Between vacations, travel, and weekend afternoons by the pool my guess is you’re planning to pick up a book or two this summer. The perfect nonfiction book will inspire you to grow your business, teach you something new, give you new ideas, and be enjoyable to read. I have compiled a list of some of the nonfiction books I recommend most often. (Books have Amazon Affiliate links; authors’ names are linked to blogs.)

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? or Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

Switch: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Fail by Dan Heath & Chip Heath

Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

The Tipping Point and/or Outliers: The Story Of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Good To Great – Why Some Companies Make The Leap… And Others Don’t by Jim Collins

And for something not [directly] related to business but very excellent: A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror

I may post my favorite fiction later,  but in the meantime make sure to check out #fridayreads on Twitter!

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You’ve all heard of (and probably read) Seth Godin’s excellent book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (Amazon Affiliate link). He talks about finding (or creating) your audience and leading those passionate people to new things. If you have a business, at some point (like every point) you’re going to want to monetize the tribe.

ABC’s LOST has one of the most passionate tribes since Star Wars. Even if you’ve never seen the show, if you’re on Twitter or Facebook (or have any water cooler talk at the office) you’ve encountered people talking about the show.

Now ABC’s business model doesn’t really include monetizing a certain show’s fan base other than promoting them to advertisers while the show is on the air. There’s an official LOST Facebook page, but they’ve gone mostly silent since the show ended. There are tons of unofficial message boards, fan pages, blogs and web pages devoted to the show.

One such site, LostBlog.com, has no interest in shutting (or slowing) down after the show’s finale. They’ve organized rewatch discussion boards (planned times to rewatch certain episodes, starting from the pilot) and highlight the Twitter conversation, including new “Losties” who are beginning to watch the show for the first time.

They’ve also organized a  LOST book club where fans will be reading through books featured, mentioned, or alluded to in the series (and believe me, there are a lot). They continue to have advertisers and they use the Amazon affiliate program, so while I doubt they’re making a fortune they’re definitely monetizing.

The question is, are your tribes doing the same thing? Are they setting up discussion boards, activities or events centered around your product separate from you? If so, is that okay with you (because your business model, like ABC’s, ignores profitability after a certain point) or would you like to get in on the action?

One of the ways this might happen is if you never thought of rewatch parties or a LOST book club. So think outside the island. Have you thought of every way you can grow your business, even if a certain product is “over”? I’m betting you can’t afford to miss opportunities like these. So… what haven’t you thought of?

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Is your business easy for your customers? Some of you will say Yes first and then worry about it. Some will immediately begin arguing “All things worth having are worth working for…” The truth is whether you are a B2B, B2C or B2G, your product/service needs to be easy.

Staples has had success with their Easy Button campaign. They have a simple message: press the Easy Button, and all your office supply/ink/printing needs are met. Why is this effective? Because Staples is saying they understand you have bigger things to worry about– and whether your customers are business owners, Congressmen, housewives, schoolteachers or anything else, they have bigger things to worry about than your business.

At work recently I have begun ordering lunch a few times a week. I found a favorite place to order, Restaurant X. They have delicious food, reasonable prices and are only a couple blocks from my office. The first time they delivered right on time, but even after I had ordered a couple of times their [new] delivery people kept getting lost. A couple of times by the time my food arrived it was cold and I had lost whatever brief slip of time I’d been able to carve out for lunch in the first place. Then one day I called and they told me they couldn’t deliver during the lunch rush. Wait… couldn’t deliver lunch? Besides the fact that their website and menus’ largest text proclaims WE DELIVER, they are a downtown eatery within blocks of large office buildings, including mine, and they couldn’t deliver lunch. (On an earlier occasion, too, a coworker had wanted to order with me and Restaurant X told me they “couldn’t split orders”. Since neither she nor I had cash to reimburse one another, she cancelled her order.)

That coworker happened to think of Restaurant Y, a place with similar food a few miles away in a more residential area. Their prices are a little higher (a dollar or two per dish), but I decided to give them a try. They happily delivered, on time, and never got lost. Soon several other people in the office were ordering when I did because they’d seen my food (starting from when I was ordering from Restaurant X), and the drivers come out one time to deliver multiple orders. They patiently take an order and get transferred from phone to phone taking multiple credit cards.

You know what? I like Restaurant X’s food a little bit better, and would appreciate spending a few dollars less on lunch. But on those days I haven’t had time to pack anything and don’t have time to go out, only one thing matters: who can bring me lunch? I need to press the easy button and have lunch appear.

How could your business make it easier for your customers? How are you doing it already?

Photo by Venturist

Yes, contacting your existing network. Yes, searching job  boards. Yes, searching on social networks. But you can’t (shouldn’t!) sit at the computer all day, and even in person you won’t be the first great candidate letting your connections know you’re looking for work.

I’ve heard far too many people tell job seekers that employers will understand if there’s a gap in your resume in 2009 or 2010– the economy is tough. Maybe, but what does a complete gap in your resume say? That you’ve sat on your butt collecting unemployment as it was extended and extended. Is that what you want this time to say about you?

What did you do before? Can you do that in some capacity, even if you might be working for free? Nonprofits can always use extra help, but they may not always be able to pay for it.

Does a local Relay for Life need your help to build a website where each team can take contributions via PayPal, or to teach teams about using Square to take on-the-fly donations via credit card?

Can you organize a huge city-wide event for Share Our Strength’s National Bake Sale? Put together a supply drive for Haiti, Chile, Nashville, or the local crisis pregnancy center? Find a candidate you believe in and host a fundraiser, make phone calls or walk precincts. Right now while you may not have money, you have what you probably haven’t in the past: time. Put it to good use.

On a smaller level, use WordPress to build your church a website. Set your friend the CEO up on Twitter. Teach your small business owning brother how to video blog. If you’re an accountant, become a campaign treasurer. Retile your elderly neighbor’s kitchen. Start making family dinners for your best friend the single mom.

You can volunteer consulting services, too. Whether your expertise is boards of directors, open-source technology, accounting, event planning, paperless office environments, building projects, energy savings, or graphic design, chances are there’s a local nonprofit who could really use you.

There is also no reason you have to work for free. You can probably walk down your nearest major street and offer to build a web presence for each of the local businesses. Ask around for companies who’ve recently had to reduce their workforce and are missing a crucial person just as a project needs to get done. Do some consulting for a friend’s small business. Create a profile on a freelance work site or a compete-to-win graphic design site. Babysit. Walk some dogs. Start your own company.

In addition to having something to put on your resume and helping a worthy cause, you’ll often meet local business owners who serve on the boards of nonprofits (and when you’re doing freelance projects for companies, you’ll temporarily fit into their regular workflow). This is network building– the thing most likely to get you a new job.

In short, do something. As companies begin hiring again, and even if “they’re not”, you’ll put yourself in the best possible position to move forward. And who knows? You may even find that the freelancing you’re doing or the company you start is what you want to do for the rest of your life!

Picture by michelphoto53 en Rénovation on Flickr

So you’ve built a blog on WordPress. You see the Plugins section, but you have no idea what to do with them. Do you need them? Do they serve any purpose? What plugins are available?

There are plugins for almost everything you can think of, from linking your blog to Twitter to making it easier to insert photos in your sidebar.

There are a couple basics every blog should have, though; most related to either making your site easier for your customers to find (whether they know they are looking for you or not) or making your content easier to share. (NOTE: These plugins are available when you install the self-hosted version of WordPress–ie, your own URL– not with a blog hosted at WordPress.com)

First of all, when you install WordPress it comes with a plugin that helps block spam comments called Akismet. You will need to create a WordPress.com account and get an API key to activate it, but it’s well worth it because it will block 99% of spam comments in all but the most trafficked blogs. (If you find you need more help blocking spam comments, there are many additional plugins to accomplish this.)

If you have a Google Analytics account and plan to use it to track links and traffic to your blog (which I highly recommend), save yourself a lot of time and heartache by installing Google Analyticator, which automatically adds the necessary JavaScript to make that happen. You will have to enter a few things on the plugin Settings page to set it up initially, but after that it will do all the legwork for you!

Next you will want to install a few plugins to help make your blog easy for search engines to find and index.

• The All in One SEO Pack is an excellent place to start; once activated it gives you a way to add keywords to the code of each blog post so posts will appear in relevant searches.
• Google XML Sitemaps is another really helpful plugin. (It doesn’t just create and submit Google sitemaps; it will do it for all the major search engines.) Search engines don’t only search sites with sitemaps, but it makes the process easier and you can make recommendations for how often their bots come through. You can even make exceptions and keep the bots from scanning certain pages. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you would be well served by finding someone who knows a bit more about SEO, especially in the initial setup of your site.)

Finally, you’ll want to make your content as easy to share as possible.

• A popular one-size-fits-all option is the Add to Any Share/Bookmark plugin, which adds a menu to the bottom of each post offering sharing options on many popular sites.
• There is a Share on Facebook plugin to add that specific button, or you can use the code from Facebook’s own site to add their official button.
• The TweetMeme Retweet Button plugin is very popular as it is an easy way to share the post on Twitter and also displays the number of times the post has been tweeted in a graphic in the post itself.
• The Twitter on WordPress plugin creates a widget in your sidebar that will show all your tweets live.

This is just a start. There are hundreds of other plugins that do useful things like changing the way your blog archive appears or changing the “Next” “Previous” links at the bottom of the page. It’s worth searching anything you think of you might like to change; which you may have to change the code yourself to make some changes or add some functionality, the great developers who contribute to WordPress may well have already done the work for you! (And don’t forget to donate to those developers if you possibly can.)

Enjoy making your blog better with plugins!

It’s very common for me to have a conversation with a potential client that starts something like this:

“I know I should be on social media; I keep hearing that. But I don’t get it. What can I use it for?”

Let’s start with how you do business already– there’s no need to totally reinvent the wheel.

1. Host a town meeting or focus group– via UStream, Twitter or another chat service.
2. Host an educational seminar (in this case, a webinar)– use UStream, GoToMeeting, or another service.
3. Publish educational content– via a blog (WordPress, Blogger, Facebook or another platform) or as multimedia (on YouTube, SlideShare, etc.)
4. Provide top-notch customer service through Twitter, Facebook, or any number of forum or chat platforms.
5. Send a newsletter– use ConstantContact, Emma, or the bevy of other products available. (By permission only, please!)
6. Distribute informative literature by posting it on your website, Facebook fan page, or other platform.
7. Send invitations or spread the word about events– store openings, special sales, educational seminars, campaign rallies, whatever! Use MeetUp, Facebook, Evite, or a range of other options.
8. Distribute coupons, discount codes, or event tickets individually via email or generally to online fans/followers.
9. Organize volunteers to political events, community service opportunities, or other causes (MeetUp, Facebook, Evite, etc.).
10. Make announcements or distribute press releases. You can do this through regular communications on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, on a section of your website, or officially either through direct communication with reporters or by using a service like PitchEngine.)

(PS – This video on the social media revolution is worth seeing.)

With new small business clients I often get questions like

“Yeah, I know I should be on social media. But what would I use it for?”
“I don’t have a lot of time to devote to this, but I want to jump in. How can I start?”
“I’m not ready to set up a profile anywhere. Is there a way for me to dip a toe in another way?”

These questions, and others like them, will be answered over the next few weeks.
I’d love to get everyone’s input and look forward to further discussion.

Do you think you can create one ad campaign and run it on every medium? Think again.

While there may be some crossover, each medium is different and even if you’re always reaching the “same” audience, the truth is you’re most likely reaching very different segments of that audience– people who choose to receive their information in very different ways.

Some advertisers use their regular TV spots as the commercials in the ABC.com episode player. There’s a pause button on the ads (while the 30 seconds of show break continues to advance). Who watches these ads? No one. The smart advertisers, like NesQuik, put interactive ads in place–during one break you play a branded ConnectFour against the NesQuick bunny. This obviously takes longer than 30 seconds, and I’m willing to bet most people will finish the game before clicking to continue their show. The more time spent with your brand = the more the customer will remember.

On Hulu, the ad spots are also 30 seconds but you can’t pause them; and you don’t have to click to return to your movie (it happens automatically because the ads are in the same player). I watched several hours of Hulu shows and movies over the weekend. The only ad I remember? The one for FedEx, which is only 10 seconds long and shows a fast-forwarded version of their commercial while a voiceover says “Go ahead and get back to your movie; we know your time is valuable.” The FedEx logo is clearly visible on a package during most of the fast-forwarded part, and the logo appears by itself for about 2 seconds at the end. Then the show resumes, 20 seconds faster than it does on others’ ads. Excellent use of the medium. (If you’re really reaching your audience, they will remember you because of how little time they spent with your brand!)

TV advertising, especially if your audience is very broad (which it should be if you’re paying for TV ads), should take the network and the air time into account for commercials. It’s very doubtful you will have an effective campaign by showing the same ad on Spike and Lifetime, or on NBC at 12noon and 2am.

Think about the purpose of your advertising. Is advertising just ‘throwaway’ money? Then by all means create one commercial and paste it everywhere. If, however, you wish to see the highest ROI for each marketing dollar, you should invest a little more upfront in order to see real effectiveness.

Ted’s Montana Grill is Ted Turner’s eco-friendly restaurant chain most famous for their bison burgers. They currently have a solid online presence and a very vocal raving fanbase. Here’s how they’ve done it:

1. They knew raving fans existed and they wanted to leverage them to build more raving fans.
2. They started email marketing, gathering email addresses from an easy-to-use signup box on their homepage. Emails are generally about specials or special events, not at set intervals. 
3. They started a Facebook Fan page, and began offering a few special deals just for Facebook fans.
4. Later they did a month-long trivia contest using the Fan Page Updates and the Wall where the first person to post the correct answers to three trivia questions each Friday won a gift certificate.
5. Finally they launched a huge contest where fans had to create content (art, sound or video) about what made them the biggest fan of Ted’s bison burgers. The winner would get a new Prius and free food at Ted’s for a year.
   After a submission period (marketed by a few emails, but mostly on their Facebook page) Ted’s picked the top three submissions for the final round of the contest, and asked their fans to pick the fourth (out of ten selected entries). They have a YouTube channel for this purpose, as well as having the options easily accessible on their website (with voting highlighted on their homepage). Just a few hours after announcing this turn of events the contest had well over 6,000 votes.

The fans in these videos talk of flying to Ted’s locations (currently the chain is only in a few states) just to have a burger, taking their four burger-loving toddlers, going faithfully every week after church, knowing the names of every waiter at their local restaurant, the health benefits of bison over beef and the huge variety of burger toppings, among other things. Let me tell you, these fans are evangelists–and there are thousands of them.

Ted’s online marketing strategy is pretty simple. They started with a solid, easy-to-navigate website; added email, then Facebook. It is not an inordinately expensive campaign, nor do the Ted’s staff have much direct interaction with fans (such as Twitter or back-and-forth on Facebook). They’ve just set up a forum for people to share good things, and given away a few (in the long run, also fairly inexpensive) incentives along the way to get more people involved.

How can your business replicate their success? Where are you raving fans, and how can you reach them so they can reach others for you?

[Edit: Alexa Scordato shared this great SlideShare presentation in the comments: The Fan Economy.)