It gives me great pleasure to welcome Iggy Pintado as a guest with his article, first posted on his own blog, sharing his experiences of harnessing the power of social media communities.

You can find out more about Iggy and connect with him on Twitter @iggypintado and you can find the original article at his excellent iggypinatdo’s posterous blog.

Connecting Social Communities FTW – Personal Case Study and 10 Tips

In December last year, my daughter Rachel asked for my help to win a Bride of the Year Facebook contest that required entrants to have their particular picture LIKED on the contest page. As a connector who often gets asked what possible benefit there is in having so many Facebook friends (currently 4,500), Twitter followers (currently 36,000) and Linkedin connections (currently 26,000), I took on the challenge to apply my marketing experience to prove that if utilised effectively, you can derive a benefit from connecting a social community – for the win (FTW).

As you can see from the picture, Rachel won the contest. Her winning picture generated 1,657 likes, taking out the grand prize of an all expenses paid trip to Australia’s Hamilton Island for two. She won as a result of a carefully managed marketing campaign that connected individuals in various social communities to take an action that resulted in her win. This isn’t the story of the campaign – a good cook doesn’t reveal his full recipe. It does provide some tips as to how to connect social communities to achieve a desired result which I hope you find useful!

1. Understand the RULES and OUTCOMES.

The contest rules as defined by MMG Photo + Cinema were very clear: Eligible brides were asked to post a photo on their Facebook contest page. Whoever got more recorded “likes” than all other entrants legitimately by midnight 31st December 2011 would be the winner. The marketing challenge was to get more likes on Rachel’s picture than all other 45+ competitive contestant brides in 4 short weeks in December, ensuring her picture was in a winning position a few hours before the contest close time.

The RULES were very clear. The OUTCOME was simple: She had to win.

2. Consult the PRACTITIONERS (People in the KNOW, not necessarily the “experts)

As much as you think you might know about social media and communities (myself included), I asked for the advice of some the smartest people who plan, play and experiment in social media. I’m not talking about the people who talk the theory. I’m referring to the people who practice what they preach – daily. I got some great advice and support from Mahei Foliaki, Michael Todd, Keith Keller and Annalisa Holmes. These folks are in the social game every day and provided reality checks that I was grateful to be able to cash.

3. Marshall your COMMUNITY.

The people who want to assist you directly are usually those close to you – family and good friends – so start compiling that list first. Next are people you relate to regularly – work colleagues and good acquaintances – they may not ‘know’ you well but they may be willing to take an easy action such as liking a Facebook photo due to your connection. Thirdly, there are interest groups who you have some connection with – school, church, university, clubs, etc – again, if the request is simple and easy, they’re likely to support.

Finally, always apply network theory by asking every simple person to SHARE the request with their own connections at the same time you ask them to take an action. If the action is simple, they’ll be more willing to ask their friends to maximise the reach of the request.

4. Make task easy – LIKE in 2 clicks

The easier the better. The request sent to various individuals and groups was to LIKE Rachel’s posted competition picture. The first step was to click on a link to the photo and once there, to click LIKE on her photo – easy as. To make it easier, the request was usually done on Facebook, the platform they were already on. I found it harder to post as links on other social platforms like Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin as they had to switch what they were doing. However, it didn’t stop us posting there too!

5. Ask nicely … and personally.

I sent a direct Facebook message to many of my Facebook connections as did Rachel. I messaged around 20 connections at a time and sometimes a few more, using their first names in every case. I preferred Facebook messages as it was more personal and direct. Those who chose to opt-out by leaving the message conversation made it easier to send follow-ups to later and prevent potential accusations of spamming. The message was simple and included a direct link:

I hope this short message finds you well. I need a small favour. My beautiful daughter Rachel is getting married next year. She is in a Facebook contest to win a holiday on Australia’s Hamilton island for her honeymoon in a contest that ends on 31st December 2011. Can I please ask for your support to “LIKE” her photo via the link below and SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS. She promises to post photos of her trip if she wins!  Cheers and happy holidays, Iggy Pintado

I was ably supported by the communities of supporters like Tessa Gutierez, Mark Simmering and 124 others who shared my message as a Facebook post.

6. Monitor performance along the way.

I monitored Rachel’s progress daily from day one and hourly in the last 24 hours. When the LIKE rate started to slow down, I would send a mix of follow-up messages and interest group posts to get it moving again. As the contest was open to people in other countries, I sent messages to connections in their time zones to maximise their views of the messages. Also, it was important to avoid holiday dates like Christmas and Boxing Day as there was minimal social activity during these times.

In doing so, Rachel jumped from 31st place in the first week of the contest to 9th place by the start of the third week. She was in the top 5 with a week to go and hit the lead two days before the contest end time.

7. Get ready for plot twists.

The contest organisers were also clear that they could change the rules along the way. With two weeks to go, they culled the number of contestants to the top 10. In another twist, they allowed 35+ brides who didn’t make the final cut to allocate their LIKES to anyone in the top 10. Fortunately, Rachel was always pleasant and friendly with all the contestants throughout. It helped that she LIKED all the other contestants pictures and added them as friends on Facebook prior to their elimination. The plan now called for a closer monitoring of LIKE allocations by the other contestants and the real possibility of having to get more LIKES than planned.

8. Keep an eye on the competition (but don’t let it obsess you)

Due to the plot twist, closer monitoring of the final 10 competitors was required. In week three, I started a simple spreadsheet recording LIKES every few hours by finalists PLUS allocations from the other 35+ brides. By tracking performance, you could assess what tactics they were using via comments left on their posts.

9. Stay awake until the very end.

The contest deadline was midnight on 31st December 2011, New Years Eve. Although there was little one could do if there were any massive LIKES or LIKE allocations made in the last few hours, there were some tactics planned as contingencies just in case. It’s a little like watching final bidding on an eBay item – you must watch until the very end.

10. Say THANK YOU.

The day after she won the contest (New Years Day), I personally messaged all the people I knew who LIKED her photo. I posted my thanks on all my social platforms to maximise the message. I re-posted her thank you picture at the top of this post. So many people were grateful for the thanks and delighted by the part they played in being part of the success.

So again, I’d like to thank EVERY ONE of the 1,657 people who took the time to be part of Rachel’s success and for validating that you can connect social communities for benefit.

Many thanks from me to Iggy for allowing me to share his excellent article and of course congratulations to Rachel! Please do let us know what you think and share any other tips that you might have.

Many thanks for visiting the blog, if you like this post I hope you will share it with your communities. If you would to see more like this then you can Subscribe, Follow, Like and Add to your Circles using the options in the sidebar.

*Rachel’s image by permission of Iggy Pintado

I have a confession! As I approach the second anniversary of the start of my social media journey I am no longer enjoying the experience.

There – I feel much better now. They say confession is good for the soul which is a good start but now I want to go further and make changes which will regain my social media soul and transport me back to the early days when it was all just so much fun.

What has led to this sad situation? I have been trying to be all things to all men (and women) spreading my time too thinly in wanting to be involved in every new community in case I miss out on something. As a consequence I am spending all of my time chasing my tail and have lost the wonder and excitement of discovering and connecting with new people.

Friends old and new are ignored as I strive to reach an intangible goal that I don’t even understand. Content remains unwritten and the blog languishes with only the occasional morsel to retain my loyal readers interest.

Let’s be honest – it’s all become a bit of chore and I have just been going through the motions recently.

So on the cusp of this New Year I find myself at a cross roads, I could take the easier and negative route and just give in or I could take a step along the positive path and take some actions to rekindle the joy I used to feel. I have always been a positive type so I choose the latter and have drawn up a list of 10 golden rules to follow to keep me on the straight and narrow in 2012.

We all have different reasons for blogging – my motivation is to have an enjoyable hobby, meeting and engaging with fun and interesting people along the way, enjoying the journey and seeing where the adventure leads. I therefore feel I need need this radical overhaul and while you may not feel the same way I hope you will find something here too keep you on the right track whatever your destination.

Keep a balance

My number 1 rule! By this I mean have some balance in my life and maintain a healthy perspective to all of my social media activities. I am not and never will be a ‘social media professional’ but at times I have been thinking as if I was and taking it all far too seriously.

I don’t use one of those fancy smart mobile devices so tend to pop onto the computer in between doing other stuff to see what’s going on. From now on I will jump in when I have time but if real life is getting in the way I’m not going to worry about it. My online world will be for enjoyment and connecting with good people and not for adding pressure to my life!

Ignore the scores

There are so many ways to measure ‘success’ and ‘influence’ in the social media world and it’s very tempting to pay too much attention to them. I started out measuring my success by the quality of my relationships rather than the number of followers, likes and so on and that’s the way it is going to be again.

So no more Klout score or Empire Avenue share price worries for me – maybe these types of measurements have their place but I do think that too much emphasis can be put on them. To me they have just become a time waster and a distraction so I am going to ignore them and concentrate instead on just enjoying the ride and building relationships again.

Be real

It’s very tempting to automate stuff to find and share content but it’s not something I’ve ever been comfortable with.  I could see some value in Triberr for a while and have connected with some good people there but I did find that having a stream of content presented to me, sometimes from people I didn’t really know, with a pressure to share meant that the spontaneity and random nature of Twitter was missing. I’m sure it works well for some but it’s not for me.

The same goes for scheduling. I can see the benefits and I am happy to have a Buffer button on the blog for you to use but I would like to send my Tweets and shares out into the ether myself, it just seems more fun that way. I like people to know that when I’m active online that I am actually there.

So it’s back to popping into lists, subscribing to great blogs and just seeing what’s going on to find content to share. If I miss something so be it, that’s the nature of life and it’s trying to be in too many places which has taken the fun out of it.

Tweet with integrity

I am going to get back to sharing a Tweet for the best reason of all – because I like what it says or has a link to great content. Too often in the past I have shared something to try to impress or because I felt that I might upset someone if I didn’t.

I am all for Retweeting something as a way of thanking someone for their friendship or support but I must to admit to putting Tweets into my stream which I knew in my heart were rubbish to try to impress someone who is ‘influential’.

I have some wonderful online friends who would be perceived as such but it’s not their influence that I admire – it’s their personalities, friendship and support that mean a lot to me so in future ‘influence’ is bottom of the list.

Read – don’t skim

I have realised that I have got into the habit of not reading posts properly, I tend to skim them to see if they are the type of thing I would like to share but haven’t felt that I had the time to actually read them in detail.

So a little more time spent taking in the content I am reading will allow me to better understand it and as a consequence to be able to ;

Share with enthusiasm

Don’t just Tweet – if content is good then I am going to take a little more time to share it around in other places too. Not indiscriminately though, a little thought needs to go into choosing which community will appreciate it.

Interact and engage

So many ways to do this but so little time!! Thank someone for sharing, ask a question, send a compliment, add a comment or just say Hi. These are all fantastic things to do to get more out of the social media experience and to connect to and build relationships with some wonderful people.

Stop checking those stats

Is it just me? Do you feel the need to check stats repeatedly? Maybe it’s just the OCD side of my nature coming out but I find myself wanting to look at Adsense, Analytics, subscribers and all those other ways to measure far too often. It’s not as if they have changed very much since I last looked!

It’s such a waste of time and can be demotivating if too much emphasis is put on the results. It’s become part of the social media disease that’s been afflicting me so it must go. Once a week will do just to keep an eye on things and to identify any trends I need to know about.

Hit that ‘Publish’ button again

I used to add 2 to 3 posts to the blog each week with new ideas springing up all the time. More recently, while I have been chasing other things it has been more like 2 to 3 monthly. Not good enough I say, what’s the point in having a blog if it’s withering on the vine?

Time will be set aside to write more again (Oh dear – I’ll have to think of something witty to say!!) and I will start building those relationships again so that I can invite some more wonderful guests to appear on the blog.

Be bold!

It’s so boring producing the same old type of content or even worse, no content on the blog or Tweeting out the same old stuff all the time. I need to be more adventurous again coming up with new ideas even if that risks falling flat on my face or making a fool of myself. Where’s the fun in playing safe all the time!

I need to have a more proactive approach to relationship building too reaching out to new people to connect with without fear of rejection.

If it’s not adding to the enjoyment then don’t do it!

The more observant of may have noticed that this makes 11 (I told you I was going to be bold!!) but I think this one needs to be set alongside all of the first 10 as my overriding social media rule.

So there you have my new social media philosophy. Having written it all down now I am sure it’s the right way to go for me. Two years ago I hadn’t heard of this amazing social media community and have had a wonderful time immersing myself in it. The direction of the journey had however veered on to the wrong road for me and I feel it’s important to recognise that and do something about it.

Now over to you! What do you think? Do you feel that you are on the right road or do you think that, like me, you have been sucked into a world that you no longer enjoy?

Do you think I am misguided and missing out on some wonderful opportunities by taking a more simple uncomplicated approach? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Many thanks for visiting The Top 10 Blog today, if you have enjoyed this post I hope you will share it with the world.

Wishing you all the best for 2012

*Image credits

Statistics – graur codrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Clock – Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Opportunity Road Sign – scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When I started to blog I found sourcing images a thorny subject as I was aware that while the easiest thing was just copying stuff from Google images, in doing so I might be infringing someone’s copyright. As someone who wanted to blog responsibly that was a worry to me as I didn’t want to leave myself open to complaints or even worse to the possibility of legal action.

As a consequence I have found a couple of good places to source good quality, free images which can be used without any copyright issues and I wanted to share these with you and show you how to use them in case you were facing the same problem. You can find the links to these sites at the end of the post.

(Video best viewed in Full Screen)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Please use these links to visit these sites (not affiliate links)

freedigitalphotos.net

Flickr Creative Commons

Please let me know what you think, is this something you have found difficulty with and have you found this information useful? Do you use other sites for sourcing images that we need to know about? I would love to get some feedback on the subject!

Many thanks for visiting the blog today, if you have enjoyed this post I hope you will share it with the world and if you would like to see more like this you can Subscribe, Follow, Like and Add to your Circles using the options in the sidebar.

* Image credit (Excerpt) – digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Welcome to a first for The Top 10 Blog with my first ever video presentation!

I thought it would be fun to share some quick tips from my experiences in using WordPress which can make your blogging life easier.

(Best viewed in full screen)

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hope you have enjoyed this new concept for the blog, please do let me know what you think, your feedback on the idea and the execution will be very welcome!

If you have enjoyed this post I hope you will share it with the world and if you would like to see more like this you can Subscribe, Follow, Like and Add to your Circles using the options in the sidebar.

Are you in a Triberr tribe? Have you looked at Triberr before and kept away as you don’t like automating Tweets? Either way I am sure you will be interested in the recent change to Triberr which has resulted in the automated feature being removed.

My initial reaction to the change, which was made to comply with Twitter TOS, was that this would be the end of Triberr as automation was one of the main reasons why people joined tribes in the first place (Although for me it was initially a reason to stay away!).  On reflection though I have changed my mind and I think that I will in fact find it a better place to be and a stronger part of my social media strategy.

Here are my reasons why;

1. I instinctively don’t like automating anything. I made an exception with Triberr and only automated people I know well and trust but it still felt strange to me seeing my Tweets being RT’d in the stream when I hadn’t yet read the content being shared.

2. Having to go into Triberr to approve posts manually should mean that the content is actually read before sharing, I have always done that anyway. That will give us all the opportunity to connect and engage with our fellow tribe members which was absent with automation.

3. Visiting and reading posts will allow more opportunities to add comments, something that can benefit both the author and the reader.

4. I have always visited my Tribber stream regularly to see what is going through and to approve posts manually, that takes time and commitment, two things I think are important if I am going to enjoy and get the most out of my social media experience. I will be able to see if others are prepared to make the same level of commitment and that may change my relationship with them.

5. I like to share good content in other places too such as Google+ or StumbleUpon, I am more likely to do that if I am reading the content. Triberr have actually introduced the ability to share content on these platforms more easily which I think is a positive step.

6. The removal of automation and the additional commitment needed will I think ‘weed out’ people who are just there to promote themselves or who just see Triberr as a content distribution channel rather than a place to connect and engage.

I think that a number of people will stop using Triberr and of those who remain will find that if they are not sharing others posts then their own content will not be going far! It will become much more of a give and take community.

7. For all these reasons tribes will become more tightly knit and stronger and more meaningful relationships are likely to be built within them.

A friend recently said to me “I’ll never join Triberr, it’s all shopping and games” and while I did have some sympathy with this view I could see the benefits and was prepared to ignore my automating prejudices to join in but still retaining a degree of control opting to approve much of the content. I am really happy to be on manual however and hope the benefits will be even greater.

You may say that Triberr is now nothing more than a glorified list or circle however I think that, as long as you connect with the right people and are prepared to make some commitment, it could have a very useful role as part of my social media strategy. Note that I say part of, it’s still vital to find content from many sources and to share it in many different ways.

So if your initial reaction was ‘Triberr is no longer for me’, have a think about my reasons for staying committed, I am willing to give them another chance and you never know, it may just turn out to be a better place to connect, engage and build quality relationships.

I would love to hear what you think! Are you a Triberr person and do you share my thoughts or is it no longer for you? Will you look again at Triberr now that you can have a greater degree of control? What do you feel about automating in general, is it something you do and is so what methods do you use.

Many thanks for visiting The Top 10 Blog. If you have enjoyed this post I hope you will share it using the buttons below and to your left. If you would like to see more like this you can Subscribe, Follow, Like and Add to your Circles by way of the options in the sidebar.

*Image credit

Approved Key – renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net