Do people know what they can buy from you?

"Don't be too salesy." 

"Give your audience value."

"It's not all about you, it's about them."

These are the messages that you hear over and over about your content and they are true. You don't want to sound like a sales pitch, but you also have to make sure that you don't end up being the opposite (this is something we've struggled with ourselves).

While you don't want to constantly sell things to your audience, you also have to make sure that you're making it clear to your audience what they can buy when they're ready.

What do you sell?

How easy is it to find things that people can buy on your website? What are the things you want people to buy? Make sure that you have a list of several options that you can promote to people in your blog, on Facebook, in your newsletter, etc.  Keep in mind that the easier you make things for people the better. Whenever possible, instead of telling someone to get in touch to buy something, have a "buy now" button next to the product because people don't like taking extra steps.

For a long time we simply told people we could help them with social media and waited for them to decide how. It turns out it really helps to have tangible products that people can buy (like the newsletter course or the Simple Start program.)

How often should you promote your products?

You need to be careful about ONLY trying to sell things. What you want is a blend of valuable content (this should be the majority of your content) without forgetting to promote yourself too. While giving specific numbers for this kind of thing can be hard because it depends on your audience (as with everything) and what you're selling, a safe zone would be that 10-25% of your content can be purely self promotional. This doesn't mean that 25% of the time you're specifically trying to sell them something (though it could), but it could mean linking to newsletter sign ups, asking your audience for input or linking to your testimonials page.

Nobody engages

When you post links to your content that's for sale, people aren't going to be inclined to 'like' or comment or even share that content. That makes analytics particularly important. I had a client who was convinced that she shouldn't be posting links to her products, but when we went into her Facebook insights, the posts with the products were among the most clicked on content she had. While she was worrying that people weren't interested and that she was bothering them, her audience were rushing over to her website to find out more. Check your numbers to see how your audience is reacting to your content.

Give it a try

This week, promote some of your products on some of your social channels and let us know how it goes. You may be surprised at how easily people will buy something when simply given the opportunity.

Guest post: Social Media Numbers

So your Klout is 57.  You have 1200 Twitter followers.  130 people like your Facebook page.  87 people subscribe to your blog. You have 98 connections on Linkedin and 400 people in Circles on Google+.  Now what?

Unfortunately, it’s easy to get lost in the numbers when it comes to Social Media.  There are systems that are dedicated to measuring influence in the online world, but sometimes those numbers don’t tell the full story.  

Feeling stressed about the numbers? You aren’t alone.  People are wondering how their vacation will affect their Klout scores, or how to increase their Twitter followers.  Social Media Strategies are put in place and ultimately everyone want to know how to get those numbers up.

The numbers can be useful.  Analysis and measurement can tell real stories and help guide future decisions.  Your numbers can be used to obtain new clients or advertisers.   Larger numbers can mean more impressions for your business or writing.  I would be remiss to completely dismiss these numbers.
But numbers aren’t everything and shouldn’t dictate what you do online.  If you target your social media profiles to be only avenues to increase your numbers, you are completely missing the point of social media.   

How do you recognize the numbers and avoid the stress?

1. Remember that they will fluctuate.  Sometimes life gets in the way of being online and that’s ok.  These numbers will go up and down but as long as you keep a fairly consistent presence (and message), it shouldn’t be a concern.


2. Be proud of your numbers, no matter how big or small.  Some of the best blogs I read don’t have a lot of twitter followers, but that doesn’t make them any less influential in certain social media circles.   


3. When setting out your social media goals, instead of looking at increasing your numbers by a specific amount, try focusing on how you will be increasing them.  Then, you can measure success not only by what the numbers are telling you but by what worked to get there.


4. Find ways to track your numbers without going crazy.  Do you want to see them weekly and compare? Monthly? If you check them every day it will become an obsession and not a productive one.


5. No matter what, the quality of your content, posts, discussions and level of engagement will ultimately be what impacts your numbers.  So have fun with it and try to enjoy social media for what it is - a way to learn, share and engage.

Rebecca blogs about family and motherhood, is a self-professed foodie, and dabbles in online engagement and community giving.  She has a strange love for maple syrup that can possibly only be matched by her love for chocolate and coffee.

My BlackBerry Wears a SuperHero Cape

What is it and why should I care: Klout

Image via CrunchBase

What is it

Klout is a San Francisco based company that provides social media analytics that measures a user’s influence across their social network. The analysis is done on data collected from sites such as Twitter and Facebook and measures the size of a person’s network, the content created, and how other people interact with that content.^[2] Klout recently added LinkedIn, Foursquare, and YouTube data to its algorithm. ~Wikipedia

It essentially looks at your data - followers, number of tweets, how often you are retweeted, etc and assigns you a number that is supposed to signify your influence in the the social space.

My current Klout is rated as 62 giving me the title of “broadcaster”.

Other stats it gives me are for true reach (mine is 1000)

Your True Reach is the number of people you influence. We filter out spam and bots and focus on the people who are acting on your content. When you post a message, these people tend to respond or share it. ~Klout

Amplification (mine is 37)

Your Amplification is how much you influence people. When you post a message, how many people respond to it or spread it further? If people often act upon your content you have a high Amplification score. ~Klout

Network influence (mine is 67)

Your Network indicates the influence of the people in your True Reach. How often do top Influencers share and respond to your content? When they do so, they are increasing your Network score.  ~Klout

Should you care?


There is a lot of controversy about Klout, it’s validity and it’s value.  Here is my personal take on it.

• There are tools like Klout (there are many others as well) because there is an existing need to know who is influential online.


• Measuring who is influential online is not a simple task.  It isn’t something that can be automated by taking the simple numbers that exists.  There are too many variables that need intelligent thought to decipher (to weed out spam, fake follows, value of retweets and sharing of information, etc).


• There are better tools out there that measure things like influence but they are not affordable for individuals.

So, should I be paying attention to my Klout score?

Although Klout is anything but an infallible measurement tool, it does give people a general idea of where they fall in terms of influence and reach. When I think about my online friends who I think of as having quite similar influence and reach in the online world I find that their klout scores are fairly similar to mine.

Is it an exact science? No way.

Should it be discounted. I don’t think so.

Klout is not meant to be something that you are actively trying to increase.  When I see my klout score go up it means that I am doing what I really want to be doing well - providing useful information to the people that follow me.

When you say things that people find of value online, they reply to you or they forward that information on. That increases your klout.  That may not have been the goal (in fact one would assume it wasn’t the goal) but it is a nice way to see if people care what you have to say.

Ultimately I don’t think people should be spending a lot of time worrying about Klout. Mine went down this summer since I spent less time online being with my kids and being sick. I’m ok with that. Am I happy to see it creeping back up? Sure thing, it means I’m saying useful things again and people are paying attention. That’s nice to see.

What about you - do you pay attention to your klout score? Do you think it’s a valuable measurement tool?