According to the Content Marketing Institute, Content is one of the fastest growing segments in Marketing and an increasing number of marketers are relying more and more on their strategies to achieve success online.

Is this a surprise to you? Because if it is, you have probably been living under a rock for the last couple of years.

With the amount of content that goes left and right in front of you, on your screen, there are content creators, curators, users that share and consume on a minute to minute basis. Now, that doesn’t mean all that content is successful in reaching its goals or has even been put out there with a business goal.

In my case here at SocialMouths for example, I basically rely a good 90% on pure content marketing. Basically, I connect with people that arrive to my blog because they followed a tweet or a share with an interesting headline, liked what they found, some of them became regulars and some of them I even ended up having a relationship that in time turned into a client agreement.

You can understand that I am interested in everything regarding Content. Today, the cool team at BlueGlass Interactive sent me their new Infographic called “The Content Marketing Explosion”. It includes lots of data and I recommend you bookmark it and take some time to chew on it. I will leave you alone now so you can enjoy it, before that I’ll just point to these two facts I want you to remember:

• 90% of marketers are doing some form of Content Marketing, even if they don’t know it (Have you been doing some content marketing without realizing it?)
• 60% of B2B marketers plan on increasing their efforts this year
• 26% of budgets are allocated to content (obviously is much higher in small business)

Have fun going through it and express your thoughts about how your doing or planning your content marketing.

Infographic courtesy of BlueGlass Interactive.

This is a guest post by Garrett Ira, a digital marketing strategist who blogs at garrettira.com.

Over the last few years, just about everyone has given their two cents on how to “do social media” the right way. You know what I’m talking about: connect with your audience, add value, it’s about relationships, and all the other advice we hear over and over.

Something has happened that few are ready to admit: companies have gotten much better at social in 2011. Yes, there are still plenty of companies doing it terribly, but if you compare the present day to two years ago, there’s a huge difference.

Now that (some of us) have our heads on straight, the question transitions from “how do we do this the right way?” to “how do we do this differently than everyone else?”.

Here’s the problem: if you’re constantly asking the same questions, distributing content at the same times, refusing to take risks and fitting in with the crowd, you’re going to lose. Here are six simple ways to get the ball rolling in a fresh new direction.

1. Post in the evenings and on weekends

How many businesses post content around 11:00PM? Probably about zero, and that presents an opportunity for you. The vast majority of businesses post content during the work day, between 9:00AM and 5:00PM. Do you think your audience uses social media at 5:00AM, 7:30PM, or 10:54PM? Yes, they do – but no one posts at that time.

The benefit here is obvious: start posting when others don’t and your content is more likely to be seen – you have less competition. But there’s another opportunity here: posting at times that you haven’t ever before opens you up to new people. Maybe there’s a hidden portion of your audience that doesn’t use social media due to restrictions at work. Post at unusual times to reach them.

2. Mix up your post tactics

Even if diverse content is included, the average Facebook page is full of posts that look, feel, and smell the same. Each post has 4 lines of copy asking you to visit the link below. Each post has two paragraphs expressing their opinions on a certain subject. Each post uses lots of exclamation points begging you to donate!!

If you keep each post looking and feeling the same, you’re eventually going to put people to sleep. Now is the time to do something different, to say something differently, to get their attention.

Post pictures that REALLY stand out in the news feed. Use bright colors, close-ups of human faces, and images that stir up emotion. Start using ultra-short copy instead of the usual 4 lines. Ask people to fill in the blank or describe a photo in just 1 word. The idea here is to always bring something a little different that they can see quickly and interact without much thought. Remember, you aren’t just competing against other businesses – you’re competing against people and their favorite pets, games, teachers, friends, parents, and everything else in their lives.

3. Stop self-editing

People always say “be yourself” and “be transparent” in social media, but very few people walk the walk when it comes down to it. Are you a little snarky in person? Maybe a bit sarcastic? Don’t be afraid to let it show a little.

While crossing the line is definitely possible, many people and brands have experienced great success by being themselves – even if they might get an earful in the comments.

Gary Vaynerchuk and Donald Trump (love him or hate him) are great examples:

4. Go Where Your Competitors AREN’T

This is a bit of a follow-up to #1. Instead of going head-to-head, why not tap into a new area where your competitors aren’t?

The automatic assumption for most businesses is that they need to get involved in the big 4: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & blogs. While this is probably true, there are often hidden opportunities and niche communities online that can be absolute gold mines, even compared to the big 4.

Do you own a jewelry store with a strong community of wealthy women? Have you thought about tapping into Pinterest, MySpace or forums? It’s a little outside the box and failure is certainly possible, but be willing to fail in the name of innovation. If none of your competitors are there, your customers are, and the platform fits your brand, why not give it a shot with a small investment?

Just kidding about MySpace by the way.

5. Narrow Your Content Focus

Social media can support a number of different business functions. Too often, we try to focus on all of them and end up with mediocre results in every area.

Snickers is a great example of doing it differently. You might expect their Facebook page to be full of contests, promotions, branded partnerships, and other initiatives to achieve every objective they possibly can.

Instead, their page is filled with clever one-liners and snarky statements that fit their brand and support other initiatives in a subtle way. In simple terms, their page is interesting and gets their community of nearly 3,000,000 fans talking.

6. Craft content specifically to be shared

Getting people to talk about you to their friends is what social media is all about. Content should be designed specifically for people to share, re-post, and re-tweet. Make your tweets fewer than 120 characters so they can easily be re-tweeted. Create a get-well graphic and ask your fans to share it with a friend who is ill. Include call-to-actions in your very best content to increase shares.

On Facebook, there’s even more reason to provide shareable content: Facebook’s Edgerank (the algorithm that determines what people see in the news feed) prioritizes shares higher than anything else, including comments, likes, or clicks. If a post is shared by lots of people, it has the potential to extend your reach exponentially.

Here’s the bottom line: don’t embrace the status quo. Take risks. Take note of what your competitors are doing – and run the opposite way.

What do YOU do in social media that most others don’t?

Photo Credit: Scott Ableman

Garrett Ira is all about the most effective strategies and tactics in the social media world. He is a Community Manager at Bonfire Social Media and frequently discusses all things social on his blog.

We can discuss how successful companies are using social media but it will be better to hear it from them, specially when it comes to small business.

I’m always concerned about small business because there is a huge difference in what it takes to be successful. When brands run online campaigns they’re usually backed up by a juicy number of ad impressions or other kind of support. Just a few days ago a friend asked me how we were able to get 100k Likes on a Facebook page so fast, I responded “they have a huge TV campaign”. His face filled with disappointment…

Point is, small business goes out there to fight with a stick. Guerrilla style. Most small businesses have pretty depressing stories when it comes to finding any success online. They don’t have the budget, the resources or the knowledge.

There are 2 infographics in this post.

The first one has some basic information on how small business sees social media. It doesn’t surprise me that 83% responded that they use social media because it’s free or inexpensive, which it’s absolutely not true. What surprises me in a good way is that their usage is increasing over the last 6 months and that they are starting to take their brands seriously by monitoring, looking at sentiment and facing all kinds of mentions.

Infographic by Constant Contact

The second one I think is looking at a more realistic state. Here are some interesting points:

• 88% believe social media will impact their business
• but 67% will not increase their budgets
• I expected this to be high but this number is impressive: 96% do not use any social media management
• and of course having a structure in terms of organization is kind of obvious that is pretty much non existent

Let’s look at it…

Infographic courtesy of: Social Strategy 1

How about you?

What is the state of YOUR business when it comes to social media? Can you share what’s your experience?

Should you start spending time on StumbleUpon now that reports claim it represents more than 50% of the social media traffic and has passed Facebook to the #1 spot?

Not really. Let’s take a second to understand if StumbleUpon can really send you more traffic, what kind of traffic and I’ll also give you 3 quick tips to help you increase traffic to your site.

What, you thought StumbleUpon was dead?

StumbleUpon is very much alive. In March 2011 Mashable reported 15 million users and new signups of around 500k per month. Those are huge numbers, how many services do you know that get half a million signups per month?

Also in March this year, while All Things Digital announced that SU was raising $17M they said that the discovery service was making 800 million content recommendations per month.

This week, both Mashable and Read Write Web announced that the service now represents 50%+ of the social media traffic.

The following chart shows how StumbleUpon have already passed Facebook as a social media traffic generator in the US.

But not globally although it shows a clear decreased for Facebook and a healthy increased for SU, as it’s shown in the next one.

But Not All Traffic Is Created Equally

What does this mean for your blog or site? We know quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality, specially on the web. Let me share with you what I see on my Google Analytics for SocialMouths.

• StumbleUpon has always been at least in the top 10 traffic sources for this blog but, in July 2011 it was actually the #3 position and has the #1 spot in referral sites. Facebook was the #5 traffic source and #2 referral site
• It represented 4.85% of the total visits last month against a 2.92% from Facebook
• 94.12% of the traffic are new visits while new visits from Facebook are only 36.27%
• And it has an extremely low average time per site of .29 seconds compared to a 1:09 from Facebook

But Wait!

What Should You Do?

Actually Use The Tool

Over To You

What is your experience with StumbleUpon? If you’re a blogger, do you see action coming from the service? Or share your own ideas on how you handle it.

If you want to connect, here is my StumbleUpon profile.

Happy Stumbling!

No, I’m not crazy. I’m not here to say you should ignore social media and I’m certainly not here to say you should stop reading blogs about social media.

This post is actually social media advice, one that you probably don’t expect. Not from a social media blog.

Learning About Social Media

I remember a few years back, I had started my company with no experience at all. I mean no management, marketing, sales… you get it, no experience. As you can imagine it didn’t take much to realize that to make sales (and bring some profit) I had two options, I can push or I can pull. In other words, I can chase business or I can attract business. That’s why I decided to focus on Marketing and Sales and outsource the other stuff.

First I learned about print advertising and events, then about TV. I learned to read the numbers and that helped me understand the game and enabled me to produced my own commercials, buy my own air and do my own analysis. Long story short, I eventually arrived to network TV, had my own call center and about 600 calls were generated every day.

But there was one more lesson I needed to learn: I didn’t matter how many calls I could generate in one day if I didn’t have an awesome product or service and I didn’t have kick-ass service. Getting calls will only get you results in the short run but building a remarkable business will keep you alive for a while.

Use And Learn More Social Media

But this post is not about what I did. My point is this, you should keep learning about social media and you should spend time on creating a strategy to communicate and to put whatever it is you do in front of your prospects. That’s not all, you should also continue to use social media to establish and maintain relationships.

Do you need to learn how to get more followers or fans and how to get Likes and Retweets? I know you want me to say no but you do. Let’s be crystal clear, social media has too much potencial for you to focus on just that BUT, those little things are also part of  a marketing vehicle that enables you to communicate in a more organic and human way with your prospects.

But Focus Less

That said, and to move on to the second part of the post.

Social media should not be your focus, you should focus on making your business remarkable:

• Instead of trying to figure out how to get retweets and likes, focus on delivering kickass value in your content
• Instead of pushing sales on Twitter, focus on creating or improving a remarkable product or service
• Instead of spending time on your Avatar, focus on building a solid foundation for your business
• Instead of planning a Damage Control or an Apology strategy on Twitter, focus on building amazing customer service

Outside Perception vs. Inside Reality

The solution to your business is not putting up an attractive brand on Twitter and Facebook. The reality of the Internet of today is that it closes the gap between outside perception versus inside reality. Why? well, I believe everything eventually comes to the surface, good or bad. Transparency is not optional.

The social web will only amplify the fact that your company sucks. But if you focus on your “real” business and on building something that people will not only love to consume but will also help you spread, then your social media will be less of the headache it is today.

Awesome spreads because people love spreading it. Everybody loves talking about Zappos or Apple for a reason.

Final Thought

Entrepreneurs, artists, bloggers and anybody that wants to do anything online will need a community. One of my favorite quotes comes from a concept of Asset-Based Thinking and the book “Change The Way You See Everything”

“You always have something of value to add. Always. Identify your assets, never doubt them, put them out there for the right people to see and watch what happens.“

But you still have to create your awesome sauce before you spread it. A beautiful presence online will not make a boring and ordinary business better. I will only cover it for a while.

Content is no longer King. It has become a minimum requirement to do anything online. It’s expected.

What really makes a difference in the blogosphere today is a good set of skills to promote that awesome content you craft week after week. This is something I have emphasize in numerous occasions here at SocialMouths, if you have something amazing to share, something that can affect people’s lives, you are responsible for putting that awesome sauce in front of the right audience.

Last week in San Jose, Costa Rica, after 2 days of intense learning at a private marketing conference in which I also had to present, I’ve decided to take Friday to empty my brain, enjoy the beautiful weather and do nothing. Let the day take me wherever… Pura vida!

But then I received an email from Kristi Hines from Kikolani. I guess she had other plans for me. Attached, a complimentary copy of her Ultimate Blog Post Promotion Guide. I gotta be honest, I do post promotion every week for my content and for others too so my initial thought is natural, what else can I learn?

Long story short, I read 70+ pages of actionable kick-ass advice. My “what else can I learn?” question was answered. There is so much I’m not yet doing, so much Kristi does slightly different and so much of my own practices she took to the next level.

So first I’ll give you my reasons you also need to read this eBook and then I’ll talk a little bit about the content you’ll find in it. Let’s do this thing…

3 Reasons Why You Need Kikolani’s eBook

• This can’t be consider a beginner or advance guide, Kristi really covers pretty much everything. There is nothing left for a sequel…
• She gives you each tool (new or old) you need to consider and how to work the system to achieve great results
• This is all juice, 70+ pages of it. There is no filler and it’s not one of those “minimalist” books with one paragraph per page over a beautiful white background

My Highlights

I don’t want to give too much away but here are some the points I loved the most in the book so you can get an idea of what’s in store for you:

• I love her use of tools to get full visibility of what kind of content works, this is through actual metrics used on your own content and on other blogs
• How to format a post and turn it into a sexy piece of content that gets read
• Writing and Leveraging Trackbacks to get everybody’s attention
• I love how she tracks her content promotions by platform by using very simple tools
• The tools we underestimate or never crossed our minds
• She goes through methods of promotion on each tool. If you’re like me, you’re getting very little results on LinkedIn or maybe you don’t know how to get some love from the new platforms such as Quora
• Collaboration, groups and reciprocity
• And one of the things I really love about this game, measuring and tracking results

There is a lot more in this book that you’ll have to discover for yourself.

Final Thought

I always had a lot of respect for Kristi and I admit she writes one of the only blogs I actually read every week. The eBook is for sure a step up from the blog. By reading her blog you can tell she is one of those generous bloggers that really writes for the audience and with this book I feel like she just gave away all her secrets for blog post promotion.

One last thing, the eBook could of easily be priced higher, she calls it a “6-month labor of love” and I guarantee you you will be able to feel that love put into this. Head over there, get Kristi’s eBook, get tons of value and support one of the good bloggers out there!

Disclaimer: The links on this post are affiliate links.

This is a guest post by Srini Rao from The Skool of Life

A few days ago I was at work crafting a high level social strategy that will go beyond the Flightster blog and really enable us to take advantage of social media in a way that really allows us to understand our customers. I’ve come up with literally hundreds of ideas over the course of the last year, some of which have been implemented and others which have been put on hold.

Over the last week I’ve been able to condense my work into 3 core ideas for an effective social media strategy, both on a personal level and a corporate level.

Phase 1: Build

Let’s consider the social media presence of an individual or company as a blank canvas which we intend to turn into a masterpiece. Before any social media efforts will have an impact it’s essential to build your personal or company assets. Assets can be built across multiple social media platforms.

Blogs

Blogs can often serve as a starting point for social media. The key to a good blog is telling a good story. A blog is an opportunity for you or your company to showcase the fact that there is a human being behind the brand. I’ve always said that we read blogs because of the human connection they create. A blog should not be treated as a glorified marketing brochure. If you focus on the creation of value, you’ll reap the true rewards from your blog. One of the questions I’ve seen asked from some marketers is “Is a blog right for my company?” When people conclude that a blog is not for their company, I’m convinced that they just don’t know what it takes to create a compelling blog. Blogs give you an opportunity to act as an artist rather than a marketer and as a human rather than a machine.

Email Lists

After conducting over 130 interviews on BlogcastFM the #1 mistake that every single blogger/internet marketer says they made was not starting an email list soon enough. I consider that a mistake too and as per my latest quarterly marketing plan at my blog, I’m making a strong push to create a much more solid email newsletter. One of the things that email enables is direct communication with your customers or readers. Almost every blogger cites their email list as the major source of their revenue. In my interview with Dave Navarro he even mentions that the number of RSS subscribers you have is more or less meaningless.

Facebook

While I’ve syndicated my blog to Facebook through my personal Facebook account, there’s actually quite a bit of power in creating a Facebook Page for your brand or blog. Considering the sheer volume of active users on Facebook, not having a fan page is like turning down free exposure. In my interview with Lori Deschene from Tiny Buddha, she talked about why you need a separate fan page for your brand.

Twitter

Personally I think that individuals get twitter and many companies don’t. That’s a bold statement, but I’ve spent insane amounts of time interacting with various groups on Twitter and individuals seem to understand what it takes to get value out of twitter. I’ve even said that you could accomplish every goal in your life using twitter and the blogosphere. Twitter is an ongoing 24-7 conversation between millions of people on just about every subject you could imagine. When you use it is a broadcasting tool rather than a communication and connection tool, the value diminishes. When you embrace it as a community, it turns into a goldmine. On an individual level I still strongly believe that 150 followers is all you need and on a corporate level I think you could easily leverage a powerful tribe to grow your twitter presence.

Incentives

One thing that is worth mentioning is incentives. In order to build any of your assets you’re going to need an incentive. Bloggers giveaway free ebooks interviews or special content. Companies should have no issues parting with samples of their product as part of the building phase. One interesting observation my co worker made was that the value of the incentive didn’t really alter behavior in previous campaigns he’d worked on. You should be willing to spend some time in the build phase without an immediate ROI. If you try to skip the build phase, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you are scrambling to achieve measurements and metrics and you’ll lose the greatest thing that social media gives you: the power to engage and connect

Phase 2: Connect

Networking and Relationships are the lifeblood of the social web. Relationships make your traffic grow. Relationships cause content to spread. Relationships result in new business. Without an ongoing effort to form a relationship, you’re just another person trying to sell somebody something. So let’s take a look at a cross platform approach to effective relationships

Blog

As I said above, your blog is not a glorified marketing brochure. It’s a conversational tool and a storytelling tool. I come across many company blogs where the comments are never replied to and the blog seems like a digital graveyard. On the flip side an individual can command an audience the size of a football stadium, which begs the question “what are they doing differently”. Your blog should create something of value for your reader or customer, while telling your story at the same time. Even though there’s really no formula for a good blog, I’d say it comes down to having a passion (what your product does), a story about that passion(how the product came about, etc, etc) and the creation of value for other people (how will your product help me). When somebody comments on your blog a lifeline is formed. When you don’t respond you cut off the lifeline.

Email List

You’ll probably notice a pattern in what I’m describing. Effective use of social media is about a multi-platform approach. Your email newsletter is really a chance to get to know your customers and readers. In order to connect with them you have to ask them what they want from you. It sounds so simple, yet most of us make so many assumptions about our customers and then scratch our heads wondering why our efforts are not paying off. A really good email newsletter involves the reader. There are 3 examples in the blogosphere that really do this well: The Art of non-Conformity, Advanced Riskology, David Risley. The sign that your email newsletter has really been effective is when you start getting people replying to you about it.

Facebook

Once you’ve built an audience around your Facebook fan page, the next key is connecting with them. If you start trying to sell them without connecting with them, people will drop your page like a bad habit. Good facebook fan pages engage the asset they’ve built. Your facebook page is not about you or your product. It’s about your readers and customers. When you’‘ve reached a point where you can narrow down a group of customers who interacts with you at every opportunity, that’s how you know you’ve built a tribe. That’s when the tipping points will start to happen.

Twitter

When people see twitter for the first time, it either seems like gibberish or completely pointless. For the person who doesn’t know a thing about twitter, their primary concern is the number of followers (which by the way is one of the most meaningless statistics in all of this). If there are two things I could tell you about twitter, these would be it:

• Make friends instead of followers: I’ve connected with a wide variety of people on twitter including bloggers, artists, surfers and photographers. My concern is not what people can do for me, but what can I learn from them and what can I teach them. As a result twitter is a goldmine that I’m convinced can help you accomplish every goal in your life. If you’re a company, take this approach and you’ll blown away. If you go look at the twitter account for Hipmunk you’ll notice raving fans and an ongoing conversation with the raving fans. When I look at a twitter account of a company I see nothing but links, I can’t help but think “this is a company that doesn’t get it”
• 150 followers is all you need: This is something I said in my original post on Twitip, so I’ll only summarize it here. If you set an initial goal to create 150 followers who really are engaged with you, something remarkable will happen. Your brand, blog, or product will spread. To add to that, you’ll find that the number of followers you have will start to take care of itself.

Phase 3: Promote

Assuming you built and audience and connected with that audience, it’s much more likely that your social media efforts will actually pay off financially. One of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard from somebody at a large company was “we just want to make a video for this campaign and have it go viral.” The foundation of almost any successful social media campaign is building and connecting with the audience. Once again we return to the three major platforms and take a cross-promotional approach.

Blog

At this point your blog can be leveraged as an effective marketing tool. You could for example give away something to encourage comments. You could also run a promotion that is available only on the blog. If you’re selling widgets you could for example say “leave a comment on the blog and we’ll send you a 50% off coupon for your widget purchase.” The key at this point is to have a healthy balance between building, connecting, and promoting.

Email

The email list is still one place where I see many bloggers/internet marketers offer certain discounts and promotions with the highest conversion rate. In this post on the email newsletter cycle Darren goes into detail about a sequence that not only allows you to create value for your audience, but also involves promotional efforts without annoying the reader.

Facebook

One of the things that amazes me is how often people fail to realize how you can leverage someone else’s audience to grow your business. If you can find another business who complements what you do or vice versa, there’s a tremendous opportunity there. A while back I was responsible for maintaining and growing the Facebook fan page for a company that made ionic hair straighteners. I always thought that they would be smart to leverage the audience of a cosmetics brand with a very big social media presence. Another common practice is to offer something that is exclusive only to your Facebook fans.

Twitter

A promotional effort on Twitter can result in a dramatic success. A while back Brian Solis wrote about a company called Moonfruit that ended up on the front page of google (ranking for some very competitive keywords) with a very simple promotional idea. Orbitz runs a weekly contest where they give away a round trip ticket and all the require is that you follow them and tweet the message which links to the contest page (which kills a few birds with one stone). In your purchasing process you can provide people an an incentive to follow you on twitter. The promotion below by Hawaiian airlines is one of the smartest I’ve ever seen because it does three things

1. It helps them to build an audience (BUILD)
2. It gives them opportunity to connect with the audience. (CONNNECT)
3. It encourages purchases (PROMOTE)

Cross Platform Promotion

This is something that I think can be be really powerful if done effectively.

• You could use your Facebook page to encourage people to follow you on twitter or sign up for your email list.
• You Could Use Twitter to promote your Facebook Page or Email List
• You Could Use Your Email List to Encourage People to Follow on you Twitter or Become a Fan on Facebook

The best example of this I’ve seen on a Facebook page is by Chris Gullibeau on the AONC Facebook Page. You’ll notice on the landing page that you can become a fan on Facebook, Sign up for his newsletter, and follow him on twitter. In one location he kills all the birds with one stone. With a bit of patience and some strategy social media can become one of the most powerful tools in anyone’s arsenal.

This is a guest post by Srini Rao – Srini blogs at The Skool Of Life and is the Co-Founder of BlogcastFM, one of today’s most recognized Blogging podcasts where he interviews some of the biggest names in the blogosphere. If he’s not surfing you can find him hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.

Influence was one of the most used and abused words of 2010. I probably contributed with my share too.

But it seems like lately everywhere you turn there is a discussion about it, either to redefine the term, to analyze how it should be measured or simply to say that Klout Scores are not relevant.

Let’s face it, Klout has been under fire for the last few weeks. Then you’re not helping yourself when you come out and say that Justin Bieber is more influential than the Dalai Lama, Barak Obama or Lady Gaga (I think Gaga deserves the top spot). But let’s stop right here, bear with me for a second to explain where I’m going with this and make my point. This is a short post.

Should I Not Pay Attention To Klout Then?

I’m not here to recommend you should or shouldn’t use Klout or to question their formula, Justin Bieber is probably more influential than Obama these days anyways. The concern to me is how we use this score, I think it is a fine metric as a marketing tool for your personal brand and I can even see it as some kind of social proof, you know, another counter on your sidebar. But we should not be looking at it as to measure how much influence we really have.

Let’s Step Back For A Second…

According to the dictionary, Influence is the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.

Wikipedia says that Social Influence occurs when an individual’s thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by other people. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing.

I was planning on adding something on how Klout formula works so I visited the “How We Measure” page but I almost fell to sleep so let’s skip that and if you’re interested in reading that just follow that link.

My 2 Cents

I get it, I’m pretty sure whatever Justin says around these days reaches a bigger audience, has more demand and it gets amplified a lot more than a message coming from Obama. If you think about it you’ll agree that it’s kind of obvious. I was talking about this very same thing with @Nathanael_Ramos earlier this week and I mentioned the time Ashton Kutcher said he was bigger than news. Sadly he was right. Remember the “We Are Bigger Than Jesus” statement by John Lennon? was he wrong? (I ain’t touching that one).

But I want to forget about all that and move forward so, here is my proposition to you: what if we focus on being responsible for our impact!

We all impact other lives every single day and at different levels, from your kids to huge corporations or thousands of followers online. Every decision we make and action we take, every single word that comes out of your mouth has an impact on others.

So if you have “Influence” that is awesome. NOW, how do we stop talking about it and trying to measure it, how do we stop looking at a score to move on to relevant shit like what are we going to do with that Influence?

I’m not about to suggest you start a non-profit organization. I’m talking about how you can have a positive impact through your work and through what you communicate to the point that you can change or improve people’s lives.

There’s No Such Thing As “No Impact”

There is no such thing as “No Impact”, it’s either positive or negative. If you don’t do anything (I mean sitting down on the couch and not say a word all day) it doesn’t qualify as “No Impact”, it is very much ne-ga-ti-ve impact.

If you are conscious about how you affect people’s lives, on and offline, then the result is that you build up influence, you have a positive impact. Sound to me like long term tough. You can always keep staring at the thermometer.

Move on, maybe in a few months we will be saying “Influence is sooo 2010″

List of Words to Destroy:

Viral

Influence

What’s the next word on the list?

What’s Your Take?

We can talk about it, we can acknowledge when a person is influential, we can even compare and list influential people, we can even use it as digital social proof but we can’t measure it with a score and we can’t be obsessing about formulas on how to get it right.

Now, I know YOU have something to say about it so head over to the comments department and express your thoughts.

Yep, it’s that time of the year when we publish and consume an unusual amount of best of and top 10 list. And who am I to change the tradition?

So today I’m delivering a compilation of the Top 10 posts of 2010 right here at SocialMouths. In case you missed something…

Also, there are a couple of things I want you to read at the end of this post =)

But before I start with that I have a quick…

A Thank You Note For My Readers

I want to do this now because I know the last week of December is very slow as many of us disconnect to be with our families.

I can’t deny that this has been a great year for SocialMouths in terms of the things you can measure. I’m at about 50k monthly pageviews, bounce rate is insanely low, the subscriptions are at a growth rate that I didn’t expect and I could keep going… I’m thankful for that because it means some of you like what I’m putting out there.

But I’m mostly thankful for the great connections I have been able to establish as clients, fellow bloggers, readers or just friends. The focus for 2010 was to try to deliver as much as possible without asking for anything in exchange but I was definitely able to also receive so much awesome sauce from you guys that I feel I need to come back in 2011 with much more. So that is the intention!

I don’t wanna put you to sleep so… Thank You. Thank You. Thank you!

The Top 10 Posts Of 2010

Instead of building this list based on traffic only I took some of the engagement measurements from PostRank, which provides me with a better understanding of how you guys interact with the content, inside and outside the blog. Let’s see what came up:

1. How To Build Your Facebook Landing Page (If You’re Not A Programmer)

Building a Facebook Landing Page is easier than you think, even if you are not a programmer.

This week we’ll look at a topic that might seem basic for some. For other people, specially new visitors, this might feel like “been there done that”. Yes, there are too many blog posts out there that have discussed the topic but I’ll promise you this: In the usual SocialMouths style, we’ll go over the why, the what and the hows of building a landing page for your Facebook Page. Why is it important? What do we need to consider? and…

A guide to building a basic Facebook landing page. Yes, step-by-step, with screenshots and everything! You already know how I love to be very visual.

Read The Post…

2. 15 Blogs To Follow If You Want To Kick Ass Online

Being successful online requires that you beat a pretty long learning curve and while I try to contribute with my 2 cents, there are amazing bloggers out there that you should be reading on a regular basis.

These people put their amazing talent and knowledge into blog content and deliver it to their online communities week after week.

I have to advise you that if you see that I’m not going with the obvious is for 2 reasons, one because I like helping you discover stuff that you might have missed (there is just too much content out there…) and two, not that I don’t occasionally read the usual suspects, but this is the stuff I visit frequently. Also let me say that this is not a ranking so don’t pay attention to the order.

Read The Post…

3. 7 Examples Of Kick-Ass Personal Branding

Can I be a brand? I’m sure it has crossed your mind at least a couple of times in the last year, specially witnessing so many people turning themselves into true web superstars in their niches.

The answer is simple: Hell Yes

But before the photography, the name, the design and all the cool stuff that goes on the front-end, there has to be a solid foundation. As Seth Godin calls it in his last book, you need to become a Linchpin. I wanted to say that because the 7 people I’m showcasing in this post are the real deal, they are not just a cool image.

The outside perception meets the inside reality. I like setting expectations straight, you do not become a brand by looking good online. The web is an amplifier, be careful with what comes up to the surface.

Read The Post…

4. 10 Tips To Drive Twitter Traffic To Your Blog

Do you wanna drive Twitter traffic to your blog like it’s 5pm in Los Angeles?

Okay, I understand this post is not for everybody. I wanted to write it anyway because I’ve had a few people ask about my own experience, so I decided to share some of the things I do.

Twitter can become your blog’s best friend when it comes to traffic. I’m not suggesting that you use it for that purpose only but, if you run a blog and feel like you could be getting a little more love from it, perhaps you should adjust your strategy and integrate some of these tips.

There are some basics that we are going to skip, like having a good descriptive bio, link to your blog, take advantage of the real estate on the background, etc.

Read The Post…

5. 20 Social Media Divas You Should Be Following

To finish the week, we wanted to spread some love and create a list of the most influential women in social media today.

These women are either providing great content online or leading the industry into new concepts or technologies. The truth is that they are leaders worth following online.

Two things to mention before going on the list:

First, There is no specific order, this is not a ranking, I just listed 20. And…

Second, of course there are many more that I probably left out but it’s your turn to add your favorite divas in the comments section of this post.

Read This Post…

6. 13 Quick Tips To Write A Successful Post

Writing content is not easy, no doubt about it.

Then we usually go and start worrying about how to make that content easy to share, how to provide valuable information, how to engage readers and so on to make it even harder.

How do you write your content? There are just too many things to consider…

In the last couple of weeks I was asked a few times on what are the things I consider when writing a post, so I thought of putting a list or items together which then turned into this post. I hope it can of help to you.

I will also ask you to participate by adding to the list or simply discuss the recommendations I’m posting.

Read This Post…

7. How To Set Social Media Goals

The point of setting goals and tracking results is to become aware of how your actions impact the outcome.

If you take conscious steps and then observe the reactions, you become responsible and completely aware of how you control those results.

Awareness = Control

If you think you can’t control what happens in social media, perhaps you should try taking a look from a different angle. Just looking at the pretty charts on Google Analytics or the number of Retweets on your posts won’t be enough to actually gain control over the results.

One of the things I love about blogs like ThinkTraffic is how they publish monthly reports, mostly on how they grow blog traffic. They turn themselves into a case study as a way of teaching people with their own experience.

Read This Post…

8. Why Is Social Media Not Working For You

Are you feeling like you are the only one that doesn’t get any results from social media? Are you getting nothing but frustration while everybody else and their grandmas are talking about monetizing, getting prospects and all kinds of success stories?

Questioning your strategy is a good start. Here is a list of items that might be damaging your personal brand or preventing you from achieving those hard to get goals…

Your Content Is Self Centered

I said it before and it doesn’t sound very nice but nobody cares about you or your product. People care about how your product can provide a benefit or cover their needs. Turn it around and think about others. How you can be of help and provide value to your potential prospect. A good exercise to get started is to not allow yourself to write in first person.

Read This Post…

9. Social Media: So, Are Numbers Important Or Not?

Followers, Likes, Retweets, Subscribers… Is any of this stuff important? I’m sure you’ve listened to both sides, “get more followers” and “numbers are not important”.

There is a lot of noise on both sides, people telling you that numbers are important are usually trying to sell you some kind of software and people telling you they’re not, have 50k followers and get retweeted like crazy. So which one is it?

I’m going to tell you when and why numbers are important, or not.

Let’s take it step by step…

Read This Post…

10. How To Promote Your Blog Before Its Launch

One of the toughest parts of starting a new blog is getting some visibility.

The problem with doing your initial promotion post-launch is that at that point you have already develop a new series of activities such as content management or front-end interaction. These tasks will considerably reduce your time and resources.

What if you could instead create buzz around your blog even before its launch and before you drop a line of content in it? In this post I’ll share with you a few ways you can build hype about your launch and go live with traffic already coming in your door.

Read This Post…

Elsewhere…

Top 10 Social Media Blogs

It is also time to vote for your favorite social media blog at the Social Media Examiner “Top 10 Social Media Blogs” contest. If you enjoy reading SocialMouths head over there and nominate it (it takes a couple of minutes, really). Go VOTE. Thank you!

In Tree Houses Magazine

It was a great week for me in terms of exposure, I was featured in two different venues that not only are kick-ass but I also consume religiously. The first one is the In Tree Houses magazine by Thom Chambers that went live and is now available for download. If you’re not familiar with it I strongly recommend it. It focuses on how to reach your 1,000 true fans and it always features great individuals. The magazine is loaded with freakin’ awesomeness and it is completely free.

BlogCastFM Interview

The second one is the interview I did with Srinivas Rao for BlogCastFM in which we discussed the creation of compelling personal brands, building small communities and spending less but more meaningful time on your Google Analytics among other things. This is another one of those sources of great content I never miss and what I love about it is that it is based on audio interviews with the most relevant bloggers, online marketers and digital entrepreneurs around.

So thank you both Thom and Sniri, you guys inspire me.

Over To You

One more thing, so I’m able to deliver more in 2011, I wanna ask you to tell me what topics you would like to read about on SocialMouths. What kind of questions do you have that I can hopefully help you with. Use the comment section below, go crazy!

I’m not done this year but, like I said at the beginning, the last couple of weeks of December are slower so I wanted to do this now.

Hope you enjoy the posts!