I began the year with a couple of goals that I thought I needed to work on to help increase both my business and my web presence.
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What I realized is that, even though I’ve been online for a whole lot of years, which includes hitting 10 years on my business blog and 7 years on this blog, overall I’m still an unknown entity. I’m not sure if it’s because my name, Mitch Mitchell, is the same as Jimi Hendrix’ drummer’s name, or whether my writing style isn’t enough to capture enough people’s attention, or maybe all those times that I’ve been out of town and haven’t commented on as many blogs as I used to in the past, has stripped me of any name recognition.
Either that or people just don’t like me anymore. 🙂
In any case, I knew that I had to find ways to get noticed a lot more than I’ve been noticed lately. So I decided to start what I felt like was a more aggressive online strategy of promotion. This post is going to talk about things I’ve done and how they’ve worked out.
Let’s start with Twitter. I’m pretty active on Twitter already, reading a lot of people’s links, commenting on those links, sharing those links, and often finding people to talk to, though pretty late at night. What I realized is that I didn’t share my own stuff enough. So what I started doing is posting links from this blog on Twitter at least five times a day. The way I was doing it initially was kind of problematic, because most of the links I posted were at night instead of during the daytime when there was a possibility that more people would see them.
I did that for about a month and took a look at my analytics and saw that Twitter was now the number two referrer to the blog. However, I didn’t really notice all that much of a difference in traffic to the blog. Still, I’ll take what I can get.
Then I watched a video by a young lady named Amy who has the channel she calls Savvy Sexy Social. She offers all types of marketing tips, especially online, and in this particular video ( I can’t remember which one now) she talked about scheduling tweets during the day. I had never thought about doing this before, but she mentioned that Tweetdeck allowed you to schedule tweets and showed how it works.
I thought that was pretty neat, so I decided to employ that as a strategy. Over the last 10 days I’ve been scheduling tweets to basically run throughout the day, in general covering the period between 9AM and midnight. I figured that anything else I post between the other period I would post live, since I tend to stay up late. I set up my tweets to go live between every 25 to 35 minutes throughout the day, with one exception I’ll mention later.
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I also decided that I had to add some other things to the mix. So, I added links to my business blog, some links from a couple of other blogs, and actual quotations that I have made on my business blog over the years. It turns out that every one of us is actually quotable based on things we’ve written, and if we go back and look at that stuff we will find quotes that are pretty good.
I decided to start with my oldest blog posts and work forward, and at this point I’m through June 2008, so I have another 6 1/2 years worth of posts to look at. Whenever I post a quote I’ll pop it in within 13 to 17 minutes of the previous blog link, then I can post my next blog link a bit earlier, though sometimes I just start the period at another 30 minutes. Every once in a while I also add a video link.
In just 10 days the traffic to this blog has increased about 15%. I’m thinking that’s pretty good. My Alexa rank (which some people put down, but it’s not a bad thing to look at as a higher level thing) has gone from 378,000 to 308,000 in that period of time; nope, not mad at all. The traffic to my business blog has also increased, but that’s where things get slightly more complicated and I will tell you why.
Around the beginning of the month our buddy Beverly Mahone happened to mention to me that I should think about writing some articles on LinkedIn. At first I was hesitant but then decided what could it hurt. Instead of writing a brand new article, I took an article off my business blog that I had also used on my consultants group blog, made some modifications and put it up. I was amazed at the response it got. People I didn’t know saw it and liked it, a few people shared it to Twitter, some people commented on it, and some of those people started noticing that my business blog links showed up in my profile and they started reading them there and commenting there on them.
I figured that was pretty amazing, so I started writing more articles on that site. To date I’m up to 10 articles, including one I wrote last Friday. That has resulted in about 50 new people wanting to connect with me on LinkedIn, and I’ve had conversations with three people on the phone. It hasn’t generated any real business, but anytime you can make business connections on the phone and you didn’t have to reach out to someone first, it’s always a good thing. So I thank Bev for that recommendation, and I would recommend LinkedIn in a heartbeat.
The other couple of sites I’m on?
Facebook turns out to be a disaster. It seems that they have determined that fewer than 10 people should be allowed to see anything I put on my business page there, even though I have close to 360 people that have subscribed. A couple of times I resorted to putting my link in other groups and on my personal page, where I saw that it got a couple more views generally, but Facebook is a different animal because the way it counts views doesn’t necessarily mean that someone clicked on it. Thus, I have shown no increase in traffic from Facebook, and am very disappointed in it.
Google Plus? Before I came home I was spending a lot of time on Google Plus, mainly sharing things other people put up and occasionally posting something I did. Whenever I do a video it automatically pops up there, but that doesn’t mean it gets all that many views. Those also don’t drive traffic to any of my sites, but possibly to YouTube, and when I checked those analytics I’m not seeing all that much happening either.
So, it means I have to recommend that if you’re going to put out things that you want people to see you should probably be using either Twitter or LinkedIn. Oh yeah, I should quickly mention that I have stepped up my blog commenting again, and as you know I always say that tends to help drive more traffic to your blog or website.
As I wrote last year, if you’re willing to put in the work you can get more traffic and get more people to know you. I figure this is only the beginning for me in some ways, but I’m willing to put in the work.
What about you?
Hey Mitch!
I’m working on strategies to improve my social presence. I’m pretty much starting from scratch, but this time around I have a better understanding of how to use social media.
Have you considered posting your videos directly to Facebook? You can add a call to action on your videos and I think people love videos and photos. We pretty much have to pay for people to notice us on Facebook / have some kind of reach. I’m trying to do things organically, but I know eventually I’ll be paying for ads.
I’m gearing up to put in the work and looking forward to seeing what happens.
Enjoyed your post and tips. Gives me that extra push. 🙂
Hey Evelyn; thanks! Truthfully, I post one of my videos here and there on Facebook but they get almost no attention; I’m not even sure anyone has ever clicked on one. They like the cute stuff better it seems. Some of my videos, I wouldn’t want to post to the general public, friends and such, so I’ve posted them on my business page and, once again, nothing.
At least people are starting to share more of my stuff on Twitter; that’s about as cool as it gets.
Hey Mitch,
I do have to shake my head also. It is really what they say it is “A social network”, equated is equated to all the colleges and universities that were considered party schools. It’s fun being there, but you’re not going to get too much else out of it. At least from my own experience.
So i have concentrated a lot of my efforts on other sites and activities. i do have to agree with you on twitter and Linkedin. Despite the fact I’m on facebook a lot more, I get way more traffic and response on Twitter and LinkedIn.
The funny thing is that the only think I do on LinkedIn is share my posts and other people’s posts. I get a lot of requests to connect every single day just about.
But my top traffic referrer is kingged.com hands down. It’s not as visually attractive as Facebook, but you get a lot more value. You told me a while back that you had a problem with blog communities, but I do believe no one should sleep on this blog community.
Also going back to Linkedin, I’ve read a couple of posts about writing articles in this site. You’re the 4th person that’s mentioned that you found success in doing this, so with that said, I’m going to have to make some room in writing some articles there as well!
Thanks for sharing your stats here Mitch! You gave some great ideas that I should turn my focus on
Thanks for stopping by Sherman. You’re right, I feel burned by every blog community I ever joined and at the present time I can’t see myself doing it again.
It’s been an amazing experiment and I’m going to continue it for a while because I feel like business is just around the corner. The interest has been amazing; course, I’m still trying to get more of these folks to actually talk to me but they’re sharing stuff so I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 🙂
Hi Mitch,
First of all, thanks for the shout out but quite frankly, I always thought you were writing on LinkedIn. Secondly, I always thought you knew about Tweetdeck. That’s ALL I use for Twitter and, like you, I schedule my tweets well past my bedtime. When I wake up in the morning I find that a number of people have re-tweeted me. Remember when it’s midnight our time, it’s only 9pm on the west coast and in Australia, it may be the next day.
I never thought Facebook was anything more than a social spot. Now I do have business pages there for Boomer Diva Nation but I don’t try to really promote anything there. I DO use video though. I use those EVERYWHERE–except LinkedIn but I have to be mindful of what kind of videos I put there.
I think you are doing all of the right things. I do think having “cheerleaders” helps with your visibility because they will promote you without you having to ask.
One more thing….you and I have talked about this before. I do think some of your videos are too long and will not hold a “short” attention span.
Hey Bev, glad you finally stopped by. I’m in a few more places and making a bit more headway these days than before thanks to you, as I haven’t been paying attention as much.
As for the videos… you’re a professional who was used to having to get things done in a specific amount of time. I’m a freestyle speaker and presenter and idea guy; like my writing, I’m going to state my peace my way. I might not be everyone’s cup of tea in that regard but I’m a be me! lol After all, anyone who meets me and expects the other will be sadly disappointed…
hi,
i am new to blogging, and i was searching for quality help from senior bloggers. I have some facebook activity but not active in other social sites. I want to say thanks for sharing quality information.
thanks
sunil kumar
India
Hey Mitch, I think it depends on what you want to accomplish, you have been online for a very long time already so I’m sure you have a lot of knowledge already.
I understand social media to a certain point, then I know nothing after that.
For instance, Google+ has always been a mistery for me. I do post my updates there but hardly ever engage or even use the social network myself.
For LinkedIn, I know in advance that whatever I post in there might not get a company to hire me but sometimes I don’t care about that and post anyway.
I don’t think I have any traffic coming from LinkedIn to be honest but people do interact with the updates by leaving a few comments or liking what I publish.
As for twitter and facebook I do like both.
I engage in both and use them in real time.
I used to schedule postings but then I found out it was too much work on the things that didn’t matter that much (or at least that’s how I saw it)
So now I focus more on delivering content whether that is through facebook groups or by having short conversations on twitter.
Hope you’re doing good man, long time no see but I’m happy to see you still rocking it here.
Take care!
Hey Sergio! What I didn’t mention in the article, which is a major oversight, is that I started adding a hashtag to those posts. That’s when things popped for me because, it turns out, lots of people have lists of topics that they like to follow. So posts about blogging, SEO and social media have been popular with one group, and posts about leadership have been popular with another group. I’ve even had some people who have been enjoying my personal finance articles. I’m not one of those folks who puts hashtags on everything, but on the scheduled posts they’ve been working very well. That and I have lots of posts to choose from over the years so it doesn’t look like I’m always posting the same thing.
You’re right though, it does take some time. Not much though, as I created a file to save things in, then I just copy and paste.
Hey Mitch,
Now you’re the one who told me I will never automate tweets so you have known about it but you just refused to do it yourself. As I’ve told you many times before we all can’t be everywhere 24/7 so this is the way to help get your content seen. It doesn’t mean total automation and no building relationships. People appreciate their content being shared and then when you connect with them as well that’s an added bonus.
I know that LinkedIn is definitely the place to make more of the business type connections. My particular audience isn’t on that site but I’m so happy to hear that your content is picking up steam. To actually talk to a few people on the phone is saying a lot. It’s the beginning my friend, look at it that way. You’ll get there and I’m so darn happy for you.
We really always have to be testing things to see where our traffic is coming from so you’re doing the right thing Mitch. Keep it up and step it up on the sites that you are having the best results.
It’s just a matter of time so keep up the great work.
~Adrienne
Actually Adrienne, part of this is your fault! lol Remember the thing about not being on lists and my consternation about it? Well, I knew about ways of doing it but I didn’t want to sign up for any services. However, I didn’t know about doing it on TweetDeck, and that’s turned out to be great since I’ve been using it for years. And truth be told, I’m on almost all the time anyway so it’s not like I’ll post something at 2AM and not be there if someone responds. That’s more the part of where I feel it’s kind of goofy.
TweetDeck was a comfort level I could deal with, but it takes time. LinkedIn is just writing articles here and there, but my blogs will still be my main focus. However, you know that my long term goal is to be a professional presenter and speaker, so if I can do the work in spreading my name and message… who knows right? Still, it’s all me; not a blogging directory or service or needing people to vote me up somewhere. I feel like I still have control over what’s being put out. I can live with that for now… until I get tired. lol
You’re something else. You can’t look at my photo of a BEE, but you actually WANT to get up in front of a whole bunch of people and speak. You have courage. You’re just…differently courageous.
I hate to say it, but I do think the “social media marketers” have spoiled “social media” to some extent – we’re all burnt out. We just don’t give a rat’s whiskers anymore. It used to be fairly easy – post your links and “ooh, shiny!” – something new to read. Curiosity might lead readers in. But then they got wary of links altogether. Links were a trap and a short path to malware, unwanted spam, and a whole lot of other “evil things” in many users’ minds. Trust is still the currency of the web; it’s just a lot harder to earn and to keep.
Holly, I think they’ve ruined social media like they ruined email with all the spam. There’s nothing wrong with marketing but some of what we see is way over the top, and it makes up distrust a lot of things. Heck, I won’t click on links people send me that I don’t know via social media, which is smart but also a shame.