Do you have an awesome resource? Something on your website that is so unique, remarkable, useful, meaningful or beautiful that people can’t stop talking about it?

Screw the professional talk about a “valuable resource”. Do you have a resource on your website that’s spectacular. Fantastic. Magnificent. AWESOME?

No?

Let’s make one!

This will take a number of five-minute missions. You can spread it out over a week or get them all done in a couple of very busy and overwhelming days if that’s your style.

Plan your awesome resource

Mission 1: Plan the result

What one action do you want people to take as a result of interacting with this resource? Like:

• Prepare a disaster plan with their family
• Stop being perfectionists
• Call their representative to oppose a rezoning request
• Train their dog to stay
• Decide to start an awesome website
• Clean out the sink trap in the kitchen

Mission 2: Decide on the message

What message do you want people to understand that will lead to the action in the first step?

• A good disaster plan protects your family
• Perfectionism is fear in disguise
• The proposed factory will keep all of us awake
• You and your dog will be happier once you establish your dominance
• The tech doesn’t matter, content matters
• Blockages in the sink trap leads to expensive plumbing problems

Mission 3: Target your audience

Who do you want to act? Your category can be pretty broad, but it can’t be everyone (unless you’re running a campaign about why breathing is a nifty idea).

• Proactive parents
• Perfectionists
• Local residents
• Dog owners with misbehaving dogs
• People who are blocked on starting a website
• People who pour oil down their sink

Mission 4: Choose the medium

(Or the large?)

(Sorry.)

How will you deliver this message?

PDF
video
audio
web page
printable poster
screencast
online quiz
flash game
treasure hunt
live streaming
email
tweet
online presentation
Facebook fan page
a combination of the above?

Mission 5: Design the content

What content will you produce to make that point?

I’m once again indebted to Made to Stick. In the book they talk about a research team that discovered 89% of award-winning ads followed the same basic templates. You can read the whole article, but here’s the summary:

Extreme Consequences: Take an unintended consequence and make it much more dramatic.
Pictorial Analogy: Show extreme consequences visually.
Extreme Situations: Use an unusual situation or one aspect of the point and make it bigger.
Competition: Show your concept winning, possibly an unusual competition
Interactive Experiments: Let people interact with the idea directly
Dimensionality Alteration: Use a time-leap to show longer implications of a decision

You can use multiple templates: most winners use Extreme Consequences and Pictorial Analogy.

Sound intimidating? It isn’t! Example time…

Let’s take the “The proposed factory will keep all of us awake” message and design some content using each of these templates:

Extreme Consequences: An article with a huge image: a row of children asleep at their desks. Title “I can’t go to school today, Mum. I’m so tired.”
Pictorial Analogy: Informational brochure that shows a row of houses, with a factory that’s 10 times taller.
Extreme Situations: Video showing a normal family trying to have a conversation over a stunning amount of noise. (“What was that?” “Whaaaat?”)
Competition: A mock news article: Suburb wins “Worst Place to Live” Competition
Interactive Experiments: A website page, press a button and listen to various levels of noise and the decibel rating for each, from children playing up to trucks unloading, to the factory itself.
Dimensionality Alteration: “Interview” a distraught couple outside a house with ten “For Sale” signs about how they can’t sell their house; no-one wants to live next to “all that racket”.

Some of my resources have used this and been very successful (the manifesto, which is up to nearly 500 views), and some haven’t used it and were less so (the awesome vs perfect video, for example. Version 2 will use a few of these templates!).

Mission 6: Design the promotion

How will you tell people about this content? Choose all that apply (because the more the merrier!):

Twitter
Facebook
Email
Posters
Fridge magnets
Word-of-mouth
Google ads
Email signature
Comments
Book tour
Flyers
Forums
Blog post
Guest post
Yellow Pages
Cross-promotion
Interviews

Whoo boy, I think that’s enough to get started on! Next time we’ll check our plan and get sure that our resource is going to be awesome, then get it done.

What’s your awesome resource going to be? Tell me in the comments!

When you’re an expert your knowledge on a subject is nuanced, wide-ranging and inclusive. You can combine multiple high-level concepts into even higher concepts; you include knowledge from so many fields and draw so many valid and useful conclusions. You can explain a half-dozen related but different techniques and viewpoints.

Resist this temptation. When you write an article, it should only make one point.

It’s easier to act on one idea

An article is only useful if it makes something happen to its readers.

• It changes their opinion
• It gets them to take action
• It encourages them to consider new options
• It makes some new technique less intimidating
• It gets them to buy

If you focus on one concept you have a much better chance of creating that change. Of writing something that makes a difference. There is no better feeling as a writer than to get a comment saying, “You’re right, I’m going to go do that now!”

It’s easier to remember one idea

If you include too many ideas then they’ll be lost in the crowd. It becomes a random chance on what the reader will remember, with the good money betting on “Nothing”.

It’s easier to write about one idea

1. You make a statement about your idea.
2. You prove your position.
3. You explain action to take if you agree with the idea.

Sound familiar? It’s the format I use for these posts. It’s a simple and effective structure that is delightfully easy to use: if you’re writing about concepts you know well, all you need is the initial idea and the rest just… flows out.

Google, Google, always Google

No-one searches for “a whole lot of jumbled thoughts about hedges”. They search for “Should I plant a box hedge?”. One concept equals improved Google-fu.

One idea can become a series

One of these days I’ll have some free time (ha!) and I’ll take the Twitter post series I wrote back at the start of February and turn it into one comprehensive guide. Initially that series started out as one “Introduction to Twitter” post before I realised it would be completely overwhelming and far far too long. Instead, I split it into a week’s worth of posts, each covering one idea. It was much more effective and much less scary for new Twitter users, and I could cover all the relevant points in more detail than I could if I was trying to cram them all together.

Your 5-minute mission, should you choose to accept it…

Plan an article about one idea and schedule a time to write it. (I’m looking for guest posters if you want to be heard here!)

What’s the concept you’ll write your next article about? Tell me in the comments!

Social media encourages two common and contradictory mistakes. Social media is fun that way.

Over-committing to social media

You wake up and check your Twitter, check out the new followers and send five replies and seven retweets. Then off to Facebook to respond to 82 comments on your fan page (you get through 20 by copy/pasting as a response), then back to Twitter, three more replies and a direct message about a new article from someone you want to connect with so you StumbleUpon and Digg the article and link in Twitter and realise your feed’s been pretty quiet so you announce the first thought in your head (bagels. Less crispy than when I was a kid, amirite?) Then back to your personal Facebook page, quickly scan the sixteen pages of updates, strategically use your smily face again, go to a forum you like and hang out for awhile, then spend twelve minutes answering a few questions in LinkedIn, back to Twitter, Digg another post… where did the day go?

You feel tired, frazzled and unfulfilled, because none of those “relationships” went anywhere.

But why would they? You just spent a whole day making hasty, impersonal and shallow connections on social media. That wasn’t strategic, that was a waste.

To build relationships you have to keep showing up with your full attention. There’s only so much you to go around! You need to choose the social media sites that:

• Your potential and existing customers use
• You enjoy using
• Are aligned with your online strategy

And you shouldn’t use many! One is fine. Two is possible. Three is stretching it. There is no four.

Choose them, and invest in them. Turn up every day and add some value. Keep connecting and showing how reliable and interesting and funny and knowledgeable you are.

Under-committing to social media

You open your Twitter client and skim through the latest tweets, then close it and go do something else. You read the lastest forum posts and reply with “great job!”  You give five thumbs-up on Facebook. You connect with 500 people on LinkedIn, post nothing, and wait for them to offer you work.

Is it any wonder this goes nowhere?

To connect you have to bring some value. Your insights, your advice, and most important, yourself. Saying you’re “using social media” when you’re not interacting is like going to a networking event, lurking in the corner all night, and wondering why no-one has your business card.

Step it up! Start conversations. Leave comments. Write about your ill-fitting shoes or your fantastic clients or your football team. Be interesting, interested, engaged and personal. Write in your voice, not corp-speak. Act like you’re at a family barbeque. Be a real person.

Your five-minute mission, should you choose to accept it…

1. Decide on which social media sites you’re going to use.

2. Stop using the others.

3. Spend a half hour on each: connecting, joking, advising, replying, linking and commenting.

4. Too much? Then go back to step 1.

What social media are you using? Tell us in the comments!

Imagine Mr Moneybags walking down the street. He has so much disposable income in his pockets that his pants are starting to sag a bit and he has dreadful lower back pain. But suddenly! there you are offering to sell him your wares. It doesn’t even matter what they are, he accepts. In fact, in order to get rid of the wad of cash in his socks, he pays you sixteen times as much as you asked for in slightly fragrant but nonetheless welcome notes. Without even asking your name he tips his hat and skips down the street…

…and then you wake up.

Marketing in the real world

Real people buy for two reasons:

• need
• emotion

Selling to need (real need: water in the middle of the desert, or plumbing to a man with exploded pipes, or umbrellas in a sudden rainstorm) is easy. You tell them what they’re gonna get and how much it costs. They buy. Done.

But the vast, vast majority of things we buy aren’t things we really need.

What does this have to do with the heading?

Wait, liebchen, all will be explained.

Well?

Okay, okay! So you’re selling goods and services that require that your customers feels something before they buy. (What that emotion is will depend on what you sell. If you’re stuck, this article on what problem your product/service really solves might help.) For large retailers, they can amp up the emotions as much as possible, knowing they’re the one who will benefit. Apple doesn’t care which store you buy your iPod at. Jim’s Mowing doesn’t care which of their franchisees mow your lawn. However you purchase, they profit.

But you, you have fewer ways to sell. You have to make sure that your customer comes to you when they feel in a buying mood. The best way to ensure they choose you instead of all the other people? Make them trust you, like you, know you. Build a relationship and you’ll be the one they think of when they need what you have. So you need a bit of time to develop that relationship before they buy.

I’m sure you’ve seen websites that are like the hand-lettered signs in cranky newsagents: Buy Something or Get Out.

This is daft.

You need reasons for your potential customers to hang around with you before they’re ready to buy. That’s why blogs are so useful, that’s why Twitter kicks ass, that’s why encouraging people to sign up to a mailing list rocks. They are all ways to get on your customer’s radar now, while they’re interested, but before they’re ready to buy.

However! that’s only half the picture. You can’t develop a great relationship by shouting at someone, and you certainly don’t want to create completely passive customers: passive customers won’t take the action required to give you money.

So what do I do?

You give your customers ways to connect, actions to take, ways to build the relationship from their side. Ways to get them involved!

• The magnificent Sparky Firepants had a spur-of-the-moment draw-his portrait competition. It was random and fun and engaging, and appropriate to who he is and the services he offers. (Feel free to admire my delightful entry.)
• Ask questions on your blog and get people’s opinions. Everyone loves to be heard! Everyone loves people who ask their opinion and/or advice! Take the extra time to respond to the comments, and take the conversation much further.
• Hang out and be friends on Twitter.
• Run a survey on your blog. Ask what topics people would like you to cover, what articles they like, what you haven’t done well…
• Offer to do guest posts.
• Let them do guest posts on your blog.
• Talk about their successes – interviews, case studies.
• Give testimonials.

All of these actions involve no money. They do, however, require a small investment of time, attention, thought, or dodgy Photoshop skills. When your potential customers see that you use that investment of theirs well (by answering their comments, chatting on Twitter, implementing their suggestions, respecting their opinions, etc), then they feel more comfortable about investing other things with you. Things like cash.

So for example…

I’m watching with joy as you build your increasingly more awesome websites; they are the best possible proof that I’m doing great work. In fact, I’d like to have a showcase of them. If you’d like to have your website (and a pretty glowing recommendation) listed on this website, let me know in the comments.

Your five-minute mission, should you choose to accept it…

Make sure that there are at least three engagement tools on your website that do not involve money. If there aren’t, plan to start them very soon.

Do you have plenty of engagement methods? Do you want to be involved in the Awesome Showcase? Tell us in the comments!

We interrupt the stream of heresies for a guest post by Mike. Less controversial, but it’s funny and makes a lot of sense.

Whether you’ve paid much attention to it…err…scratch that. Whether you’ve jumped into the social media trend or not, one clear fact remains: Social media has taken over the web as we know it.

And the truth is, many are absolutely capitalizing on this massive traffic and building up their brand and websites through it. Whether you think Twitter is dumb or Facebook is this or that, you should still think about making your site more social. Good chances are, your visitors and readers use them so it would actually be a convenience for them if you made a few little changes.

1. Make it clear where else they can find you. Not all sites don’t do this but there are cases where people will forget to display their social profiles in clear view. Big mistake. Just because people visit your site or read your blog, doesn’t mean that’s all they’ll be interested in. You’d be surprised how many would like to follow you on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook. Try it and see.

2. Make your site “socially” shareable. What I mean by that is get a retweet button like on Be Awesome Online, a Facebook share button, and depending on what you want to do, social bookmark buttons or a plugin so people can share on Digg, Stumbleupon, etc.

You probably already do that but also pay attention to where these things are located. Maybe test them in different locations and see what happens. What could have been there may perform better here and so on. It’s awesome that people come to read what you have to say and comment, but it’s even cooler when those same people share your content and bring in new visitors that do the same.

3. The holy grail: Be social yourself! You’ve got the profiles created, you have the accounts setup, now get out there and start talking with people. Yeah, post links to your new content and things of that nature, but be more social yourself. You don’t have to have a novel idea or an amazing topic starter to get into the conversation…you just need to get talking and engaging with other like-minded people.
Your social media profiles are an extension of your brand and site so by being more social yourself, you’ll increase the value of your site and potentially create a very nice traffic stream.

In what ways are you using social media? Are you using it to build your brand/site or are you using it for personal use? Also, any tips to add to the discussion?

Mike Stenger is a social media consultant with a strong passion of business and all things Internet. You can find Mike at his blog where he talks about success, business and social media strategies. You can also follow Mike on Twitter.