Steve Hartkopf

In my book Communication Wins, I write about message structure, types of messages, communication strategies, gaining credibility with your audience, audience analysis and many other topics that matter to writers.

One of my favorite chapters is Chapter 14 – Tools of the Trade. Below is an updated version of an excerpt from that chapter. Learn to use these tools and I guarantee that your writing and speaking will improve.

Compare and contrast: An apple and an orange are both fruits. They are comparable and alike. However, they are also different. They have contrast in their appearance (red versus orange), outer skin (smooth versus rough), texture and taste. You can increase your listeners’ understanding of one feature by highlighting its opposite. For example, we can better understand wisdom by illustrating foolishness.

Repetition: Repeating and summarizing concepts can help your audience grasp important concepts, experience emotions, or heed your call to action. Ministers, coaches, and motivational speakers often use this technique to drive home key points.

Metaphor: A metaphor is a game of pretend. A metaphor pretends that something is something else. A word or phrase that describes one thing is used to describe something not normally associated with that word or phrase. For example, “Her heart melted with compassion when she saw her tiny son struggling to tie his shoelaces.” Obviously, her heart did not “melt” in the literal sense.

Euphemism: An inoffensive or indirect expression replaces words that may be considered offensive, impolite, harsh or shocking. Saying someone “passed away” is a euphemism for “died.”

Simile: A figure of speech that makes a direct comparison between two unlike entities using the words “like” or “as.” For example, “She’s smart as a whip.” Similes can create vivid associations in your audience’s mind. Similes are like garlic; they should be used sparingly. The reason to use them sparingly is because they tend to require the audience to pause and think about the comparison and that can interrupt the flow of your message.

Symbolism: Symbolism evokes (but does not describe) an emotion, concept or idea. You can use the symbolism of something concrete to represent something abstract, such as a flag to evoke the concepts of duty, loyalty and honor; a light bulb to represent the concept of a brilliant idea; a company logo to represent brand attributes, or a lion to represent bravery and strength. Icons and emoticons are modern-day symbols. Symbols are often more effective than perfectly constructed sentences.

Concrete/Abstract: Concrete terms and words refer to things we engage through our senses. Something may be “hot,” “green,” or “loud.” Abstract terms may be just as real but less available to our senses – freedom, love, success and sexism (any ism) are examples of abstract words that have real meaning but are undetectable through our five senses.

Steve

I should have seen that one coming James. Here’s my recommendation: Ask them.

I’d start by finding sites you are willing to link to and then create a link on your site. Then add sites that you think your site compliments, adds value to. In total you’ll probably want 50-100 targets. Finally, send emails requesting a link. It’s best to send the emails to an individual and not to a “Contact Us” email address.

That’s a lot of emailing so I recommend that you create a template and avoid all that unnecessary re-writing and typing. Writing your link requests in a friendly and personalized style will increase your chances of success.

Here is an example of a link request for a fictitious company:

Subject: Social media resources on your website

Good morning, [insert name],

I found the resources on your site helpful and well organized, especially the articles and whitepapers on social media. My company, Get2NoMeZ.com is dedicated to helping others master social media. As far as I can tell we do not compete with one another.

Since November 2007 we’ve posted a new blog three times a week. It’s a big commitment on our part but, like you, we’re serious about helping others and understand that being found on the web takes hard work and constant effort, which is why I’m emailing you.

The purpose of this email is to ask you if would post a link to our site on your site’s Resource Section – www.socialmediamatters/resources.htm?

You can link to us by downloading our logo and code from www. Get2NoMeZ.com/linktous.htm or just create your own link.

We have already added a link to your site (www. Get2NoMeZ.com/resources.htm) on our website and trust you are already getting additional traffic.

I can check your site in a couple weeks to see if you’ve granted my request but an email response would really be appreciated.

Keep up the good work and thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

Regards,

Steve Hartkopf

800-659-3638 (Linda or Ben)

Feel free to borrow this template. Obviously it will have to be modified if you’re writing to a site you don’t want to link to from your site.

If you decide to write your own email request template you’ll want to remember to include the following:

It’s a good idea to write a few variations of your request template to (1) see what works best and (2) speak in the style and tone of your target audience. Requests to large corporations, for example, need to be formal while requests to small companies can be less formal.

Finally, remember to keep a record of all the link requests you send out, track your results and don’t be a spammer.

Steve

Part 2 of 2

On Monday we learned that About.com forecast Twitter to reach 26 million users (15.5% of adult internet users) by 2010, taught you how open your own Twitter account and discussed being a good Twitizen. Today you’ll learn how to:

How can you locate the right people to Follow? Here are some tools:

• Wefollow (http://wefollow.com) lists the Twitter people –Tweeps, Twits or Tweople – with the most Followers by tag usage. Think of a tag as a subject, such as music or news, and Follow the most popular people in your areas of interest.
• Twellow (http://www.twellow.com) is “a search directory of people by area of expertise, profession or other attribute listed in personal profiles. Use the same follow tactic here.
• Nearby Tweets (http://nearbytweets.com) is a very cool tool because it lets you find other Twits in your, or some other, geography. Personal note: I walked into an event in my home town and the first person I introduced myself to said, “Oh, I know you, I Follow you on Twitter.” It was cool. We both started laughing.
• Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) allows you to search the Twittersphere for keywords or topics and is an excellent way to find like-minded people, potential clients or business partners to Follow.
• Listorious (http://www.listorious.com) was explained in detail in my November 4 post (http://tinyurl.com/yal4ay5) so just let me say, it’s a super directory of lists on Twitter and I highly recommend you use it to locate people to Follow.

How you get people to Follow you:

• The first tip is a no-brainer: Provide good content. Post (Tweet) content that is interesting, useful and/or entertaining and your followship will grow.
• The second tip is to make sure your profile is well written, your page design is well executed and, in general, you treat your Twitter account as a marketing tool. Most people prefer to know the people they Follow and your online presence is your introduction, the beginning of knowing you.
• List your Twitter account on your website, blog, all of your social media accounts, email signature and printed materials, if you have them, and provide a link to your Twitter account whenever possible.
• Pick a tweet-niche and stick to it since it is, in effect, your online brand. Most of my tweets are about business communication and using technology in digital marketing. However, I also throw in a few posts about current events, sports and fun stuff, such videos, to show the lighter side of my personality.
• Since most of the people you Follow will Follow you in return, using the previously mentioned tools will drive your Follower number up is a great way to increase Followers.
• Retweet (RT) the people you want following you. Most Twitters review their list of RT’s and if you are helping them spread their message it’s likely they will Follow you out of courtesy/reciprocity.

How you can locate topics to Tweet and Retweet:

• Follow your passions. If, like me, you enjoy social media, current events and fun-stuff, then post about those topics.
• Visit websites that have great content and either comment (tweet) about what you read or RT articles, posts and videos.
• Here are the sites I visit often for content.
  • Google (http://www.google.com) is my #1 source. When a topic strikes my fancy, I Google it to learn more and that often spurs a post.
  • The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/home-page). WSJ is right in my wheelhouse as far as business reporting, quality writing and politics. I think the online subscriptions is, like, $69.00 a year.
  • YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) is my #2 source. I’m always amazed at what is available on YouTube. There’s a video on almost every subject imaginable and a lot of them are either hysterical or surprisingly informative.
• For information about technology and what technology marvel is coming next I visit:
  • Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com)
  • CNET (http://www.cnet.com)
  • TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com)
  • Alltop (http://alltop.com) is an online magazine rack where you can pick up great information, current thinking, well-written articles and post about almost any subject.
  • There are a lot of great blogs and blogger directories online. Here are the ones I use the most:
    • Mashable (http://www.mashable.com) is a blog dedicated to social networking news and events.
    • Copyblogger (http://www.copyblogger.com) promotes itself as a site for “copywriting tips for online success” and, in my view, it delivers.
    • Problogger (www.problogger.net) helps “bloggers add income streams to their blogs.”
    • The Bloggers’ Bulletin (http://www.thebloggersbulletin.org) is an excellent source for “Tips, Tools and News on Blogging!” (Yes, this is shameless self-promotion since I’m a contributor. So sue me. Check it out, I think you’ll agree that the team is producing good content and helping a lot of people get started blogging.)

Final thought on behalf of all bloggers, most of us put a lot of time and energy into our blogs. We take this stuff seriously. So tell us how we’re doing? Is this information useful? What else would you like us to report on, discuss or teach? If you’re not comfortable making public comments, send me an email at shartkopf@aligned-marketing.com. I’d really like to hear from you.

It’s Wednesday, the only one this week. Do something remarkable!

Steve

About.com projects Twitter will have 26 million users (15.5% of adult internet users) in 2010. That’s a lot of folks. If you haven’t joined the Twitter-train yet, it’s time you got onboard.

Here are the basics as well as some guidelines for being a good Twitizen, assuming that’s one of your goals.

Opening your account:

• Visit: http://www.twitter.com

• Create your account. You’ll need to create a unique username (see next bullet) and password, and have to enter your email address. These can all be changed.

• Unless you’re a major corporation, if this account will be used to promote your business I highly recommend using some form of your name since the Twittersphere is social media – an online conversation amongst people.

• Create your fill-in-the-blanks Bio. Give this some thought, especially if you’re using this account for business.

• You can upload your picture, or a picture/image, which I highly recommend. Note, the file can’t be larger than 700k and since the default window is square, a square image works best, at least in my opinion.

• There is a Default background, or you can create your own. There are several free templates online. (Short commercial: Contact me at shartkopf@aligned-marketing.com if you want my design team to develop a custom page for you or your business.)

Twitter terms you should know:

• Tweep or Twit is someone who uses Twitter.

• Tweet is a message. Messages must be shorter than 140 characters, which is why many refer to twitter as a micro-blogging tool.

• Follower is a person (tweep) who has chosen to track (follow) your tweets.

• Short URL refers to one of the many tools you can use to shorten long urls and, thereby, tweet them without exceeding the 140-character limit. I use the “TinyURL Generator” Add-on for Firefox.

• Re-Tweet or RT means resending another twit’s tweet. As you can imagine, this is huge in the Twittersphere because it is a form of viral marketing.

• DM is short for direct message. A DM is a private tweet to a specific twit. (Okay, even I have to admit, that sounded weird.)

• If you want to send a tweep to a specific person simply insert “@” before that person’s Twitter name and it will be sent directly to them. Note, it will be visible to all so, as with anything in the ether, be careful what you say.

How to be a good Twitizen:

• Be friendly and open to others.

• Don’t be put off by all the spam, let it roll off your back.

• Similarly, don’t spam or sell constantly, it’s a form of harassment.

• Limit your tweets (I tweet 5-10 a day) and pause between tweets.

• Be funny but understand one person’s joke can be another’s insult.

• Mix your business/cause tweets with pleasant, fun or interesting tweets.

• ReTweet often but only if you genuinely think the tweets merits recycling.

On Wednesday’s post we’ll teach you:

• How you can find people to Follow.

• How to find people to Follow you.

• How to locate tweet topics and items to retweet.

Remember, this is the only Monday you’ll get this week so enjoy it and do something remarkable!

Steve

If you use Twitter much then you know it’s really hard to find quality content. Most tweeting is just babble and self-promotion. Help may be n the way.

Twitter recently launched Lists, which is a tool that allows you to group the people you follow into categories. The benefit is you can reduce the number of people you truly want follow and avoid the noise created by those that, for whatever reason, are included in you officially Follow. You can now drill down into the conversations/news that matters to you. Here’s a summary of the benefits I see with Lists:

1. You save time.
Someone else has already discovered the best people to Follow for your keyword. As you scan the lists you’ll notice that many of them include the same people. That’s ok,. That means the crowd has spoken and a consensus was reached.

2. You’re not giving up any control.
You don’t have to actually Follow all the people on a list.  You can just follow a list and dive in occasionally to see what people on your list are tweeting about and then go back to your main feed to see what everyone you are Following are tweeting about. In the end, you actually gain more control. That’s huge, I Follow over 1,000 people and have over 1,000 Following me, there’s no way I can keep up all the Tweets.

3. Personalization
You can create your own lists and set them up as either public or private. There will be times and topics where you want to create your own list. For example, I’m going to create a list of tweople in the Lake Wylie, (SC) area.

4. Listorious
There’s a complimentary service that just came out called Listorious. Listorious aggregates the best lists from everyone and lets you use them as a resource. It’s very cool! It was created by Sawhorse Media in New York City and has over 6.5 million lists already. You simply type in a word such as “news,” for example, and the tool delivers you the best lists.

Here are a few lists I like:
Linkers: http://listorious.com/palafo/linkers
Thought Leaders: http://listorious.com/kitson/thought-leaders
New Media: http://listorious.com/palafo/newmedia
Great Content: http://listorious.com/Jason_Pollock/great-content
Blogging: http://listorious.com/bloggersblog/blogging
Marketing: http://listorious.com/dannysullivan/marketing

Steve

Part 3 of 3:

3. Advanced Tactics

Part 1 of 3

Inbound links are an important and often misunderstood search engine optimization tactic.

But before we get into tactics, let’s begin with a definition. According to Wikipedia: An inbound link is a hyperlink transiting (Is that a word?) domains. Links are inbound from the perspective of the link target, and conversely, outbound from the perspective of the originator. Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO).

In addition to rankings by content, many search engines rank pages based on inbound links. Google’s description of their PageRank system, for instance, notes that Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.[1] Knowledge of this form of search engine rankings has fueled a portion of the SEO industry commonly termed linkspam, where a company attempts to place as many inbound links as possible to their site regardless of the context of the originating site…

Got that?

Maybe this is an easier way to get your head around the concept of inbound links. There are thousands of directories on the web. There are even directories for directories, such as Best of the Web (www.botw.org) or Web Directories (www.web-directories.ws), which boasts 13,000 directories. When these directories list your site’s url and provide a link to your site, that is an Inbound Link.

There are many techniques and methods that produce varied results. In my next four posts you will learn some easy and not so easy ways to build links to your site.

1. Beginner Tactics
First, you must have a solid keyword strategy and optimize each page on your website around a different keyword phrase. Each link you build should help a specific page rank higher on the search engines for your specific keyword.

That said, begin your linking strategy by submitting your page url to relevant free directories. There are lots of business directories (for example) out there where you can just submit your URL, company name and a description of your business. MacRAES Blue Book (www.macraesbluebook.com) is one. MacRAES lists US and Canadian suppliers of industrial product.  Some directories require approval, some require an update every 90 -120 days and some require a fee, which means it takes time, effort and maybe even some financial resources if you want to be listed on the appropriate directories for your website or blog.

In addition use social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, the usual suspects, to build links to your site and blog, assuming your target audience visits the site or these sites rank high for your keywords already.

At this point it’s also a good idea to consider hiring someone to perform this work for you. The work is easy to do, albeit time consuming, and as you would expect, delivers a good return on your investment. Just don’t hire a firm that guarantees 10,000 links for $500 dollars. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Besides, I’ve heard more than one “expert” say that Google doesn’t like 10,000 inbound links showing up in a day or two. That signals to them that you’re gaming the system (at an unacceptable level) and can get you punished. Yikes! It’s just not a good idea to poke an 800 pound (Google) gorilla in the nose.

Finally, start a blog. I’m not going to go into specifics here because I’ve written about blogging dozens of times and there are, literally, thousands of great articles available online to help you get started blogging - Copyblogger and Blogger’s Bulletin are two of my favorites. Blog postings keep your site, your inbound links fresh and, as we’ll learn in my next post, are a good relationship building tools.

On Wednesday I’ll introduce you to some Intermediate Level linking tactics.

Steve

A number of people I’ve talked to recently don’t understand all the fuss around social media. What is it? Why is it growing so fast? Do I/we need to be engaged?

Briefly, here’s my take:

People use social media for three primary reasons:

1. To acquire knowledge, which is why content is so critical and key to both your personal and your professional brand. This is also the driver behind the proliferation of blogs.
2. To see what other people are doing and buying, which is the basis of sites such as Digg, which is really a recommendation service.
3. To connect with other people, which is a basic human need and the foundation of Facebook’s (and other’s) success.

The proliferation and success of social media is driven by three factors:

1. Trust: Many surveys have documented that people trust “someone like me” more than any other source. Moms trust Moms and car nuts trust car nuts, it’s how we humans are wired. For the first time our peer’s opinions are more accessible to us than the wisdom of experts and propaganda of sellers.
2. Online access: No matter how unusual or obscure the topic, we know we can find a lot of information - details, perspectives, and context - online. At any given time, there are probably thousands of people online discussing the merits of various screw drivers, for example.
3. Confidence: It’s all about how we enter the decision-making process. We are less willing to make decisions without a great deal of information. Since the information and recommendations are relatively free, it would be nonsensical for us to do otherwise.

You and your company should be a part of social media for many reasons but here are my top three:

1. We all know the power of the network, of networking. It is the best way to gain employment and, as mentioned, the primary way we now learn about products, services and what other people, people just like us, are doing. Social media allows you and your company to expand your network exponentially for little cost.
2. Your customers, peers, neighbors, superiors, and relatives (etc.) are already part of social networks so it’s a good idea for you to join the conversation, express yourself and, frankly, monitor what’s being said about you, your company, your products and services, as well as those of your competition. Why would you not want to listen to the most important people in your life, which on a personal level is family and on a professional level is your customers.
3. If growing your business, circle of friends and contacts, and expanding your influence are important to you then you need to be part of the social media revolution, because it’s where all the people are.

Steve

If you have a business or are thinking about starting a business you should watch Bob Parsons’, Founder and CEO of GoDaddy, six minute video-podcast (it’s Episode #28) on the key to success: Click here to watch Bob’s video.

Bob, in his usual unusual way, explains several strategies you can select from that, once executed well, can deliver a competitive advantage. Bob calls it “the Edge.”

That may sound simple but in my 25-plus years in business those are two things (strategy and competitive advantage) many companies are missing.

Steve