5 + Social Media Lessons Learned from Jeffrey L. Cohen of #OurHashtag

Jeffrey L Cohen  came to speak to NC State’s MBA class on Social Media and Management in-between working on a big Triangle Tweet-up at the NC State Fair and the Social Media Business Forum that he, Wayne Sutton, Ryan Boyles and others I don’t know put together.  More on that fantastic event later.  Time to blog has been so limited lately… excuses, excuses…

Jeff has his personal blog digitalpapercuts.com and a blog on social media for B2B, SocialMediaB2B.com.

Jeff gave us some background about the name #OurHashtag – the company formed by Jeff, Wayne, Ryan.  Hashtags are ways to aggregate conversation – used on Twitter so that you can locate others talking about the same topic.  We need to start incorporating hashtags more frequently into our tweets when we want to bring people together for conversation on a topic. The hashtag emphasizes the idea that a group of people or organization are gathered around an idea and can develop relationships with the revolutionary tools that are now available to us. Here are a few lessons from Jeff:

1.  Figure out who and WHERE your customers and prospects are (in other words, do your marketing research.) 
   
   •  A business strategy doesn’t change because of social media tools.  First make sure your strategy is clear, that you know your customers, know your potential customers and understand them.  The tools and techniques now available are ways to implement your tactics to get your message to your target where they are.
   • The amount of social media to include in a marketing plan can’t be standardized and boxed.  It depends on everything else you do.

      

2.  Content is still King!
   
   •  Lists work well on blogs (hence, trying here to practice what Jeff preaches)
   • Catchy titles with important key words can drive traffic
   • But it is meaningless if the content isn’t good. The best titles won’t work if the topic isn’t interesting to your target.  
   • Practice makes content creation better

      

3. Use Google Analytics and some other cool tools!
   • Jeff gave the example of  how he used Google Analytics to track a post and found that readers came from 96 different countries.  He also found Facebook Fans from 20 countries.  There is a lot that can be done with Google Analytics (and other metrics – more on that in a future post.)
   • Use widgetbox.com to make useful tools for your blog.  For example, you can make a YouTube sidebar widget so that others could download a YouTube video.  You might want to create an activity stream on a topic that would capture all Twitter mentions, all blog posts by company authors, etc.  Widgetbox.com is a tool that makes this possible. (Am still trying to figure this out on a WordPress.com site… can it work?)

      

4. RSS feeds are inherent to blogs
   •  We hear the term all the time, but not everyone knows what RSS feeds are or what RSS means. RSS stand for really simply syndication (or Rich Site Summary). RSS feeds make the contents of a blog portable. 
   • Subscribe to the RSS for a blog and the contents will go to your choice of reader – Google Reader  is a great way to keep up with all sorts of information.  Netvibes is another, so is My Yahoo…
   • This saves time and keeps information users up-to-date easily.

      

5. Start a blog for Personal Branding
   • Get a domain name! Especially if your name is somewhat common. Go Daddy
   • Show your interests and thoughts and make yourself a thought leader in an area where you have knowledge and passion.
   • Comment  and reply to comments – this is important to the process of developing your own reputation and furthering relationships 

We learned a lot more from Jeff and appreciate the time he took out of his hectic schedule to speak  on topics he knows so well. Of course, any mistakes are mine, not Jeff’s! Oh, and I like Jeff’s mention of the term “Social Web” as opposed to Social Media.