Margie Clayman

I have a confession. It’s a hardship that I haven’t wanted to speak of, but sometimes you just get the courage and it has to be shouted to the world.

One of the most fabulous bakeries ever is less than 5 minutes away from where I live.

Phew. That felt good.

There are tons of reasons why this is a problem. I can hit them up for a scone or a muffin on my way to work, for example. On the weekends, I hear their giant brownies and turtle brownies and lovely shortbreads calling my name. Literally. Calling my name. And all of the people who work there are incredibly nice, so you feel good about supporting this bakery. It’s a big problem.

However, there is one really good thing about this whole scenario, and that is that my particular bakery offers me a chance to illustrate how you can go from a friendship to selling in the world of Social Media.

[Read more…] about Defining the line between engagement and selling

It’s entirely possible that, having stopped by this site and checking out the engagement series here, you think I’m a liar, a fraud, or perhaps a bit drugged. You’ve been trying to engage with people online for months now. Your business has not grown. You still barely get any responses on Twitter and you’re about ready to give up on your blog because it’s just you and the crickets most of the time.

Before you burn me or your blog in effigy, let me toss out some things that might be getting in your way. If none of those seem to apply, then we can have thumb wars!

[Read more…] about six reasons why engagement isn’t making you money

It’s been a long time since you went out with this one friend of yours, so when she asked if you wanted to hit this concert she was going to, you went ahead and said ok. You didn’t really know a whole lot about the group and you didn’t really like their genre of music at all, but hey, what are friends for. While you’re at this concert, one of the songs is performed with particular gusto, and you actually find yourself taken aback a bit and really enjoying it, or at least you feel pleasantly surprised.

As you’re heading out the doors, you pass by the merchandise table. Here’s the question.

Do you buy the CD?

[Read more…] about Does passion pay the bills?

I just published post 51 in The Engagement Series a few days ago. Given that, I thought I would give you a preview of what will be coming up for the second half. Hopefully, you will be as excited about this as I am! I’ve divided the rest of the series into 12 sections of 4 posts and then an overall conclusion. So, without further adieu, here’s what we’ll be talking about for the next couple of months.

Engagement and your business: What is the real role of passion? How can you engage yet also grow your business?

How to bring engagement to marketing channels beyond Social Media (like ads or direct mail campaigns, for example)

How to create your own “team of rivals” – if you haven’t read Team of Rivals by Dorris Kearns Goodwin, I highly recommend it!

The journalistic questions – who are you engaging with? Why? And where can you find your target audience?

Social Media Engagement as a tool to get you where you need to go

Engagement across multiple Social Media channels

How four different types of industries could increase their engagement with customers using Social Media

The 4 biggest engagement mistakes, and why they are mistakes

The 4 things people need to know about you when you are trying to engage online

Taking Social Media engagement beyond business – the big picture, including how to use Social Media for social good

Key take-aways for engaging on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Blogs

Books, Blogs, and People that can help you continue to enhance your engagement online

Does this sound good to you? I hope so. I can’t wait to travel the rest of this journey with you!

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Image by Stephen Eastop. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Eastop

Battles. Passion. And a dash of how-to content. That’s what was in the mix the last week in the blogosphere!

Welcome back to #30Thursday, a concept I started last year, put on hiatus in November, and am now bringing back – but with a few changes.
Originally, the idea was that I would get recommendations of posts to include here. Unfortunately, most people ended up recommending their own posts instead of other folks’ posts, which was not the idea. So, I’m pickin and choosin this time around.

What hasn’t changed is that I’d be more than happy for you to start posting your own #30Thursday or #13thursday or whatever you’d want to do. This is about sharing great content and promoting other people.

And on that note, let me get out of the way and wave you towards #30Thursday curation #12. Enjoy!

[Read more…] about 30Thursday number 12: we’re back!

And other blog subjects that drive me nuts.

I’ve been conducting a little experiment on my blog for the last month or so. I’ve been hearing a lot of uproarious criticism about certain kinds of posts, specifically how a few cookie cutter post styles seem to be taking over the internet. I decided I would test how those kinds of posts perform versus posts that don’t fall into any of those cookie cutter patterns.

Guess what?

The kinds of posts that people so often complain about out-perform my other posts nine times out of ten. I’d wager the same would hold true on anyone’s site.

What kind of posts are getting the shrug-off? I’m seeing a lot of people negating the value of list posts, of how-to posts, or of posts that have headlines with words like “the best.”

[Read more…] about 5 reasons why list posts are crap