Margie Clayman

A person with whom I used to work always used the phrase “secret sauce.” For example, while Google gives you a lot of information about how to appear on the front page of the organic results, they don’t give away the secret sauce as to how they run all of the algorithms. I always loved that analogy. As someone who tries to recreate family recipes and always comes up tantalizingly short, I totally understand the idea of “secret sauce.”

Secret sauce in Social Media

The world of Social Media is literally basking in secret sauces. You’ve probably noticed that almost everyone is out here giving advice and offering assistance. Why are people able to do that? Because no matter how much exterior information they give away, they aren’t giving away their secret sauce. They might be telling you that the pizza sauce you like has tomatoes and some spices. They might even tell you how long to cook the tomatoes, and what spices. But specific measurements on each of those ingredients? Probably not forthcoming. And that last bit of information – that’s what will always make their sauce taste slightly different from yours. Not necessarily better. Just different.

The difference between reading and doing

The secret sauce factor is really important to remember as you strive to learn via blogs, webinars, and conferences in the online world. What you will receive is great information. Invaluable, in fact. But what you learn from other people is just the list of ingredients. For example, you might learn about effective titles for blog posts, but you won’t learn how that person used that particular ingredient to create their secret sauce.

To put it another way, reading Copyblogger.com posts will not turn you into Brian Clark or Sonia Simone. Reading Problogger.net will not turn you into Darren Rowse. That’s not a bummer. That’s an invitation to you to create your own secret sauce.

What’s your special twist?

A blogger’s secret sauce can be in almost any facet of the process. Maybe it’s in how you monetize the blog. Maybe your secret sauce is how you develop your voice or your content. Maybe you’re like Daniel Day Lewis, who chooses a song to listen to for each role he accepts and somehow uses that song to act as well as he does (I think I read somewhere that he used an Eminem song to develop his character in Gangs of New York. Talk about secret sauce!).

Every blogger has that special little kernel that makes them special. This is not a question. This is a fact. So what is your special offering to your audience that will keep them wondering and coming back?

Sniff around

Take a look at other bloggers out there and see if you can identify their secret sauce. What are they not sharing with everybody? What’s the meat between those skeletal frames being shown to you?

Let’s talk in the comments section about what you find out about other bloggers and yourself. Sound good?

Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/kaleff

So I received my first question in the “Ask Margie” section of this site – from my oft-mentioned friend Ms. Susan Fox, aka @Gagasgarden. Susan asked about how to get lurking types to comment on blog posts.

The question takes me back to one of the first Blogchat chats I ever attended. People were talking about how to get more comments in general. I was getting to know some people, so I was talking about methodologies that I had heard other people mention. “Oh, I am only getting about 17 comments per post,” one person said. “Yeah, it took me a whole month to start getting a steady stream of comments.”

I had been blogging for about 2 months and still wasn’t getting any comments. I was feeling a little confused.

Flash forward, well, a whole year now, I guess. Several months later. I usually get at least one comment on my blog posts, and things have been going pretty well here. You all have been offering some really interesting insights that make this place more a meeting place than a Margie babbling place, which is good. There’s just one small itsy bitsy thing I’d like to confess to you.

I still have no idea what posts are going to generate conversation and which ones aren’t.

You call this an answer?

I know. This is not the type of answer you’re used to seeing, probably. A lot of people offer a lot of advice when it comes to blog comments. I’m certainly not saying that I know more than experts like Brian Clark and Denise Wakeman. I’m just saying that I think that getting people to comment on your blog posts is more art than science.

In fact, I have something I need to confess to you.

Some of my most popular posts have been posts that I threw together. I may or may not have taken the time to put a cherry on top. I was happy enough with them to publish them, but I didn’t think they would really garner a huge response. Wrong.

Okay, one more confession. There have been a LOT of posts that I was sure would catch fire. I literally waited with baited breath. Those tended to get no comments at all.

A few things to think about

I have some ideas that I’ve been kind of thinking about and working with, so perhaps these will help you too.

• Some people just don’t comment. I have done primary research on this (that is to say I’ve talked to people on Twitter about it). The sheer volume of blog posts that people read restricts their ability to comment. There’s not much you can do about that.

• Shorter posts seem to do better more often than not. This kind of makes sense. Again the time thing. If a person has half an hour to do blog type things, they could either spend that whole time reading 1 blog post or they could take five minutes to read your post and five minutes to comment. What are you hoping for?

• People need guidance. Personally, I prefer comments over retweets just because I like the conversation that can develop in a comments section – it seems harder to do that on Twitter. So I have started to gently nudge people towards commenting. If you want people to comment, let them know (it’s that whole expectation thing again).

• Are you talking at people or with people? When I first started blogging, I thought the key was to sound very … smart. Now, I’m not saying that you want to dumb down your content, but people tend not to respond, in blogs or in real life, if you are yelling and spitting at them. If you are conversing, people are more likely to um, to converse. So, even if you know a ton about something, rely on your readers to build out the content. Don’t tell the whole story yourself. Be willing to share.

The ever-moving target

There’s one more thing I would toss out in reference to Susan’s question. That is that just like on Twitter or on Facebook, your audience is constantly shifting. You have your subscribers, but then you have people who could be finding your site from all sorts of different sources. It’s really hard to tell if they are reading, why they chose to read, how much they’re reading, and all of the other details a blogger loves to hear about. Even subscribers may not read every post. With all of the talk about how full peoples’ RSS feeds are, a subscription is not a promise that every post of yours will be read. So, I have a key audience in mind with each of my posts, and I talk to that audience, to you. If you don’t catch this post, that’s alright. I’ll catch ya later. If someone new comes here and they dig my vibe, then that’s great! As the blogger, you set the mood in your blog house. As people come and go, they may see things they like, and they may comment. They may see things they like and go on their merry way. You just never know. People are weird that way.

Mostly though, it’s a mystery

For all of that, I still don’t really have a solid 100% answer. I’m still learning about the world of blogging. It’s still extremely gratifying for me every single time I get any comment, and I hope it always remains that way. When I write a post that resonates with people, well, that’s the gold, isn’t it? But you can’t hit gold every time, and you have to learn to roll with the punches.

If only you could tell where those punches are coming from…

Does that help?

Over the last couple of months, I’ve seen an awful lot of, let’s use Amber Naslund’s word, kerfuffles, in the online realm. Some of them have been about controversial blog posts. Others have been about controversial tweets.

These incidents have raised some questions for me, and maybe for you too. So I thought maybe we could talk about them.

• Have you noticed that a lot of people recommend stirring controversy to drive traffic to a blog site? Say it loud, say it mean, all that kind of stuff? So, why are we surprised when someone writes something that is controversial?

• Maybe you have also noticed, as I have, all of the blog posts, webinars, etc etc that admonish people in the Social Media world to speak their minds and be authentic. However, it seems like when someone voices, authentically, an opinion that doesn’t mesh with group A, group A responds with knives and pitchforks and civility goes out the window. So is the rule that you can be as authentic as you want as long as you agree with me?

• And finally, maybe you have noticed that if someone writes a post that frames an influential person in a negative way, it’s going to create chaos, a lack of civility, and overall bad vibes. It’s a sad fact, but it’s true. Supporters of the influential person jump in. Supporters of the blogger or tweeter jump in. So, why can’t we pinpoint this pattern and remain civil? Why can’t we talk about ideas instead of people?

If you’re here for business, online is at work

I love a good debate. I love researching to see if my own opinion actually has real legs to stand on. I love to be held accountable for what I say here and in my tweets. But loving those things also means a sense of responsibility. If I choose to write a blog post, like say, this one, I have to write it knowing that it can be read by absolutely anyone. I have to know that every word that I tweet is visible to absolutely everyone. When/if you Google my name (and why wouldn’t you?) my tweets show up right at the top. That means if a new client is looking at our agency, they will very likely see my tweets. If someone is looking to work for us, they will see my tweets, most likely. They may see this blog. They may see my Facebook page or my LinkedIn account.

That is on my mind all. of. the. time.

Because I care about you and don’t want anything disastrous to happen to you, I implore you to keep it that on your mind too.

Controversy is fine. Saying what is in your heart is the right way to go. But do not stir the pot without thinking, and always, always be aware that people may only see your side of the debate, without context. How do you look to those people who can’t hear the person you’re talking to?

Just something to think about.

Image by Dan Brady. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/danyul

I got a great comment from my friend Jill Manty regarding my post on agencies and Social Media boutiques. Her experience is different from mine in that she comes from the digital agency side of things. Her experience has been that “traditional” agencies are completely unprepared to build bridges with a digital agency. They don’t know how to work online. Some of them haven’t even had websites. Jill rightly asked how one could build a bridge or a cooperative relationship with an agency that is so under-prepared and so behind the times.

It’s a pretty good question, and one that represents things about the current state of marketing world that really make me sad. It all goes back to issues I’ve blogged about before – isolation, a lack of integration, head in the sand type marketing. The works. We can’t build bridges if some of us are building out of toothpicks and others of us are using steel.

Jill’s question made me realize that there are a lot of questions, related questions, that might be floating through peoples’ minds as they ponder Marketing Version 2011. So I thought I would shoot out some questions and then, being completely narcissistic, I’d also offer my answers. But of course, each answer is up for debate! All of these questions, and more, answer Jill’s question. Or at least, that is the intent.

So here we go.

1. What is Marketing? When I use the word marketing, I am using it to refer to any methodology of product or service promotion. Now back in the day, this was pretty much commercial advertising and press releases. These days the world has gotten a lot more complex. Are white papers marketing? Sure. Are websites marketing? Yep. Is Social Media marketing? You betcha.

2. Who Owns Social Media? I saw this question all throughout 2010. “Doesn’t PR own Social Media?” “I thought customer service owned Social Media.” “No no no, Social Media is clearly the territory for marketers.” Well, given my definition of marketing, these questions simply don’t make sense to me. In point of fact, asking who owns Social Media is like asking, “Who owns the concept of the screw driver? Is it just for carpenters?” Social Media is a tool. It can absolutely be invaluable to PR, marketers, content developers, and teenagers, too.

3. Isn’t Social Media a fad? It seems like some agencies, like the one Jill works with, are still burying their heads in the sand a bit when it comes to Social Media. “No, no, it’s not happening. It’s not the same as a print ad. We only do print ads.” Now if you say, “Twitter is a fad,” or “Facebook is a fad,” I might be more likely to give the question some thought. Lots of tools run their course and then kind of fizzle out. Then again, we were all laughing about the passage of MySpace a couple of months ago and now it seems to be redefining itself. Hmm. What can agencies learn from MySpace? The times are changing. You should change too. That doesn’t mean you need to change into something that’s dead, though.

4. How do I measure marketing success now? One particularly sad thing about traditional agencies who are burying their heads in the sand is that they are missing immense opportunities to make their efforts quantifiable. When I first started as a media buyer 6 year ago, a lot of magazines had little “bingo cards” at the end. People would go through and select products and/or companies that interested them. Companies would then receive these cards and could say, “Hey, we got x number of leads from this magazine.” It was tangible. As print started to mix with other marketing channels, the bingo cards went by the wayside, and agencies and advertisers were left with the feeling that their advertising dollars were being sent into the Gulf with the disappearing oil. Now, though, there are lots of new and exciting ways to bring quantification back. But you have to be willing to try new things. You have to be able to integrate web development, web analytics, maybe QR codes, and other new measurement tools. The possibilities are really exciting in this realm, though.

5. What is the ROI of Social Media? This is a very general question that you see a lot. My pat answer for 2011 is going to be a question in return. Actually, two questions. What is your objective? Question two: what are you investing?  The phrase “Return on investment” all kind of runs together now, and I think people don’t really weigh what it means. Return. on. Investment. If you are not investing anything in your Social Media efforts, you can’t really expect a return, right? Similarly, if you don’t know what you want your “return” to be, it’s going to be hard to wager what a “good” ROI would be for a Social Media campaign. Answer these 2 questions first, then we can talk about what your ROI is.

6. Isn’t B2B the wrong fit for…xyz? There was a lot of buzz in early December because Rick Segal, speaking at the B2B European Conference in Berlin, declared that B2B marketing was “obsolete.” I’ve already said my piece about phrases I’m hoping not to hear in 2011 – “is dead” is one of them. Obsolete is close enough. The fact of the matter is that B2B companies can use any marketing channel that a B2C company can use. It just needs to be thought of in a slightly different way. Instead of thinking just about an end-user, a B2B company may need to incorporate a sales force or a distributor network – or both. But that’s just an additional step, it’s not the gallows. The only new trend in marketing that I think might be a bit rough for *some* B2B companies is geo-location technology. You’re not going to wander by a manufacturer of auto parts and say “Oh, I think I’ll check in here to get a discount.” Most likely. You never know.

7. Is advertising dead? Like many things, advertising is not dead. I would even go out on a limb and say it’s not dying. It’s evolving. It’s changing. Agencies and advertisers need to make an adjustment to a world where advertising is a two-way communication system. I foresee an increase in interactive aspects like QR codes or “submit a video or a picture” or something like that. I see Social Media being integrated more into traditional advertising campaigns so that Social Media can remain ad-free while ads can do the selling.

8. Do I need to learn about that? I hope I don’t hear this question too often in 2011. I certainly am approaching this year as a time when I will try to learn everything I can about everything. That means if there are changes in SEO – I want to know about it. If there are changes in print advertising trends, I want to be ahead of the curve. If mobile suddenly peters out into nothingness because the Martians bring us mind control hats, I want to know all about that. I firmly believe that if you want to be a strong and efficient marketer in this decade/century/year, you need to be able to speak semi-intelligently about everything your client could need.

9. Don’t I need an expert? I think there is a growing distrust of the “expert.” At least experts who call themselves experts. First of all, there are too many areas where you can have experts now. I’m waiting to see who the golden child of the iPad application will be, or the Super Ninja of Groupon Marketing. Maybe they are already out there. In any case, categories of marketing are becoming more niche and more deep, and often more isolated, too. If you are an agency, digital or “traditional,” or if you are a marketing consultant – get thee to a position of being a hub (boy, “get thee to a nunnery” flows a lot better. Good call, Shakespeare). Gather experts around you and to you so that together, you can offer expertise on any subject. An expert in just one area is not going to be enough.

10. Isn’t PR/Customer Service/Content/Advertising/Social Media more important than marketing? Given my definition of marketing and how I work in the marketing world via our agency, you might sympathize with me when I say, “Uh…what?” I truly don’t understand this question. No matter what the specifics are. If you are doing things in what I believe is the “right way,” for what it’s worth, all of these things ARE marketing. Asking if PR is more important than marketing is like asking me, “Don’t you think the foundation of a house is more important than the whole house?” No, I kind of like the whole thing. Big picture kind of deal. Whole enchilada.

What would your question number 11 be? What would your answer be? Or would you like to shoot out a question 11 and see how others respond to it?

Or, maybe you’d like to take issue with one of my questions or answers. That’s fine too.

I’d love to hear from you.

1st Image by Marcelo Pascual. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/marcelo03

2nd Image by jacquet karine. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/chtroumfet

3rd Image by frédéric dupont. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/patator