It’s time to hire your content marketing chief, a.k.a. marketing maven, and you’ve got a big problem.

For one, you’ve never hired a content marketer. Secondly, you’re not exactly sure what a marketing maven is. Finally, you have little or no idea as to what a content marketer’s skill sets should be.

In an era where brands are leaping onto the content marketing bandwagon, it becomes more and more important for them to find the internal content talent that will strategize, execute, distribute and analyze an ongoing series of content marketing campaigns. Content marketing should be part of any brand’s DNA – a dedication to providing your target audiences with information of use and interest to them and of the highest quality.

It is the goal of content marketing to build trust and brand loyalty in your key constituencies. This is done through articles, through videos, through blogs, visuals and social media engagement.

Finding someone to head your company’s internal content marketing efforts is extremely difficult because there are so many responsibilities under the content marketing umbrella and your marketing maven will need to possess a diverse skill set.

Below, I have focused on 10 key skills that are elemental to a this role. While it may be impossible to find a single person will all of the following skills, a complete job description would include the following wish list.

10 Attributes of a Content Marketing Maven

1. Excellent Writing Skills

There is no bigger turn-off than poorly written, boring, unimaginative blogs, articles, Web copy and social media posts. Your marketing maven should have writing skills on the level of a seasoned journalist or should have the power and budget to add a top-flight writer immediately.

2. Social Media Fluency

This goes far beyond having hundreds of friends on Facebook or thousands of Followers on Twitter. This means a deep understanding of how businesses interact with their constituencies on various social media platforms, how frequently businesses need to interact and how businesses use social media as a customer service tool.

More importantly, your marketing maven must possess a deep understanding of how people interact with brands on social media. Social media marketing requires a deft touch. When people feel like they’re being ‘sold’ to on social media, they aren’t just turned off, they’re ticked off. Your content chief needs to not only understand this, but how to use social media in a way that informs and entertains your brand’s target audiences.

3. Strong Public Relations Skills

Many people are calling content marketing the new PR- and they are right. Creating content that demonstrates thought leadership and expertise is great, but knowing how to get that content out into the hands of the press, bloggers and other external content platforms can greatly elevate the brand’s profile.

4. General Understanding of Marketing (Beyond Content Marketing)

Content marketing is just one component of an integrated marketing campaign. Look for your marketing maven to understand the value and delivery of other marketing tools and where content marketing should fit into the company’s overall marketing strategy.

5. Search Engine Optimization Skills

A decade ago, SEO experts were the people who knew how to ‘trick’ Google and other search engines through keywording, backlinking and other practices designed towards the search engine algorithms. Today, thanks to Google’s Panda and Penguin updates and the increased sophistication of other search engines like Bing, quality content has far greater value in determining search results. Still, your content head should understand the principles behind writing meta descriptions, titles, subheads, etc. to ensure the best possible search results.

6. Understanding of Web and Digital Design Principles

There is a strong connection between digital content and digital design. A basic understanding of user interfaces and user behaviors can and will shape the ways and formats in which you deliver your content. This is especially true today when more and more people are digesting your content on smaller devices like tablets and smartphones.

7. Video, Photo and Graphics Skills

While articles were once at the heart of content marketing, video, photo imagery and graphics have emerged as highly effective vehicles for delivering brand messaging. A video can humanize a brand, deliver essential brand messages and even entertain. Videos are also extremely useful tools for media outreach. Infographics and photos can also capture the attention of your target audiences and deliver your brand messaging in a clear and memorable way.

8. Great Conversational and Listening Skills

Content marketing is a two-way street, with brands serving the needs of customers (and potential) customers by engaging with them in meaningful conversations. When you write an article, a blog post or even a tweet, you can expect people to respond. Ignoring those responses or failing to actively participate in a conversation with your target audience can be extremely damaging to your brand.

9. Great Networking Skills

Even in the digital age, there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction. Your marketing maven can be a spokesperson and a key face of the company. That person will need to have their face in front of the media as well as potential clients or customers. Whether it’s at an informal breakfast or a major conference, your content person needs to be an effective brand ambassador.

10. Strong Analytical Skills

Never forget the reason why you engage in content marketing in the first place – to drive business. ROI (Return on Investment) on content needs to be tracked through benchmarks, analytics and testing. Your content chief doesn’t have to be the number cruncher, but must understand which numbers need to be tracked and why.

So, take the plunge. Write up the job description and go find yourself a content marketing maven. You’ll be happy – make that thrilled – that you did.

Content Photo via Shutterstock

The post The 10 Most Important Attributes of a Content Marketing Maven appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Unfortunately, no matter how well you build your reputation, there are going to be people who will try to tear you down. They could be disgruntled former employees, dissatisfied customers, online reviewers and bloggers or even your competitors.

What can you do to protect yourself and your business from these online onslaughts?

There is no magic wand that will make all of the negative comments go away, but there are practices and procedures that will help you to minimize the damage.

Step 1: Get Yourself Some Listening Tools

The only way to truly protect your reputation is to know what is being said about you or your brand (and who is saying it). Negative statements, lies, rumors can spread in an instant. The longer you wait to deal with these comments, the more damage will be done.

Fortunately, there are many tools out there that will help you to monitor what is being said about your brand, your executives, your products and your employees.

The most basic listening tool of all is an Internet search. If you’ve never monitored brand sentiment, simply search your company name and see what comes up. Google’s advanced search helps you see what’s being said in the news and in blogs.

To get notifications sent to you by e-mail, set up Google Alerts for your company name, executives’ names and for product names. Google Alerts sends you a notification when you have been mentioned in articles, blogs, etc.

Some more sophisticated (but still free) listening tools include SocialMention, Technorati (great for mentions in blogs), Twilert (like Google Alerts, but for Tweets) and Klout.

If you are a major brand, need more sophisticated monitoring and have the budget to pay for it, you can get extremely detailed and informative results that not only show where you’ve been mentioned, but give you valuable data on brand sentiment. Some of the leading tools include Cision, Radian6, and IBM Cognos® Consumer Insight (CCI).

Step 2: Take a Deep Breath Before You React

The Web has given people enormous power to damage a brand. Negative reviews on sites like Yelp or Angie’s List can crush a business.

Nobody likes to be criticized. If you are in business, though, it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen often. How you react to such criticism can be the difference between a meaningless annoyance and a full-blown crisis.

The key here is to keep a cool head and analyze the situation. While there is no single formula, here are a few things to think about before reacting:

• Are the negative statements true? If so, deal with the issue. Social media provides tremendous customer service tools. Acknowledge your fault and spell out how you will rectify the situation. When possible, take the conversation offline. If the issue has criminal or civil implications, check with your attorney before taking any action.
• Who is the source of the negative comments? This is hugely important.

1. If it is one unhappy customer and you have dozens of glowing testimonials or reviews, it may be better just to ignore it.
2. If it is an industry journalist or blogger, then it is important to engage him/her. Show your respect. See if you can find a way to change their mind. If you have gotten positive reviews from other industry journalists or bloggers, those can outweigh one of two negative statements.
3. If it is a disgruntled former employee, then that statement can be overwhelmed by positive reviews from employees.

• Are the statements libelous? Some people approach social media as the Wild West, where rules and laws don’t apply. The fact is – laws do apply. If the attack on you or your company is libelous, take action. Think about sending a cease and desist letter. Often, this is enough to get the offending posts or comments removed.

Step 3: Be Civil

There is a reason why they call it social media. The Web is a place where communities are created, where conversations take place and where relationships are established. As in any community or relationship, there will be disputes. Handle them professionally, civilly, with grace and even with humor.

This will humanize you and your company and only serve to establish you as positive member of the Web community.

Step 4: Learn from the Experience

Conversations on the Web are always evolving. As in any crisis situation, try to learn from your mistakes and use that knowledge to improve the way you do business. If there were complaints about your products, listen to them and fix the problem. If there were complaints about your services or your employees, take those complaints to heart.

Think of social media as a massive focus group. Criticism can be very healthy for a business owner. It can provide a wake-up call and it can be a great test of your customer service, your flexibility and your leadership.

Reputation Photo via Shutterstock

The post Taking Control of Your Online Reputation Part II: External Monitoring appeared first on Small Business Trends.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

With the advent of social media, those “five minutes” have been reduced to a nanosecond. A nasty Tweet, Facebook post, comment on an article, and discussion in an online group can go viral and negatively impact a business before a CEO knows what hit them.

Often, it doesn’t matter whether the negative comments are true or false. If people believe them to be true and the comments aren’t refuted quickly and convincingly, then it may be impossible to ever fully recover.

While most attacks to your company’s reputation come from outside sources, disgruntled customers, former clients, competitors and hostile bloggers, this article will focus on the steps you can take internally to build, fortify and defend your online reputation.

While there are dozens of ways to build and protect your online reputation, below are five essential steps every business should be taking:

Step 1: Create a Brand Worthy of a Powerful Reputation

This may sound obvious, but it is critical to focus on building a formidable reputation before you even think about protecting it. You can’t make people respect your brand. You have to earn their respect.

If you sell a product, make sure your product is useful, well made and fills a void. If you are a service provider, then be at the top of your game. If you aren’t giving back to the community yet, start doing so today.

No matter what kind of business you have, make sure you hold yourself and your team to the highest ethical standards.

Another key element of building a strong reputation is developing positive relationships with your employees. Make sure you provide a workplace where employees are valued, respected and fairly compensated. Disgruntled employees often do more damage to your brand than external forces.

Step 2: Identify, Train and Nurture your Brand Evangelists

While it’s great for the CEO to be the face of the company, many brands find it extremely effective to have multiple employees serving as official and unofficial spokespeople. Different people in your organization possess a variety of skill sets and levels of expertise. IBM actively recruits top employees to be part of their advertising and marketing campaigns.

Their “I’m an IBMer” campaign has been extremely successful:

Providing multiple voices not only humanizes a company, it demonstrates the breadth of knowledge and talent within the company.

Step 3: Train Your Entire Team in the Effective use of Social Media

Thanks to the Web, every member of your staff has the power to be a brand ambassador. That means you can take advantage of hundreds, if not thousands, of opportunities to spread positive messages about your company.

On the flip side, the Web gives every staff member the power to be a saboteur (or worse). So long as an individual can be identified as a member of your team, everything they say online about your company reflects on your company. There are hundreds of cases of employees embarrassing their companies with inappropriate Tweets or Facebook posts.

While some companies try to enforce draconian social media policies (many of which have been deemed invalid by the National Labor Relations Board), I strongly suggest that you encourage your team to actively use social media. Use social media as a team-building exercise, have contests, post photographs from the workplace or to brag about awards, new products or services.

The best social media policies encourage – rather than discourage – activity on social platforms. Zappo’s “be real and use your best judgment” treats employees like adults, while Ford’s “play nice” is far simpler than spelling out “don’t be a jerk.”

Step 4: Build Your Reputation through Content Marketing

It is almost impossible to erase all negative comments about your brand from social media or from search engine results. Content marketing can be used to overwhelm the negative with positive. People judge a brand or an individual by weighing pros and cons. The effective use of content marketing can tip the scales in your favor.

Content marketing can take many forms, from articles and white papers to videos and webinars. You need to figure out what works best for your business model and your target audience.

Step 5: Reach out to the Media

Earned media is a tremendous way of bolstering your business’ reputation. Anyone can call themselves an expert or thought leader. It is far more convincing (and impressive) when it’s someone else calling you can expert. Every business has a story (or stories) to tell. A competent public relations professional can flesh out those stories and pitch those stories to the appropriate media.

A relatively small investment in public relations can pay off with big dividends, especially if your company lives up to the standards set in Step 1.

In Conclusion

I began this post with a quote from Warren Buffet, so I will end it with one as well:

“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”

If you have failed to take the steps necessary to bolster your company’s reputation, then any attack is going to be magnified.

No matter how great you are as a person or as a business, you will have your detractors. The real risk to your business’ online reputation is when you fail to understand the science of building, fortifying and protecting it. When the overwhelming majority of the discussion about your business is highly positive, you are in a much better position to survive the random salvos that are sure to come.

If you don’t have the internal expertise to take the steps listed above, by all means either get it internally or find someone with the outside expertise to lend a hand. Your reputation should not be left in the hands of amateurs.

Brand Photo via Shutterstock

The post Taking Control of Your Online Reputation Part I: Internal Steps appeared first on Small Business Trends.

• Did your company jump on the content marketing bandwagon in 2012?
• Did you create and curate informative and practical content for your target audiences?
• Did you find a way to disseminate your content, getting it in front of potential clients or customers?

If you answered “yes” to all of these, then it is likely to be a very happy holiday season for you and your employees. Profits are up, bonus checks are being written and the prospects for the future couldn’t be any brighter.

As a small business owner, you get it. You understand the power of well crafted stories. You know how content can be used to establish thought leadership, to enhance brand awareness and to supercharge your SEO efforts.

If, on the other hand, you are one of the many small business owners who answered “no,” to any of the above questions, I fear this may not be the jolliest of holiday seasons for your business.

Don’t despair! Just because you missed a golden opportunity in 2012, it doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of content marketing in 2013. Remember the saying:

“Better late than never?”

Well, it certainly applies to content marketing.  What can content marketing do you for? Depending on the nature of your business, it can:

• Position your company as thought leaders (key for service providers).
• Keep your current customers/clients engaged with your brand on an ongoing basis.
• Provide information of real interest to your target audiences.
• Create mechanisms that convert the people engaged with your content into regular users/purchasers of your services or products.
• Put a human face on your company, creating emotional bonds that can lead to enhanced sales.

Whether you have never engaged in content marketing or want to expand upon your content marketing efforts, this is the perfect time to either start on or expand your content marketing efforts. This is the time to ask the following questions (and make sure you have the answers to each and every one of them):

What are your storylines?

The first step in any content marketing campaign is to figure out what stories your team is best suited to tell. Who is in the universe of potential clients and what interests them? Content marketing only works when the content you produce serves the needs of your target audience:

• Are key team members truly thought leaders? Do they have industry insights? Do they offer practical information of immediate utility to the reader/viewer?
• Can you offer advice to entrepreneurs? Do you have “war” stories to share?
• Do you have amazing case studies to share?
• Have you conducted your own research or commissioned research on industry trends?
• Do you offer unique products or services?

What is your commitment to content marketing?

How much time and effort are you willing to commit to your content marketing campaign? Some businesses limit their content marketing to a handful of white papers a year. Others become true publishers, turning out a steady stream of content, whether it’s in the form of blogs, videos, article or even tweets.

As you budget both financial and human resources, you need to decide his much of your marketing and advertising budgets will be dedicated to content marketing. A successful content marketing campaign involves a real commitment. Are you prepared to make it?

Who will be responsible for creating your content?

Poorly written content can damage your credibility and your business. If you don’t have a strong writer on staff, hire one now. If it’s not in your budget, think about paying a freelance copywriter. It’s not just about quality writing. Video has become a major aspect of content marketing. An amateurish video can make your company look like a second-class operation.

How will you be distributing your content?

Just because you’ve created great content, it doesn’t mean than anyone will see it. A major element of a content marketing program is a well-planned distribution plan:

• Do you have the internal or external public relations expertise to get your content in the hands of traditional and digital media?
• Do you know where to find the Web sites that would be interested in publishing your content?
• Do you have the SEO expertise to make sure your content shows up prominently in Google searches?

All of this may seem very daunting, but content marketing, when done properly, can make a major impact on your company’s bottom line.

If you don’t have the internal expertise to strategize and execute a content marketing campaign, find a reputable agency that not only understands content marketing, but can provide you with a list of success stores for which they are responsible.

Wishing you a happy and content-filled new year!

British Landscape Photo via Shutterstock

The post Your Content Marketing Strategy for 2013 appeared first on Small Business Trends.

While Twitter is now valued in the billions, it was still just a small “side project” as recently as 2006, and didn’t begin to take off until 2007. So Stone still knows what it feels like to be an entrepreneur betting his future on the fate of a startup.

Speaking this week at the Public Relations Society of America’s International Conference in San Francisco, Stone pointed to passion, creativity, moxie, and a focus on customer service as keys to success for businesses of any size.

Stone recounted the plot of Wim Wenders’ movie Wings of Desire, in which an angel was willing to give up immortality just to know what it felt like to be human. The protagonist was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice—death—just to pursue his passion.

Stone likened this to the path of the entrepreneur, who is willing to put everything on the line to pursue his/her passion.

“In order to succeed spectacularly, you need to be willing to fail spectacularly,” Stone told the audience. “That’s the entrepreneurial spirit.”

Of course, he added, that doesn’t necessarily involve killing yourself.

Passion alone doesn’t cut it. Success requires hard work and a willingness to create opportunities out of thin air.

Stone told the story of his efforts to make a varsity sports team in high school. He went out for football and baseball, but found the rules way too confusing. Not having played organized sports as a kid, he was well behind the other guys going out for the team, and quit.

He then did some research and thought lacrosse might be a great game for him to play. Unfortunately, his high school didn’t have a lacrosse team. He petitioned his school to start one, and the powers that be told him if he could put a team together, then they would support a club team. Stone, through sheer power of will, found enough students willing to play, organized a team, and turned out to be an excellent lacrosse player.

“I figured if everybody was as clueless as I was, then it would be an even playing field,” he said.

Stone did the same thing with his first job. During college, he worked for the publisher, Little Brown, where his main responsibility as a gofer was “moving boxes around.”  At the time, the Little Brown design team was fairly clueless as to how to use Mac computers for designing, and Stone, a longtime Mac user, knew he could do a better job than the designers currently on the payroll.

One day, the entire design team went out to lunch and Stone jumped on the opportunity. He logged into one of the designer’s computers and used his skills to design a book cover.  Stone slipped in his design with the other proposed designs and his was ultimately chosen. When the head of the department asked who had done the design, Stone raised his hand.

“The box boy?” the boss asked incredulously. Immediately thereafter, Stone was offered a job as a designer.

“The real takeaway is that opportunity can be manufactured,” Stone said. “Circumstances can be arranged by you.”

Another key for small businesses, Stone said, is the need to be focused on customer service. Twitter hired its first head of customer service when there were only 16 employees. It would be another three years before they hired their first salesperson.

When using Twitter as a customer relations tool, Stone advised businesses to spend “a good amount of time” listening to what people are saying about your brand.

“Look what’s being said about you before you begin to respond,” he advised. A simple Twitter search of your brand or your executives, Stone said, can give you a good feel for the sentiment about your brand.

The final, and perhaps most important lesson for entrepreneurs is that you have to love what you are doing or else you are wasting your time.

“If I was working at a job I didn’t feel was worthwhile I wouldn’t be happy, and eventually I’d do a bad job,” he said.

Key to Success Photo via Shutterstock

The post Big Advice for Small Business from Twitter’s Biz Stone appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Now wipe that smile off your face and get a job! Seriously… there’s no time to waste!

If you ever saw the movie “The Graduate,” Dustin Hoffman returns home following graduation and spends several weeks scuba diving in the family pool and getting to know his neighbors a bit better.

Of course, Dustin Hoffman would be at a disadvantage against today’s college graduates. He didn’t have a Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, YouTube channel or even a blog. Using those tools intelligently and effectively can go a long way to landing a desirable position, earning some money and getting out of your parents’ house.

Employers, especially if you are applying for jobs that require creativity, writing, marketing or communications, are going to be checking out your social media presence. We’ve all heard the stories of job applicants who lost out because employers found damning photographs or videos of the candidate drunk, stoned or worse. There are other stories of candidates who have lost out because of racist, sexist, homophobic or extreme political views.

Rather than talk about how you can screw up your job search with social media, I’d much rather discuss how you can enhance your chances of getting a job through the effective use of social media.

Facebook

If you are a healthy, normal recent college graduate, then your Facebook page will have enough incriminating photographs, videos and other questionable content to raise a series of red flags with most any employer (unless you’re looking for a job at Rolling Stone).

So what do you do?

You have several options here. The safest thing is to clean up you page. But who really wants to do that? The next best thing is to manage your privacy settings to make sure that the only people who can see the damaging content on your page are the people you want to see that content.

Another option is to use a pseudonym on their Facebook page to keep them out of the prying eyes of employers (and relatives).

If you use your real name, then use your Facebook page to demonstrate your creativity, show a sense of humor (careful with this one) and to otherwise present yourself as someone who would be a welcome new member of the type of company you’re looking to hire you. Think of the psychographics of the employers you’d like to work for.

You can demonstrate your interests, talents and passions through your favorite books, movies, and the Facebook pages you follow (“likes”).

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is quickly becoming the most valuable social media tool for people looking to get hired. Employers are searching all of the time on LinkedIn, so make sure you are found. Make sure your profile is complete, honest and grammatical.

As you build your resume on LinkedIn remember a few key things:

• Make sure it lines up exactly with your “official” resume. That means GPA, honors, dates of prior internships and job.
• Make sure it contains the keywords that employers in your desired field(s) of employment would be looking for. Think of LinkedIn as a hiring search engine and make your profile SEO friendly.
• Try to build as big a network as you can. You never know who is going to see your profile. Don’t be shy about inviting family friends, professors and others who might be of help in your job search.

Twitter

Employers (like other human beings) are drawn to people who are social, influential, interesting and helpful. Use your Twitter account to show employers that you have built a social network, that you are creative and that you are passionate about things that would be of interest to an employer. Don’t use your Tweets to discuss breakfast, digestive issues or people who piss you off. Use your Tweets to show off your intellect, your wit, your charm. Provide links to articles, videos and other items that demonstrate your interests.

YouTube

This is a grossly underutilized and extremely effective use of social media in getting hired. Make a video or videos that show you in your best possible light. Think of it as an audition tape and the cast you are hoping to join is your potential employer’s. Much more than a resume, a video can give a potential employer a clear picture of what it would be like to have you as an employee. Are you confident? Charismatic? Eloquent? Personable?

All of these can come to light in a video! Once you’ve produced the video, and you’re happy with it, by all means attach it to any job application.

Go For It!

Your generation grew up with social media. You’ve used it to make friends, seek relationships, and to share the good times. Now that you’ve graduated, it’s time to put your social media skills to work for you. As a graduation present to yourself, use social media to land a job!

Finish Line Photo via Shutterstock

The post Job Hunting: Get A Leg Up on Your Fellow Class of 2012 Graduates appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Instead, as I was watching wildebeests, lion, elephants and zebras in their natural habitat, I couldn’t help but be struck by how much of their behavior reflects the competitive nature of an entrepreneurial business.

I know this probably sounds crazy, but hear me out.

Watching these animals fighting for survival, I was struck by how they were able to not just survive, but thrive by using many of the same tactics that are used by successful businesses. Whether it was watching lions stalking their prey, zebras and wildebeests co-existing to each other’s benefit, or even watching a vulture patiently waiting for a zebra to die, there were strategies in place that would work for almost any business in the world.

Let me give you a few examples:

1. Strong and Decisive Leadership Is Essential to Success

In virtually every species I observed, leadership was in the hands (hooves, paws?) of an alpha male or group of alpha males.

This kind of leadership resulted in efficient and orderly behaviors that benefited the group as a whole. When it was time to move to new territory, when it was time to rest, when it was time to eat were all determined by the alpha male. The rewards of leadership? The alpha was always the first to eat recently killed prey and, of course, the first to mate.

While I am not advocating this kind of autocratic leadership in business, I saw compelling evidence of how strong, decisive leadership can work to the benefit of the whole team. Forgive the pun, but there’s a reason why CEOs get the lion’s share of the profits.

2. When Opportunity Presents Itself, Jump In

I had a chance to see a zebra that had survived a lion attack, but just barely. As it bled from a wound on its left rear quarters, a vulture dropped in and crouched on the ground, barely 10 feet from the zebra. The vulture waited patiently for the zebra to die, just sitting and staring. I didn’t see the end of this drama, but I have the distinct feeling that the vulture did not go home hungry.

While I’m not saying that entrepreneurs should be vultures, they should be ready to pounce on opportunities when they arise. Keep your eyes open, stay on top of your competition, and jump right in when you see a weakness to exploit.

3. Don’t Be Too Proud to Take the Leftovers From the Big Boys

Hyenas are often portrayed as one of the lowest forms of animals. They tend to follow prides of lions (at a safe distance) and get their sustenance by waiting for the scraps left behind after the lions are finished with the animals they kill.

There are dozens of other scavengers in the wild who rely on the scraps left behind by the animals higher up on the food chain.

As an entrepreneur, being a “scavenger” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This is especially true when you are a service provider. You are going to have much larger competitors in your market, and they are going to get the bulk of the work from the largest clients. It’s a fact of life.

That doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of opportunities presented when the big boys are satisfied. Big competitors often don’t want to be bothered by smaller projects, and big clients  always have smaller jobs they’ll give to smaller companies.

Entrepreneurs should see this as a chance to get your foot in the door. Take on the small project for the big client, do great work and you’ll find that the smaller projects will soon become bigger projects.

4. Find Ways to Survive in Difficult Times

Difficult times are built in to the life cycle on the Serengeti. Every year there is a dry season which tests the survival instincts of every species. Difficult times make for hard choices. Lions have been known to eat their own young. Elephants will cover many miles in a day just to find a drink of water. Weak members of the herd who can’t keep up are left behind to die.

No matter what business you are in, there will be difficult times. But even in the most difficult times, great entrepreneurs find ways to stay ahead. It may mean cutting down on overhead. It may mean being more creative with marketing and advertising budgets. It may just mean outworking the competition. Those who learn to adjust and adapt find ways to keep going.

Just as many animals fail to survive dry spells, so do many businesses. For the resident wildlife of the Serengeti, survival is a matter of life and death. Entrepreneurs who succeed in difficult times survive because of a “life and death” mentality.

5. Don’t Let Anything Get in Your Way

A common site on the Serengeti is acres of trees that are snapped in half or simply knocked over. Perplexed by this sight, I asked our Masai guide what the reason was.

“You’ll see soon enough,” was his cryptic response.

True to his word, he led us to a bend in the road where we could glimpse a herd of elephants coming in our direction. Because this was the tail end of the dry season, the elephants were in hot pursuit of water.

Nothing, I would soon see, would get in their way. Much larger than any elephants I had ever seen in a zoo, the males simply barreled through the trees, snapping them as if they were twigs. It was an awesome sight, but one that reminded me of the determination I had seen from many of the entrepreneurs I have known or worked with over the years. To get where you want to be, there are times you just have to push forward, having the confidence to knocking away obstacles as opposed to delicately sidestepping them.

6. Forge Mutually Beneficial Partnerships

One thing you learn about animals in the wild is that many species have natural partners. These partnerships (symbiotic relationships) work to the benefit of both species, playing a key role in their survival.

Any time you see a herd of zebras in the Serengeti, you are sure to find wildebeests close by. Why? The two groups work perfectly together. Both get their nutrition from grasses, but get it in very different ways. Zebras feed on tall grass, while the wildebeests eat short. The zebras clear away the tall grass for the wildebeests, which then munch on the shorter grass left behind.

Similarly, there are birds that get their sustenance by eating ticks found on larger, grazing animals. The larger animals are happy to be rid of the nuisance of the ticks, while the birds are happy for the meal.

As any entrepreneur knows, there will always be times when you need to rely on outside expertise to advance your business goals. While nature has chosen the “business partners” for the zebras, entrepreneurs have to be smart in choosing the service providers and consultants that work with their businesses. A great partner can be worth their weight in gold. A lousy one can damage or even destroy your business.

7. Cut the Deadwood

This may sound harsh, but nature can be harsh, and business can be harsh.

On the seventh morning of the safari, I had a chance to witness a large pond teeming with hippopotamus and another pond with just two hippos basking in a corner. Our Masai guide explained that the large pond was filled with a handful of alpha males and dozens of females, while the other pond was populated by two “loser males.”

The loser males had proved unable to protect the group and offered little in the way of getting food or procreating. As a result, they were forcibly banished.

Most every business, at one time or another, will have a few “losers” on staff. They don’t contribute, are usually unhappy, and are bad for the overall morale and performance of the company. While firing employees is one of the hardest things for an entrepreneur to do, failing to remove a bad employee is bad business.

Survival Skills

Survival in the Serengeti is a daily battle. Animals fight for sustenance, for power and for their very lives. In the wild, merely living to face another day is a victory.

In business, of course, survival has a very different meaning. But the tactics for surviving in the Serengeti can provide real lessons for those of us trying to keep our businesses not only afloat, but thriving.

The post Seven Entrepreneurial Lessons Learned on the Serengeti appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Thought leaders have myriad online avenues in which to broadcast their expertise and, hopefully, use those broadcasts to generate business. With the advent of social media, small business owners and experts now use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube (among other social media platforms) to get the word out.

Recently, Google introduced Google+, the search engine giant’s entry into the world of social media. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Google+ has a cornucopia of features and has been catching on like wildfire.

You may ask yourself, with all of the other social media platforms out there, do I have the time or inclination to get involved with yet another time-eating networking site? Is it worth my time as a thought leader to spread myself out even thinner?

My answer to that is simple and emphatic: YES!

The Google Brand
Let’s start with the obvious. If Google+ is the giant search engine’s social media platform, you know that it is destined to be a major player in the social networking world. In less than two months, Google+ has registered over 25 million members and has a demographic more attractive to businesses than Facebook. Over one-third of Facebook users already have a Google+ account.

If you do the simple math, it’s clear that Google+ is already taking visitor time away from Facebook. While Google+ is miles away from catching up to the scope of Facebook, don’t underestimate its ability to catch up.

Remember when people thought it would be folly to challenge MySpace?

The Google+ Basics
Google+ has tried to take the best features from all of the major social media platforms. For a full overview of the features, check out Google’s tour of the features.

Google+ gives you the opportunity to create a personal profile, where you can provide fairly detailed information on your work, family, interests and expertise. These profiles are completely searchable and, by using the appropriate keywords, can help a thought leader to reach a wider audience.

Once thought leaders have created their profiles, they have the opportunity to share their knowledge by posting content and links to content on their profile page. The content is fully searchable and will lead potential followers, customers and clients to your work. Unlike Twitter, there is no character limit to the content you can post. Google+ makes it simple to upload links, photographs, videos and slides.

Google+ includes a feature that can help to broadcast a thought leader’s content to a wide audience. When people see the content you’ve posted, they can use the “+1” function to endorse the content and forward it on. In other words, if a thought leader’s content is given a “+1,” that content is then broadcast to everyone who follows the person who liked your content.

So, now that you’ve created a profile and loaded content, how do you get an audience? Google+ has “circles” that allows you to segment other Google+ members into categories of your choosing. For example, you can create a “family” circle and include all family members. For thought leaders, you can create circles that pertain to your area of expertise or that include target members of the press and/or influencers.

My group of circles includes “business journalists,” “tech journalists,” and journalists working for specific outlets (i.e. Wall Street Journal). By creating these specific circles, I can see the content that these journalists are posting to the general public. When I see their content, I can offer my own expertise and get on their radar. If journalists choose to include me in a circle, it gives me a chance to put my content in front of them and may lead to them using me as a source for a story.

Another interesting feature of Google+ of particular interest to thought leaders is the “hangout” function. “Hangout” allows you to invite up to 10 people to join you in a video conference where you can make a small group presentation or hold any kind of meeting of your choice.

For a thought leader, this provides a number of interesting opportunities. You can hold seminars, client presentations, mini press conferences or roundtables. If you have a video of a prior speech or seminar you’ve presented, it gives you the opportunity to schedule small-scale webinars.

Business Pages
Because of all of the features discussed above, Google+ is extremely attractive to businesses. Because it provides ways of broadcasting your business’s messages to extremely targeted audiences, many businesses flocked to Google+ from the moment it was launched. At the time of launch, though, Google+ was open only to individual accounts and promptly took down the business accounts.

Due to the overwhelming interest from businesses, Google has decided to create a special mechanism just for businesses.

When this launches, it will present even more opportunities for thought leaders to generate business. As of now, thought leaders can talk about their businesses as individuals, but once the business pages launch, thought leaders will be able to better combine their messaging with the specific business goals of their companies.

How will this differ from the company pages on Facebook? For one, the Google+ brand pages will be backed by Google’s powerful analytic tools. It will be easy for thought leaders to monitor which content elements are getting the most traction and which ones aren’t resonating with their audience. Secondly, Google has a powerful ad delivery network that will allow businesses to better connect with their audiences. It is unclear what the advertising model will be on the business pages, but you can expect Google to exploit the power of Google+ to generate considerable advertising revenues.

Most importantly, Google+ business pages will have the power of Google search behind them. Again, it is unclear how Google+ results will be treated in the overall Google search algorithm, but businesses can’t afford not to have a presence on Google+.

In Conclusion
Google will always be the 800-pound gorilla in the online world. When Google dives into social media, then everyone — individuals, businesses and thought leaders — had better pay attention and not get left behind.

For thought leaders, Google+ represents a golden opportunity to gain the attention of an even wider audience and to serve your current constituency in even more effective ways. If you have real expertise to share, then Google+ is a necessary arrow in an influencer’s quiver.

The post Google+: The Latest (and Perhaps Greatest) Platform for Thought Leaders appeared first on Small Business Trends.

• Power: You can’t teach a 98 MPH fastball. It’s a gift that few people are lucky enough to have. But if you possess it, it gives you a huge advantage over the opposition.
• Variety: Even the guy with the 98 MPH fastball will get into trouble if he doesn’t have any other effective pitches. Nolan Ryan’s fastball looked a whole lot faster because he also possessed a devastating curve (check it out in Steven Ellis’s blog).
• Patience: If the batter fouls off seven of your best pitches, don’t get frustrated and throw one down the middle. Keep coming at him with your best pitches, and eventually things work out.
• Homework: A great pitcher knows the tendencies of every hitter he faces–which pitches the hitter jumps on, which ones make him uncomfortable and which ones he just can’t resist. Armed with this knowledge, you can make far smarter decisions regarding pitch selection and timing.
• Start small (and work your way up): It is the rare pitcher who bursts on the scene as a 20-year-old phenom. Most pitchers hone their craft in the minor leagues, going up against higher and higher levels of minor league competition until they finally reach the majors.

These same principles can be applied to pitching the press. Anyone pitching the press on a story idea had better come armed with power, variety and patience, and must definitely have done his homework.

• Power: When pitching the press, the real power comes in the quality of the pitch. The most powerful pitches come from sources who are real experts in their field, have a unique perspective on an issue, or have information that is pertinent to a trending issue. You can’t create expertise out of thin air. But, if you have truly useful information for the media outlet’s audience, then rear back and hit them with your best.
• Variety: Like a baseball pitcher, what you think is your best pitch isn’t going to work for every media outlet. Be prepared to pitch a number of story ideas, and be flexible enough to bend your pitch to each individual outlet. The same basic pitch can be presented in multiple ways.
• Patience: Getting your company recognized by the press (in a positive fashion) is a long-term proposition. Often, making a successful pitch is a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Remember, the same media outlet that ignores your first 10 pitches can suddenly jump at No. 11.
• Homework: Just as a baseball pitcher can get in big trouble by not knowing the opposition (i.e., the guy feasts on low and inside fastballs), a source pitching the media makes a huge mistake by not knowing everything he can about the media outlet and the specific reporter he’s pitching.  Nothing turns reporters or bloggers off faster than getting a pitch that has nothing to do with what they write. When you pitch a reporter, you should not only be familiar with their publication, you should read a number of the stories written by the reporter and see how your expertise fits with their beat.
• Start small: When starting out in your media outreach efforts, it is often smart to go after smaller publications and blogs. Odds are, you are not going to land in The New York Times on the very first try. Research the blogs that cater to your target audience and pitch them first. You’ll find that the smaller outlets will be more receptive. More importantly, the more you get your business out into the smaller media, the more likely you will get the attention of bigger and bigger media.

Like the legendary pitchers in the history of Major League Baseball, the great media pitchers are the ones who have the power of a great story to tell, the variety to hand media outlets multiple options, the patience to know that nobody is successful 100 percent of the time, the discipline to do the homework required to make the perfect pitch at the perfect time and the humility to start small and work their way up!

The post The Baseball Guide to Pitching the Media appeared first on Small Business Trends.

An effective business blog, on the other hand, take a commitment of time, resources and intellectual energy. Unless you are committed to producing a quality, well-written blog and are committed to updating that blog on a regular basis, don’t even bother starting.

The worst business blogs are the ones where it is clear that the writer is winging it, just writing whatever comes to mind. A business must approach its blog in the same way it would approach any other marketing or branding campaign: with planning, staffing, execution and monitoring.

By following these seven steps, your small business can take the first steps towards a highly successful business blog:

1. Define the business goals of your blog
2. Identify your target audience
3. Allocate resources
4. Create your editorial calendar
5. Carve out time to write
6. Listen to your audience feedback and adjust accordingly
7. Get the word out

1. Define the Business Goals of Your Blog

Don’t blog because everybody else is doing it. Blog with a plan. Some business blogs focus on products and services, while others try to humanize the company by putting a face on employees and executives and providing a look into the company culture. For service providers, a blog can be a great way of demonstrating your expertise (you can demonstrate your capabilities through thought leadership or actual client histories).

2. Identify Your Target Audience

While this may sound crass, you are not blogging for your health. You are blogging for the health of your business. As a businessperson, you should know who you are trying to attract. If you throw out too wide a net, you will not be able to write the kind of posts that will be of interest to your specific demographic. You can’t be all things to all people, so don’t even try.

3. Allocate Resources

One of the biggest reasons blogs fail is because they are not budgeted for in terms of personnel and financial commitment the way other marketing efforts are. A blog is not a value-add. It is an integral element of your marketing plan.

For a midsized company, devoting a person to the task shouldn’t be difficult. If you are a five-person shop, it can still be done–you just need to find the appropriate person (or people) who will be responsible for the blog.

Some businesses make the decision to hire a freelance ghost-blogger. I have seen advertisements ranging from $20 per 150-word blog post to several hundred dollars per hour for high-level copywriters. The good news, if you can put it that way, is that the relative demise of print publishing has put many highly qualified freelance writers on the market, and you can hire quality writers for a fairly modest cost.

If you are looking for a freelancer, you can look on sites like MediaBistro or even look at the writers’ posts on Craigslist. If you’d like to put more of your own stamp on the blog, you can provide freelancers with bullet points that the writers can transform into blog posts.

4. Create Your Editorial Calendar

Leaving your blogging schedule open-ended is an invitation to disaster. Laying out a framework for blog entries over a period of time gives a business enforceable deadlines. As we all know, having hard deadlines hanging over your head can be a great motivator. The editorial calendar should not be considered to be etched in stone, however. Businesses need to be sufficiently flexible to add impromptu posts when news and business dictates.

Here’s a template to get you started.

5. Carve Out Time to Write

I can’t emphasize this point enough: If your blogging time isn’t a part of your calendar, then you are going to find ways to avoid the task. This is not a game! It is not a hobby! It is a business tool that should be treated with the same respect as other business tools. For entrepreneurs and small businesses, this may mean setting the alarm an hour earlier or setting aside an hour or two on your weekend.

6. Listen to Your Audience Feedback and Adjust Accordingly

As you know, blogs are not one-way streets. The comment function empowers your target audience and gives them a chance to participate in the conversation. If your audience loves your blog, they will tell you. Just as importantly, if they have issues, you need to deal with those as well.

Analytics can help you here. See which posts get the most traffic. See who is sharing your content. See who “likes” your content. All of this information can help you better serve your target audience.

While there are a number of analytics packages out there (some free, some at a cost), I suggest starting off with Google Analytics, a free and remarkably robust package that’s easy to install on your site.

7. Get the Word Out!

It’s great to have a blog on your company website, but that certainly limits your audience. There are a number of ways to get a wider audience for your posts.

The easiest path is to find other blogs that attract your target audience. See what people are writing about there and see if you have something meaningful to add to the conversation. Most blogs allow for links within comments.

Another simple trick is to announce each new blog post on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. To get the title of your post on Twitter and still stay within 140 characters, shorten your URL with a site like bit.ly.

To monitor your success in social media, there are plenty of tools including Topsy, Facebook Insights or Hootsuite.

If you are more adventurous, then I suggest you reach out to appropriate blogs and offer your services as a guest blogger. The key here is that you have produced relevant content that would both be of interest to your target audience and is written sufficiently well for a broad audience.

Making It Work

If you commit to writing a business blog, then commit to having one that is well written, of interest to your target audience and is refreshed on a regular basis. A great blog can be a valuable business development tool. A lousy one can damage your brand and your reputation in your industry.

The post 7 Steps to Disciplined Business Blogging appeared first on Small Business Trends.