The Invisible Mentor

Recently I interviewed Diane Danielson for this blog, and during our conversation she revealed that over a period of 10 years, she grew the membership of  the Downtown Women’s Club, which she founded, to over 10,000 members. This level of membership is significant because many association type organizations are struggling, and bleeding their membership at a rapid rate. I was very interested in how she did it, and it turns out that it was done primarily through LinkedIn and Facebook. She recommended that I read Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah from Hubspot.

At 215 pages and large print, it’s a very easy book to read, but it’s filled with a lot of solid content so you can easily get overwhelmed. My advice is that you approach Inbound Marketing the same way you’d approach any large project, and that is to bite off small pieces and implement the recommended strategies that way. The concept of Inbound Marketing is about getting found on the internet using search engines like Google, social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and blogs. It’s about getting your customers to come to you online.

If you are interested in getting found on the Internet, and looking for strategies and tactics, this book is for you because it’s very hands-on with non-technical how-tos. The book is divided into four parts: Inbound Marketing, Get Found by Prospects, Converting Customers, and Make Better Decisions. At the end of the book you’ll have concrete steps to follow.

The authors stress that you find people who are potential clients and start by building relationships with them by serving them. So what would this look like? In the context of StumbleUpon and Digg, friend these potential clients and comment/vote on their articles. I really appreciated this tip because it would never occur to me to look at articles within my area and comment on them. This is something that I do for blogs that I subscribe to.

For Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, start a conversation with potential clients, answer their questions, and post content that you think they would find helpful. Consistently doing this, your potential clients will return the favor. For Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, there are search functions that you can use to zero in on your potential clients. It’s also important to spend some time thinking about the kind of information that would be useful to people in your marketplace.

While reading this book, I felt as if Halligan and Shah were holding my hand, and I appreciated it because I didn’t feel like I was being spoon fed. For instance, while reading the chapter “Get Found Using Social Media,” I was busy taking notes and prioritizing the steps to take, only to discover that at the end of the chapter there is a To-Do List with a summary of the essential steps to take to increase your findability. Examples of some of the steps include:

• If you’ve somehow managed to resist signing up for Facebook, despite requests from your friends and family, go ahead and do it
• Make sure your LinkedIn profile is 100 percent complete. Link your profile to your business website and blog
• Use the group search feature [in LinkedIn] to find the biggest groups in your industry. Join these groups and start participating  in discussions
• Use tools like Twitter Search and the search feature on Twitter Grader (http://twitter.grader.com) to find influential users in your industry. Begin forging connections early
• On Twitter complete your online profile including a brief bio, your location and a link to your website
• When you see an article that you like and that’s relevant to your business, befirend the person that submitted it. If the article is very relevant, review some of the other users that have dugg the article and befriend them too
• When you come across interesting web sites or articles, submit them to StumbleUpon (don’t submit your own yet). Do this by clicking the “Thumbs Up” button in the toolbar when on the page
• Begin befriending those that are submitting sites that you find highly relevant. Start building your friend list

Five + 1 Great Ideas

1. Rewrite the unwritten rules in your industry and don’t be a conformer
2. Create remarkable content
3. Think about the Sacred Cow Rules in your industry and how can you change them – think disruption
4. Pay attention to your customers but do not follow them
5. Think across the traditional boundaries of your marketplace to alternatives or be the world’s best at what you do within your existing market rules
6. Follow the 80/20 Rule – spend 80% of your time getting more visitors and 20% of your time getting higher conversion rates

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important to many of us and the authors explain that, “It’s about creating content that users would want to find and helping Google deliver great search results. The best way to rank well in Google search results is to create content that is rank-worthy.” (For many of my blog posts I use Scribe, an SEO software you can get from Brian Clark at Copyblogger.com. The software has a list of criteria, which it uses to judge the level of optimization in your article and it makes recommendation for improvements).

Other information that I found useful are:

• 7 Tools to Keep Tabs on Competitors
• Making Your Articles infectious
• Tracking Your Progress
• Compelling Calls to Action
• Tips From the Trenches for Headings

I recommend Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs because it’s the kind of book that you will refer to time and time again. As Halligan and Shah says, you have to be consistent and devote the time to implement the strategies and tactics. Whenever you get the opportunity, visit Hubspot and sign up to receive their blog.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

All book links are Amazon Affiliate Links.

Related posts:

1. Interview With Invisible Mentor Brian Johnson, Philosopher Part Two

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