new users to embrace Twitter. He is building it together with other contributors. So feel free to jump in on the Twitter eBook Project. My contribution is about why You want to use Twitter.
At SOBCon 2010 I have first met Justin. It was a great event with many great people. The event is organized by the wonderful Liz Strauss and great Terry Starbucker. Pieter brought my attention to this ebook and there you have it.
What to do Contribute 300 words or less in the form of best practices, a quote, advice, top 10 list, or blog post.
Purpose Provide newbies and folks who are struggling to embrace twitter with short, concise, helpful instruction on what twitter is and how to use it. In short, this will help tell folks what we wish they knew about twitter so they are more fun, engaging, and twitter friendly!
So here is my contribution:
Why do you want to Twitter?
What is Twitter – is not very difficult to explain. You can also find great tutorials of How you can use Twitter. The most important question is of course Why you want to use Twitter. If someone is saying “You simply MUST use Twitter.”, let me share with you, they are wrong.
There is no need for you to be on Twitter. Even though it is a lot of fun. It is also one of the most easiest ways to meet new people and to find out if you like them or not. So it is also a very easy way for people to find out if they like you or not. Or better yet if they LOVE you.
Why do you want to use Twitter has a relation with Why you are in business, Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you do what you do? What is it that you bring to this world that makes it a better place for the people around you?
When you have the answer to that “Why?”, Twitter is a great platform to spread your message and find fans. Please remember that your website or blog on your own domain hosted by yourself is your first platform, your hub. Do not build a movement on a platform that is not yours because the risk that it will not be there one day is just to big. Or if the platform changes the rules in a way that does not support your message you should be able to give it up.
Why is Twitter such a great platform? You have only 140 characters to bring your message. Fans or haters have only 140 characters to respond to your message. You have to think about what you want to say because you only have 140 characters. It is easy to write book, but it is difficult to remove enough words so that the book becomes outstanding. So you have to think really hard what you want to say in 140 characters that will touch the people around you.
Reading @lizstrauss‘ tweets you will probably understand what I mean here.
So here is the 3 step plan:
Find your answer to the Why? question.
Build your website or blog, your Hub, to spread your message
Attract Fans on a platform like Twitter to come to your Hub.
This way you will build trust with your followers. Once we trust you, we can start to LOVE you. When people LOVE you they will follow you.
Erno Hannink helps independent professionals use social media to get more fans. ErnoHannink.com and @ernohannink
For the visitors of this event I did something special. The 30 minutes version of my book Laat de klant naar jou komen (Dutch) has been translated to English so I can share it with the attendees.
January 2009 I met Rohit Bhargava in Las Vegas at Social Media Diner. After a talk and video Rohit gave me 2 copies of his book Personality not Included since I offered him to help him to get it published in the Netherlands. Now it is available in the Netherlands Persoonlijkheid niet Inbegrepen is the title.
It is a great book to get translated because it is an important subject and will be read more and understood better in Dutch for companies from Holland.
Every 2 weeks we do video-interviews with people that have great tips for, solopreneurs, solo entrepreneurs and independent professionals. This is broadcast live on regioz.nl and you can also look at all the interviews here. Often these interviews are in Dutch, I also like to do interviews in English for an international audience. This is our first interview in English.
This interview with the lovely Stephanie Ward, owner of Firefly Coaching is about pick your niche. A very interesting subject. It is also the subject of my next book that will be published January 2011.
So it is great to have Stephanie in this interview and share her tips to Pick your Niche. She talks about picking your people and problem and ideal clients.
WordCast is a blog and podcasts about blogging, social media and WordPress. Every week Dave Moyer (@davemoyer) and Kym Huynh (@kymhuynh) interview experts for WordCast Conversations. It is broadcasted live and published as a podcast for about an hour.
In the interview I answer questions on how I started as an independent professional, my work, WordCamp Netherlands and more.
This week on WordCast Conversations, we’re heading to the Netherlands one more time, to chat with Erno Hannink, an independent social media consultant and the lead organizer of WordCamp Netherlands.
It was a lot of fun to do, although I feel that I was talking a lot…
Erno recommended Darren Rowse’s Problogger as inspiration for those aspiring to a career in social media.
As a WordCamp organizer, Kym discussed the WordCamp format with Erno, who also shared many of his own experiences and tips for up-and-coming WordCamps.
What is success for you. What do you want to miss to gain success in another field. When you achieve success are you really happy or were you aiming for a picture of success that is not your own.
Some books by Alain de Botton are Status Anxiety and Status Anxiety. Alain is the initiator of a project, Living Architecture. He wanted to create the opportunity that we can stay for a couple of nights in very special houses designed by a number of architects in the UK.
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