And does it matter if that person influences just 2 people or 20,000 people?

Well that was the subject discussed today on the For Immediate Release live show hosted by Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz.

The following article summaries the live conversation. If you just want to read my summary guidelines for blogger outreach go to the end of the article.

This is a very long article and for the benefit of some readers who may not be interested in the full story, I have split the post - so click on ‘continue reading’ if you want to access the full article.

BACKGROUND

The show came about as a result of an email that Gary Vaynerchuck of Wine Library TV has instigated (he asked a member of his team to send) inviting bloggers to connect with him around the launch of the first of his 10 book deal later this Summer. As a side note you will find Gary on Twitter – and he has approaching 600,000 followers!

The email, while sent in the first name to people was a form email and as a result John Cass posted the email in full on his personal blog criticising the email pitch. The post by John instigated a conversation online.

The conversations which also extended on Social Media Today where John’s blog is syndicated were less than positive and could have been considered by some to have negatively impacted Gary’s personal brand and reputation.

On the live show today with Shel and Neville were Gary and John and they were joined by Connie Reece (a previous guest on Biz Growth Live) and Kaitlyn R. Wilkins of the Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence Group.

OVERVIEW OF THE LIVE SHOW

John Cass was invited to outline the background to his blog post and commented that he had received an email from Gary’s publicist (who works for Gary’s company). John said that he usually deletes emails but the email got off to a good start with it being addressed to him personally.

When he continued to read the email it was clear to him that it was a ‘form letter’ and the person writing the email had not read his blog and therefore there was no connection to what was interesting and relevant to him.

John commented that he is interested in people connecting with him about case studies in marketing and PR and to hear of books in the areas of PR and social media and that as there was no attempt to personalise the email to his interests he decided to post the email to his blog and to comment on it as an example of what does and what does not works when undertaking blogger outreach.

Next in the conversation was Kaitlyn who outlined the background to the Ogilvy Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics. She emphasised that in terms of blogger outreach that it is important to :

• identify the right people to reach out to,
• understand why would someone would be interested in your content/product/service and then be inspired to share it with others in their community
• and thirdly plan to follow up and maintain a relationship.

(Side note: I recently received a great example of blogger outreach from the Ogilvy team in London recently yet a very poor example of blogger outreach from another of their offices today )

Gary then outlined that he is very passionate about getting his new book (Crush It: Why Now Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion) to as many people as possible -  that it is relevant to every niche. He apologised again on the show (as he had already done on John’s blog) for the content of the email which he agreed was not personalised to the people who received it.

Gary stated that his dilemma is that he wants to connect with as many people as possible – he doesn’t mind if they have a poor Alexa rating or only have 10 people subscribe to their blog and asked the call how best to outreach on a major scale.

What I was astounded by was the fact that Gary commented that he works 19 hours a day and responds to between 500-1500 people personally and wants to work even harder in connecting with people.

He commented that 200 people of 500 emails that had been sent out had responded in a positive way to the email, but he does want to connect with the ‘masses (my term for what he was saying).

The conversation in the Blog Talk Radio chat room was lively and Shel and Neville invited people to join the conversation.

I joined the conversation and offered a different perspective as I too had received the email from Gary’s team. I looked beyond the fact that it was a form letter as the intent behind the connection I saw was to offer value to my community and that Gary was open to receiving ideas on how to partner as part of his book launch as you can see from the extract from of the email:

We’re getting requests for interviews and stuff like that but we decided it would be better to be proactive and contact all the business and marketing blogs and see what we can do for them. He’d love to do book giveaway contests, interviews, Q&A sessions, an interpretive dance summarizing a chapter, really anything that you think your readers would like to see.

I am not sure that we helped Gary answer his big question “how to reach a massive audience in a personalised way”. I got the sense that his vision for his book and how many people he wants to reach with it is bigger I am sure than any author I know of. It almost felt that Gary wants to book into everyone’s hands – like the Heinz Tomato Ketchup vision of being in every household.

Some if the ideas shared during the conversation included sending a personalised email to everyone he wanted to connect with as Darren Barefoot had done some years ago with the ebook he launched.

There was also commentary about there being fatigue with blogger outreach though I don’t believe that is the case at all inn Ireland and the UK where it is in it’s infancy.

KRISHNA’S SUMMARY GUIDELINES FOR BLOGGER OUTREACH

• If you are a PR firm working on behalf of a client and plan to connect with bloggers, make sure that you have developed an implement your blogger outreach policy - the same goes for if you undertake blogger outreach on behalf of your own company
• When you connect with bloggers take the time to read their blog and discover what they are interested in so that you ensure that when you connect it’s relevant to their interests and audience
• Ideally connect with bloggers before pitching them - just as you would get to know journalists and reporters in the traditional media
• Offer something of value to the blogger - writing a blog takes time and if you want to encourage someone to write about your business, product or service, ideally give the blogger something that would be unique to them.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Here are three previous articles that you might find of interest in relation to blogger outreach:

How not to pitch a blogger

How to pitch to bloggers and podcasters - your blogger code of outreach

Why businesses should appreciate bloggers

OVER TO YOU

I have two questions for you:

1. What advice do you have for Gary in terms of how to enhance his outreach at scale for his book where he does not want to just connect with A list bloggers in the US?

2. What would you add to my summary for blogger outreach based on what works or what does not work for you?

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When we write our articles so that we increase the chance of being found online we need to consider the key words what we use.

From today, determining those key words when blogging just got a whole lot easier thanks to Wordtracker who have just released a plug in for Firefox called SEO Blogger.

It is free to install and you can type into SEO Blogger the words that you are considering for your blog post and it will provide you with research about your key words and alternative key word phrases so that you can add them to your blog post.

SEO Blogger sits on the left hand side of your screen and what I noticed is that that meant that my screen for Wordpress was minimised. It also won’t work if you write your blog posts in an offline editing tool as I do - you would need to check your blog against your key words before you publish online when looking at your draft post in the Firefox browser.

The SEO Blogger will also help you identify how many times a chosen keyword has been used in the blog text - key word density is something that we need to be aware of when writing our articles. But do take care to make sure that you don’t over burden your articles with key words so they are not as compelling and engaging for your readers.

If you are using Firefox and author a business blog I would certainly recommend testing SEO Blogger - and remember it is free.

What other tools do you use to help you identify the key words for your blog posts and articles?

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My children love to sing and dance and I am always on the look out for new places to visit and activities for them.

Recently they enjoyed a great afternoon learning circus skills – here you can see my youngest learning how to spin plates which is a life skill I think we all need!

One event that I wish I could take the children to on the 28 and 29 June 2009 is taking place at Waddesdon Manor near Oxford (England). The Manor itself is a National Trust property, and yes they have joined the world of social media communications with a new blog to help spread the word about their events and news from the Manor.

The event this next weekend has a host of performances – from brass bands to ballet, choirs to story tellers taking place in the gardens of the Manor house.

And there are also workshops in which you can participate.

I hope they set up a Flickr page too to share more photo’s of the weekend which certainly looks fun – and it’s all for a good cause – to continue to support the Manor. Details of how to get to the event and admission fees are detailed HERE.

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Within LinkedIn one of the requests you may find is that people ask you to connect them to people in your network or even people one or two degrees of separation away from you.

In my LinkedIn for Business workshops we discuss case studies of what makes for an effective connection and referral request.

I am noticing however that I have had an increase in the number of situations where I have declined the request to refer someone to another person in my network.

Here are three situations where I have declined to connect someone - each time I have sent the person a note to explain why I have declined:

1. There is a lack of information explaining why the person wants to connect and what the benefit will be to the person they want to connect to

2. The person connecting (who was two degrees of separation from me) was a recruiter and wanted to connect to someone in my network - as a matter of principle I won’t connect someone to a recruiter unless their profile said they were open to such connections or I know they are looking for a new role

3. The request to connect did not look relevant to the person I was being asked to connect someone to.

This got me thinking about my connection policy for referrals on LinkedIn - it’s not something I have documented but it is something I do consider each time I am asked to connect to someone in my network.

Do you have a ‘connection policy’ for referrals in LinkedIn?

What guidance formal or informal do you follow?

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The winner of the scholarship was Mary New of PaperCocktail.com Wedding Stationery Specialists based in County Wicklow. Her business was established just 5 months ago.

Here is Mary’s guest blog post and a review of the event:

As someone new to the world of social media, I was delighted to receive Krishna’s De’s scholarship to the Greenhouse Blogging and Social Media for Business Seminar at The Absolute Hotel in Limerick on Saturday 13th June 2009. The event was organised by entrepreneur, Evert Bopp of the Greenhouse Start Up Incubator Project who had lined up an expert panel to address this seminar.

While familiar with some of the nuts and bolts of social media and blogging, despite much research, I was severely lacking in knowledge on how to use the tools available effectively for business. In this regard,  I would like to thank Krishna De (Biz Growth News), Campbell Scott (IGO People), Fred Cabellero (Channelship), Bernard Golbach (Tipperary Institute of Technology) and Peter Donegan (Donegan Landscaping) for their contributions at the seminar which I believe have provided invaluable knowledge and insight in respect the effective use of  social media and blogging for business.

The speakers on the day explored a number of key concepts in this area as well as providing many practical tips and specific information about the networks, software and tools that are available.

It would be impossible to capture and summarise all that they shared in this post so I will confine myself to indicating just a few of the general points that I have taken away with me:

1)    Developing and protecting your online identity while being true to yourself is key

2)    We have the opportunity to develop relationships with our customers and fellow professionals through social media platforms such as LinkedIn (professionals), IGO People (Ireland’s network for individuals, businesses and organisations) and Twitter . Talking at people, making announcements or simply advertising to your target market via social media will not have the impact you may expect if you are basing your predictions on the effect of traditional mass media campaigns. The professional and often cold face businesses have shown to their marketplaces in the past have led to an element of distrust (think financial institutions!) and now is the time to explore and develop more meaningful and open relationships with customers. Through social media and blogging, when utilised correctly, we can enhance our business relationships and ultimately grow our businesses in a customer focussed manner

3)    Exploring video as a medium of communication is not as complex as it may seem and can add a valuable dimension to your business’ online presence

4)    Online communication via social media and blogging is most effective when it is informative, interesting, insightful, interactive and individual.

I understand that Evert intends to organise future seminars on the above topics and would highly recommend that any business regardless of scale, that is either considering using social media for business purposes or that like many others is struggling to plan and develop their use of social media in an effective manner, attend one of these events.

It is in listening to people with in-depth knowledge of a subject and a passion for imparting same that you will gain far more insight, understanding and practical advice than the many hours you will spend trying to find your way through the world wide maze (or web) on your own!

Note From Krishna: It’s always terrific to see scholarships for social media workshops go to people who then actively take insights from events and put them into place in their business. Mary has been busy engaging in social networking since the event and you will find her on Twitter @PaperCocktail – we wish Mary all the best in bringing her brand to life for her new business through social media in the months ahead.

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It was a very professionally run conference and though aimed at SME’s there were many large organisations there, all interested to know how they could make better use of technology and social media to improve business success from attracting more leads, managing customer relationships more effectively and reducing costs.

If you were not able to attend the event here are the links to my guest blog posts:

Keynote speaker Richard Farleigh on Entrepreneurship

Colm McCarthy and Ronan Lyons on the state of the Irish economy

Euan Semple on which tribe do you belong to?

Bill Kearney on social networking

Eamonn Fallon on the transition from print to digital media

And you can catch the Future Focus back channel on Twitter here.

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For your Facebook profile, this will enable a new way of representing your personal brand online.

But before you make that change, have you considered how you will be able to track the statistics of who is coming to your Facebook profile and where they are coming from?

Socialtoo.com (developed by Facebook expert and a friend of mine Jesse Stay) has introduced a new service within their offering and it is FREE - a SocialToo vanity url which will provide you with social stats.

This video explains all about SocialToo.com Vanity URL’s and why you should consider it.

I’ve set up mine http://krishnade.socialtoo.com - remember it’s free to do.

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No it wasn’t going on a training course about starting my own business – though I do recommend these to start up’s.

It was developing a deeper and richer network OUTSIDE of the business I was employed in. But you see I hated the idea of ‘networking’. For one thing every time I attended an event it felt as though I was being ‘pounced upon’ by people who wanted to sell me things – themselves, their products, their services. This was possibly because of the position I held in the organisation as I was on the board of the company and therefore had a degree of influence over purchasing decisions.

It wasn’t until I realised that networking for business started with building friendships and helping others that I felt comfortable – so much so that I now teach and speak about networking both online and offline.

In fact a study reported on in Business Week last year suggests that social skills can be a better predictor of future earnings than test scores are. The research was done by Christy Lleras, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sociologist, who tracked 11,000 students in the US from 10th grade until 10 years after their high school graduation. Her work, (published in September 2008’s Social Science Research), found that pupils described by teachers as conscientious, motivated, and able to relate well to peers and adults earned an average US$3,200 more yearly than those with equally good test scores but poorer social skills.

You see our professional and career success is greatly influenced by developing strategic relationships and nurturing those relationships over time.

One book that I often recommend to people to read on the subject of networking is ‘Never Eat Alone’ by Keith Ferrazzi.

Keith has however just launched a new book ‘Who’s Got Your Back’ and my friend Elizabeth Marshall (you will have heard her on one of our previous Biz Growth Live Shows) is hosting the virtual book tour series.

You can join Keith for the virtual book tour series which starts on 8 June 2009 and he is in conversation with Seth Godin and John Jantsch. You can register for the Keith Ferrazzi ‘Who’’s Got You Back’ book tour HERE.

And future calls in the series will be with Guy Kawasaki, Tim Ferriss, Dan Pink, Pam Slim, Michael Port, Chris Brogan, Ivan Misner and Andrea J Lee.

Elizabeth tells me that she also has some fun ‘give aways’ organised including iPods, Flip Cameras, Amazon Kindles, and a chance to win a private 30-min coaching session with Keith Ferrazzi himself.

You will find Keith on Twitter @keithferrazzi and Elisabeth is at @lizmarshall

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IIA Congress 2009: Colm Lyon, Managing Director, Realex Payments - Duration 51 mins
Devising a Strategy for accelerating growth in an internet business

IIA Congress 2009: Trey Harvin, CEO, dotMobi - Duration 45 mins
Mobile Web - Building for the Future

IIA Congress 2009: Ronan Harris, Online Sales & Operations Director, Google - Duration 47 mins
The End of Estimation - Certainty through Analytic

IIA Congress 2009: Colm Long, Director of Online Operations, Facebook - Duration 50 mins
Creating engagement and dialogue with users and customers on the social web

IIA Congress 2009: Tips from exhibitors, speakers and delegates - Duration 48 mins
Interviews with exhibitors, speakers and delegates at IIA Congress 2009 about how they are doing ‘Better Business Online in a Tough Economy’

(Disclosure: yes you will hear my voice on the podcast with the exhibitors and delegates as the interviewer as my company were appointed to record and edit the podcasts for the IIA Congress 2009.)

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Increasingly I am concerned about the conversations I am having with brand managers, PR firms and entrepreneurs about ‘how to get a social media strategy in place’.

Firstly I don’t believe that social media is a ’strategy’. Social media allows us new ways of listening, engaging, connecting and learning about what our customers and potential customers are saying about our brand/product/service, our competitors and other issues that are of concern to them.

The art is then about what you as a company do once you have listened to the conversation - what is being said; what does it mean; what impact does that have for your company, products and services; what will you do as a result; what resources will you need; how will you know that your actions will be of benefit to your business? And many more questions besides.

In all the workshops I lead I encourage participants to go back to the beginning - what is your business strategy and what are you trying to achieve? Then how can social media help you as part of an integrated plan achieve those goals.

One of the key questions we then explore is how social media can deliver a return on investment.  As with all marketing and communications programmes it’s important to understand what your key performance indicators will be and create metrics relevant to your goals.

It was great to therefore see that the conversation about metrics relating to digital marketing and social media was being discussed at Ireland’s first Measurement Camp earlier this week. You can see the Twitter chatter and back channel from measurement camp here.

I was therefore interested to see Omniture announce a service to measure Facebook apps this week. Omniture is a provider of online business optimisation software and their new service allows their clients to measure the popualrity and success of Facebook applications.

The goal of the Omniture service is to help companies:

• understand Facebook users and their engagement with applications
• access insights into the relationship between Facebook, site traffic and other online channels
• develop more relevant applications.

Check out screen shots of the Omniture Facebook app measurement tools on Flickr.

Omniture have offices in Europe, Asia and the US, so if you are interested in exploring more detailed measurement of Facebook applications, you might want to contact them.

What other resources do you recommend for measuring the return on investment in social media?

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