Never before in the history of the human race has there been such beautiful and glorious technology at our fingertips. Up until the past several decades, humans were forced to live primarily in isolation, relying on primitive systems to communicate.

However, with the advent of social media, the curse of isolation is broken and the human race can finally come together as one.

One industry.

One niche.

One product.

Social media is a godsend…it is a chance to be reborn as what you were meant to be.

With Facebook comes the power to find people where they play.

With Twitter comes the power to find and engage anyone that might have something you want.

With blogs, more specifically, blog comments, comes the power to build a following far beyond your wildest dreams.

Simply put…social media gives you the power of engagement. Engagement gives you the power to build a cult following of people that worship the ground you walk on.

Engagement is your bunker…your parapet…the rallying cry that you can use to protect yourself from any message you send, regardless of the intention.

With the advent of social media, you have the power of engagement, and it’s the most powerful ability you have.

The Way of Engagement

Respond to every comment.

Reply to every Tweet.

Follow people for the sole purpose of getting them to follow you.

These are the rules of engagement.

Marketing, especially when cleverly disguised as engagement, is the key to unlock both power and riches.

Through engagement, you build a following that is interested in your message.

Through continued engagement, this audience becomes the engagers, and starts to spread your message for you.

Should all go well, you’ll quickly have a following that is ready and willing to buy anything you sell, regardless of its quality or price. Fancy names do well here, as do pretty packages.

If, for some reason, you find that people aren’t buying, perhaps it’s time to examine your level of online engagement.

Are you spending enough time on Twitter making friends? Are you doing your part to make people feel special…like you care?

Build a Tribe

Does your tribe have an exclusionary language of its own?

Do you use fancy hashtags to host online Twitter chats?

Do you use video to show yourself as a real person; one that your audience can identify with?

Do you make use of clever branding tactics to make yourself cool…one of the big kids?

Be Someone to Emulate

Talk about how often you engage. Brag about it.

Share your awesomeness with the world.

“I engage!”

It’s not good enough to do it…you also have to talk about it so that your audience…your tribe…has someone they can emulate.

Exploit relationships to the fullest, and all of your customers will fall before you.

There is No Other Way

Engagement is the purpose and social media is the engine that drives it.

Engagement isn’t a privilege, it’s a duty.

It is by performing this duty that you have the right to make money and to build an audience. Anything else is secondary.

If you aren’t fulfilling your duty, then someone else will.

Engagement is the Way is a post from: Nathan Hangen

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I’ve got a serious problem with social media, and after reading Chris Brogan’s blog this morning, I can’t hide it any more.

Chris Brogan, much like Gary Vaynerchuk, is a man that gave far too much for far too long. He’s blogged for free for 11 years, and is one of the most accessible big name bloggers I’ve ever met. Seriously…if there was an accessibility line, I’d say he and Gary Vaynerchuk would be tied for moving it the most.

What’s interesting about this though, is that Chris also takes more flak than any blogger I know…at least publicly. Reading through his blog comments on a daily basis, you’ll find guys like Tim Jahn that do nothing but take pot shots at those on the ladder above them. You’ll watch as Chris not only allows negative comments loaded with criticism (on his own platform nonetheless), but also addresses them with humanity and all too often…empathy.

Still, the most telling trend at ChrisBrogan.com, is what happens any time Chris tries to make a bit of cash by promoting affiliate products, or as in the case of the 3rd Tribe, one of his own. The very minute he tries to, as he says, “attach a $ sign” to something, the hounds are unleashed and the gnashing of the teeth begins.

Why? Because of the kumbayah social media crusaders.

Social media has bastardized profit

I don’t know when it happened, somewhere, somehow…people started putting transparency, authenticity, and engagement in front of making a profit.

It became OK to work for free as long as you were making people feel special and doing good work.

You’re moving the ball baby…you’re a torch bearer for the new wave of business where social media, as “feel good” methodology, evens the playing field against those evil capitalists.

Bullshit.

Do you know what happens when those evil capitalists start hemmoraging capital because your precious social media services do nothing more than make people feel good and pad your bank account?

The need for social media prodigies dissipates and suddenly an entire industry, one that is built upon it’s own ego, ceases to exist.

Yes, there’s value in social media, but not at the expense of profit. And just because you’ve had a Twitter account for 12 months and have legions of followers stumbling to RT everything you say, does not mean you have any business being in the business.

Social media has bastardized relationships

Let’s go back to Chris Brogan for a minute and analyze what happens when you try to be everything to everybody…in an effort to do good and inspire people (this is not a bad thing).

Instead of being grateful for the time and free advice, there is a moderate percentage of Brogan fans that feel they now have a right to Chris and his time. His blog has become a breeding ground for entitlement mentality…one in which people lose their minds and roam around like spoiled brats.

No matter how much Chris makes himself available to them…it’s never enough. Their appetite is insatiable, and the very act of being authentic and accessible only serves to help the monster’s appetite grow.

It’s the same with the hundreds of big businesses that “get it” and are overly accessible via Twitter. Do people respect their attempt at being more accessible? Most do..yes, but then there’s that 10% (guessing) that sees it as one more place to harass a business in public.

Why call customer service or visit a local branch when you can badger them on Twitter, right? Yet we wonder why more businesses don’t open up the gates of social media with eagerness and excitement.

On the flipside, you now have a medium (social media), who’s highest purpose has become not empowering customers or helping corporations grow, but to empower engagement and leverage relationships. Excuse me, but does that sound fake to anyone besides me?

It’s now become SOP to build relationships specifically for the sake of leveraging them.

Bringing corporations down so we can annoy the hell out of them on Twitter and Facebook.

Instead of looking down and thinking about how to help people, there’s now a frenzy of people always looking up…trying to find another name to drop. People have become virtual stepping stones, and much of what looks like friendly interaction extrinsically, in reality, is a bidding war for favor.

Smoke and mirrors.

Relationship whoring.

The relationships are an illusion, and behind that illusion, is a symbiote…moving from host to host in order to harvest people for power.

How do I know this?

Simple…let’s experiment.

Suppose that Twitter died today, and every list, every group, and ever follower was lost. How many of your followers would you attempt to reconnect with? How many of them would reconnect with you? How many follow you because they like you? How many of them follow you because they’re using you to level up? What about you?

Is social media a tool for listening or for you to get heard?

Do businesses really care about you or are they just trying to keep you buying their shit?

Keep it real dawg

Look, there’s nothing wrong with leveraging relationships to level up…but at least be honest about it. Don’t pretend that it’s something it’s not.

Don’t build relationships with people that you have nothing in common with, or that you wouldn’t approach in any other case.

Don’t lie to yourself and speak of engagement and outreach like it’s some sort of holy crusade, because it isn’t…it’s about these:

$$$

As is the case with Chris, Gary, and others…it’s easy to see that authenticity and accessibility, on that level, cannot scale.

And this is one of the reasons why I’m a member of the 3rd Tribe…not because I want to learn something or because I want to hang out with the big dogs…but because I can meet people to forge profitable relationships with. I’m not there to sing kumbayah…I’m there to fund an enterprise that helps shift the balance of power from those types to the types that keep it real.

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake

People want so desperately to be special and unique that they’ve turned something ordinary into something “holy,” and in the process, have bastardized both profit and relationships.

Why are we so concerned with social media as a movement? Why are we concerned that it will turn in to a “traditional media outlet?”

Here’s what I think…because if it does, then suddenly we lose our power and become nothing once more. The crusade we’ve worked so hard on building in order to take power from the nasty interruption marketers and infuse our lives with something meaningful, would be destroyed.

Sounds a lot like politics.

That’s why we treat social media like a holy grail, and that’s why I think it’s become a virus that needs to be treated. The older it gets…the more it bastardizes…the more it stinks.

Yes…I am a majority partner in several businesses that employ social media strategies for small businesses. Yes, I have a large Twitter following (large for a random Army guy that blogs) and have a Facebook Fan Page.

But the difference is that I’m not trying to sugarcoat it. The people I work with know what I’m trying to do.

Quid Pro Quo…it works for both parties.

Look, I’m not here to throw out a blanket verdict, but you know who you are. Most of the people that read this are part of the choir, but there’s a reason we have to preach to the choir…it’s the safest place to hide.

Editor’s Note (3/21/10):

I suppose it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t include the other “sources” that got me riled up enough to post this. The first is a blog post by Mitch Joel, who I normally really enjoy reading, about the Death of Social Media. The 2nd, was learning that Mr. “Social Media Jedi” himself, Scott Stratten, was going to be speaking at BWE10. Having previously stated that I’m not a fan of anti-gurus posing as gurus, this was the straw that broke the camel, so to speak. Editors Note #2: Some have said that this post is an attack on Scott, which it is not. We simply disagree on many levels about the way social media should be treated.

That being said, although I’m extremely grateful for the attention this post has received, I’m not sure if the true heart of the matter, at least in my opinion, is being addressed…which is that social media isn’t anything special, and that it isn’t something that needs coddled or protected. It’s become a game of scammers trying to fool the ignorant into parting ways with their cash, and as someone that works in the industry, I’m not a fan of what it’s become.

Image Credit

Social Media Has Become a Virus is a post from: Nathan Hangen

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This is a guest post by Rockstar Business Constultant, Gret Rollett.

Social media has entirely changed the landscape for all business – no matter if you are a Fortune 500 that is looking to re-brand themselves or perform instant customer service, or if you are a small business that scours the Internet, looking for prospects and opportunities.

The ability to share media quickly, often with the click of a button has emerged in the Internet Marketing community in a big way over the past few months.

Pre-launches for large products have become immersed with videos, under which the famous ReTweet This Banner lies, allowing for instant sharing, social proof and more people in the funnel.

This has caused these guru marketers to humanize, connect with their customers and allow their fans to play a part in the launch and the overall product creation buzz.

Blogging, Comments and Social Proof

Take Jeff Walker’s current Product Launch Formula launch. The entire launch is based on the new FCC rules going into effect on December 1st.

(editor’s note: although I complain about the moral fiber of many of these biz opp specialists, Jeff Walker is a good guy and his course has been extremely helpful to my success)

He has released a library of video testimonials and has them uploaded onto blog postings where his fans and prospects can leave hoards of comments. He has posts with 66, 60 and even 250+ comments all saying they love the videos and can’t wait for more.

As a potential buyer, how does this influence your decision or opinion about the product? I know that this personally shifts my mind and I can only imagine how powerful this is for the business opportunity market.

Twitter and ReTweets

Twitter has also played a major role in the rise of large product launches. One such example, as I mentioned above is the Tweet This Banner, pictured below on one of my own products:

This banner has been used by everyone from Mike Filsaime to Anik Singal, as well as many others both in this market and those in smaller niches.

It allows fans and prospects to send a message to all of their Twitter followers instantly by clicking the banner. There is a pre-populated message and a link back to the video that is instantly put into your Twitter update box.

The code is easy to write due to Twitter’s open API. All you need to do is write a traditional link tag, where the link starts with:

http://www.twitter.com=home?status=Your Message Here.

The power of this tactic is to get your message into the Twitter streams of your fans. If someone views your pre-launch video and loves it, they hit the banner and ReTweet the message.

The message is them shown to all of their followers.

Imagine if your fans had 1,000 or even 10,000 followers. That adds up to a lot of extra eyeballs.

Facebook Fans and Feeds

A final tactic that is helping to spread product launches via Social Media is through the use of Facebook Fan Pages. Getting potential customers to become a “fan” on Facebook has many advantages for the marketer.

The first is the addition of a new contact point, and one in which the receiver is highly receptive to opening the message. Inside of Facebook, the page creator has the ability to send messages to all fans.

And since Facebook is a place where friends congregate, chat and keep up, they are much more likely to open, read and respond to your messaging.

A second way to engage Facebook is to stir up conversations on your page. Getting your fans to do this allows that activity to potentially appear on their live feeds. This exposes your fan page to friends of your fans and can draw them into your marketing and promotion.

A last way to leverage Facebook is through Facebook Ads that link to your Fan Page. These ads result in a lower costs per click (CPC) as Facebook likes that you are keeping the traffic within the guarded walls of Facebook. This is a great way to target new customers and use conversational media to spread your message.

In the coming months and going into the New Year, I see more and more marketers using Social Media and conversations to increase the value in their products. With the FTC hampering the use of testimonials, getting people to spread your good deeds organically will really benefit you and your sales online.

Essentially is boils down to creating great products that people want to talk about? How great is your product?

This post was written by Greg Rollett. He blogs about Lifestyle Design and Internet Marketing and has just launched the Rock Star Business Series, a 7 module Brand Building course for online entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of all the possibilities in the social landscape. Learn more about the course here.

Image Credit

How Conversational Marketing Has Changed Product Launches is a post from: Nathan Hangen

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I was driving home this afternoon, listening to satellite radio, and happened to hear a song I liked.

Instinctively, I reached for my radio to press the “favorite” button…and then I realized I didn’t have one.

And this got me thinking about the state of our society today. We’re getting so used to being able to thumbs up and thumbs down our favorite content, via StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, etc…that it is becoming instinct to try and favorite any content that comes our way.

In my case it was the radio, but at other times it might be a TV show, a page in a book, or even a conversation.

My first question is: Why doesn’t satellite radio allow us to favorite our music so that they can create a custom channel for us based on what we like?

Pandora does it, Last.fm does it, the Kindle does it (with books), but traditional media outlets just don’t get it.

My second question is – are these social tools reprogramming us to expect instant gratification and creating a Pavlov’s Dog effect? After a while, it almost seems as if we’re becoming automatons or production workers…pressing the button over and over.

I don’t have any answers, but I’m hoping you might.

Image Credit

21st Century Brain Programming – It’s Smart than You Think is a post from: Nathan Hangen

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It has been a great week here in Webrepreneur land, thanks to the help of Sonia Simone and Lara Kulpa. In case you missed them, I had a couple guest posts published this week.

The first at Copyblogger being about 3 fatal conditions that are killing good blogs and the 2nd on Twitip about how to build influence with Twitter.

If you haven’t noticed already, one of my favorite blog marketing tactics is guest posting, and I try to write at least 2-3 guest posts per week for a variety of blogs.

Not all will be published, but as I’ve learned to craft my message for the individual blog’s audience, my success rate is getting much higher.

A lot of bloggers that I talk to mention that they don’t have time for guest posts and to be honest, I really don’t understand that philosophy.

A guest post on a popular blog, like Copyblogger in my case, can get your material  in front of hundreds of thousands of new readers. You also get a high PR backlink, which is also extremely valuable.

For those of you that say you don’t have time, let me ask you this…would you turn down 60 minutes if they asked for an interview? What about the NY Times…would you turn them down if they asked you to write a feature? If no, then what makes guest posting for a blog any different.

In fact, if you ask any A-list blogger, they’ll tell you that they receive much more exposure from guest posts than they do from old media outlets. That’s huge!

Now, if you are simply too afraid to ask for a guest posting opportunity, then let me tell you a story about how you might be missing out.

My First Experience with Guest Posting

Early this spring, while I was deployed to Afghanistan, I created a Twitter course called Twitter Rockstar. It was also around that time that Darren Rowse launched his Twitter blog, called Twitip. Trying to get a post listed there seemed like common sense, so I just sent out an unsolicited inquiry via the contact form and waited to hear back. Shortly thereafter, I heard from Lara Kulpa, Assistant Editor for Twitip, who offered to take a look at my ideas.

From there, I was able to get 3 or 4 posts published over the course of a few months, which not only improved my credibility and traffic, but also built my confidence level up to the point where I send the same sort of request to David Risley and Brian Clark. In nearly identical situations, both gentlemen offered me the same opportunity and I was able to do more of the same.

More than Just Web Copy

But it doesn’t stop there. When attending Blogworld Expo earlier this month, I hung out with all of these awesome people on a daily basis, and now relationships that started with guests posts have turned into friendships. In fact, I was humbled when Brian recognized me and asked for even more Copyblogger content, which is how the Blog Killers post began.

So you see, it’s not so much about guest posts as it is about expanding your network, building infleunce, gaining friends, and trying to bring value to the table. Besides, you never know if you’ll get asked to become a paid contributer for that blog on a permanent basis. This is why I have a problem with “I don’t have time,” and “I’m too nervous to do it” excuses.

Re-Launch of Making it Social

As part of the my guest posting salvo this week, I relaunched my social media blog, which I plan to use as a platform for new media consulting and my Rockstar branded products. In an effort to segment what I do here (at the urge of several friends and consultants), I started posting content on a daily basis over there to prepare for the upcoming guest posts.

Using that strategy, I was able to nearly quadruple the daily traffic and pageviews in less than a week. Subscribers are up, and inquiries are at an all time high.

So, I guess the point of this long ass post is to tell you that those strategies, you know the ones that they say work? Well, they really do work. We just need to step out of our comfort zones and do something that for us, is remarkable. Keep pushing yourself, keep doing what you do. Eventually, you’ll have the confidence and expertise to own your game. When that happens…guess what? It’s time to stretch that comfort zone one more

Saturday Project Update – Why Guest Posting Works (and Happy Halloween!) is a post from: Nathan Hangen

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The world is connected. Thanks to blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, we’ve got a million different ways to connect with each other. There is no better time for sharing ideas, spreading innovation, and changing the game than ever before. Thanks to Google, I can find a million different blogs about any subject within a matter of seconds. I can learn everything I need to know about any topic without leaving my home. I’m connected with thousands directly, and millions indirectly.

The 8 degrees of separation rule is slowly turning into less than a few. We can all reach out and touch each other at any time. We can chat across the city, across the nation, and across the globe. They say that the 22nd century will be one in which human awareness is increased. We’ll be more loving, more inspired, and more positive. We’ll do good to each other, and to the earth. Can you feel it happening already?

Sure, we’ve got a boatload of evil doers and other no-good ruffians, but for the most part we all seek to inspire and be inspired. I find that extremely wonderful and I can’t believe that I am so lucky as to be able to take part in this grand experiment. The beautiful thing is that we are just at the brink of it all…we’ve seen nothing yet!

We are all game changers, but we need ideas to feed us. I could look at my Twitterfeed right now and be inspired by no less than a dozen or more people. I can reach out to last.fm or Pandora and listen to breathtaking music that I’ve never heard of before. I can search for artists and find stunning photography and amazing graphic design. There is so much potential within us all…don’t let it be stifled by trying to earn a buck.

If you’ve got a passion, release it to the world. Share it with everyone you can. Shout it from the mountaintops. I’ve heard that information wants to be free, but I’d say that ideas deserve it more. Share ideas, improve the world, and continue to spread the love. If we all do our part to make it easier on the next person, we won’t have to worry about dead end jobs and working 9-5. No one wants to be trapped in a job they hate, but we are because we’re afraid to step out. Take an idea and run with it. Worry about the monetization later. When you’ve built an energetic and motivated fanbase, then you can have as much money as you need. In fact, they’ll hand it to you without question.

When you’ve truly mastered the art of giving without expectation, then you’ll know what it is to be free. Your mind tells you that you should charge something, that you need to make a buck, but I can’t help but be reminded by the following phrase:

Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime

Feed mankind, and I promise that you’ll be fed in time.

Why I Love the Social Web is a post from: Nathan Hangen

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Content Is King, But It’s Not What You Think

We’ve all heard the adage that content is king, but usually that refers to the content in a blog post, eBook, or another form of web content. However, I’d like to propose that within that meme, there is a king of kings when it comes to content and it probably isn’t what you think.

Before we get started though, I want to share a story about what inspired this post. You see, I lost a friend recently to a longtime battle with lung disease. He was a good man and although I’m sad he passed, his life taught me so much more than his death. However, what really hit home for me was when I was on Twitter asking for a moment of silence and I was flooded with responses from people I’d never talked to before. At that point I realized that what makes social media so wonderful, is that if you take away the spammers and bots, you end up with a community that embraces each other…often without asking for anything in return.

The Power of Social Networking

At that moment, none of us were trying to make money or launch a product, we were simply trying to pay our respects to a lost friend of mine. I didn’t want anything but to just hang out and talk with people to share my respect for this man. Incredibly, and what is really cool, is that these people I’d never met before were sending me replies and DM’s as if we’d known each other for years. Such is the power of social networking, particularly Twitter.

What’s Your Agenda?

Now, let’s get back to the king of content. You see, when it comes to content, I believe there are 2 types: content that has a hidden agenda, and content that seeks nothing but to be shared. In my opinion, the latter of the two is by far the most powerful and important. You might say as a rebuttal that all of your content falls in to the 2nd category, but let me ask you…are you sure?

Look, I’m not trying to claim sainthood and say that no one should sell anything, but I am saying that your intentions should always be clear and good hearted. If you want to sell something, make sure it benefits people and that you believe, without a doubt, that it does. Don’t try to trick people into clicking your link or buying your product if you aren’t relying on transparency and there is not congruency in your message.

I’m tired of meeting people and getting to know them only to find out that they are not what they seem. Let’s face it, that’s easy to do online. The way I see it is this: If you are trying to build a long-term relationship with people online as a brand or business, then you need to be able to look them in the eye and level with them. You need to be comfortable sharing information with no hidden purpose or agenda other than to enrich other people’s lives.  You need to be the best at what you do.

I don’t expect your business to become a charity, but I believe there are times to focus on profit and times not to. Don’t be afraid to share your secrets and don’t cling to everything you know like it is your last dollar. I’m betting that a lot of what you know was inherited from others and rather than trying to squeeze a dollar out of someone, why not help them earn one first. Life is too short to worry about money all the time and I’m a firm believer that if you do what you love and help others do the same, then you are already wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.

The King of Content is a post from: Nathan Hangen

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