In the previous post about Money Funnels, I connected lists and traffic.

In the preceding audio post, I showed one way that they work together – you can leverage targeted traffic to continue to bring you new people that will sign up to your list.

Now I want to go one level deeper and show you the connection between lists and traffic in your business.

Whether you own a bakery, an affiliate marketing business, or a high traffic blog that depends solely on advertising for revenue, your contact list is the lifeblood of your ongoing success. The reason? It is through your opt-in contact list that you are freed from the shackles of constantly generating new business to survive.

The reason that so many marketers and successful business owners will tell you that your money is in your list is that once you have a list of contacts, especially past buyers, you can market to them again and again, as long as you have their permission. Since previous buyers are much more likely to buy again, and they are 90% cheaper to market to, you have a low cost audience that you can make sales from again and again.

This doesn’t mean you can get your list to a certain size and stop looking for new visitors. Indeed, the key to having a flourishing business is to have a balance between new business and old business.

You see, as your present contact list ages, the people on it will change. They will have different experiences, be at different places in their lives, financially or otherwise, and their needs change as well. For example, let’s say you make and sell boxes to businesses.

Over the next year, some of the new businesses will fail and close, which will affect your business. Other older businesses will expand or be acquired, leading to more business. Still others may change their packaging from boxes to bags. Then there are the new businesses being formed every day which need your services.

For all those reasons and more, your list has to continue to grow and evolve.

How does that happen? New traffic.

The job of your new traffic is to generate new leads that will hopefully sign up to be contacted repeatedly, make an initial purchase, then become repeat clients. New business should be where your growth comes from, not your foundation.

Why not?

Well, let’s say you had the same small business. But instead of creating a list of people who need to place new orders for boxes each month, every time you needed a new lead, you used 9 times the resources to create new business. Of course, that money has to come from somewhere. No matter what kind of profit you are turning, if you have to spend nine times as much on generating new leads, you’re spending a lot more money, more than you have to, indeed.

Not only that, you have less money for staff, to take home, for other expenses like computer equipment and office space. The fewer resources and higher the expenses, the slower your growth.

And since you don’t have the revenue stream of repeat business here, you’re also attempting to run your business with no idea of how much you’ll make the following month.

That’s not a business. That’s a really expensive hobby.

You need both lists and traffic to run a successful business, online or off.

Maybe you’re not an “online person”.

Perhaps the only time you use your computer is to read your email, search for something on the Web, read the news, or see pictures and other updates from friends and family.

It would make sense then, if you don’t really “get” how the web is supposed to help you sell more of your products and services.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter if you are a vitamin wholesaler, provide language translation services, sell timeshare resales, or write books, your clients and customers are online. If you can intercept them while they’re there, in a way that adds to the quality of their lives, rather than intruding upon it, you’ll be light years ahead of your competition.

Because there’s another truth. Most companies either go from quick fix to quick fix, never really getting anywhere or find leads and customers haphazardly, with no real system, hoping for the best. And it’s sad because the resolution is pretty simple.

Pinpoint what your target market is doing online. Then get in their path. Instead of fighting the uphill battle of getting visitors to come to you in some kind of vacuum, go to them.

You’re probably thinking, well whoop-de-doo for you, Ms. Has-it-figured-out. How exactly do I do that?

Of course I can’t provide all the answers to that in one day, but let’s think about it for a minute. Where are your customers online? Better yet, how do I get to them, or get them to come to me? We’re going to come back and answer that more specifically momentarily.

First, let’s look at the question in general terms.

According to the US Census Bureau, three out of five households are online, now that’s just in the United States, and translates to 110 million households. About half of those have high speed internet access. Think about how your business would suffer if you turned away business from 60% of your clients. If you’re not making your presence felt online, that may be what you’re doing.

Or think of it this way – what if 60% of your customers referred you one more paying customer this month? What is the math on that for you?

If you count wireless, the market is even bigger than that. Half of Americans have accessed the web using a wireless device such as their cell phone. And if you’re talking about awareness and occasional use, 77% of US Adults have used the internet. There’s no way you can say your customers aren’t online anymore. Somewhere in that 77% is someone who would like to do business with you.

Let’s go beyond that a little. What are people doing online, and how often are they doing this? This is important because this will illuminate how exactly we can come across your specific customers and clients.

If you think that most people are not “online people” get ready to be shocked. 73% of Americans use the internet on a daily basis. The same study tell us:

* 58% of internet users are reading or sending email,
* 50% are using search,
* 38% are getting news,
* 38% are online just to pass the time or for fun, and,
* 27% are using social networking sites.

(Of course some people are doing more than one of those things, so the numbers aren’t going to add up to 100%)

Those first four activities are the top four actions people take online, email, search, news and leisure. And although social networking is fairly new as a mainstream activity online, more than one in four people are using them. Now, if 73% of Americans use the internet, and most of them do one of the top three activities, then obviously, you need to be where that’s happening.

Your customers should be getting periodic emails from you. Your site should be showing up in search. Your company should be making news, online and off. And if your newsletter or website can help them pass the time when they are bored, in a way that’s related to your products and services all the better. If it can’t, it can certainly contribute content to the social networking sites where they might be spending those idle moments.

Let’s get back to your specific site now. How do you narrow those people down to folks who are interested in what you specifically have to offer?

The initial step here would be making sure there’s a market for what you have to offer. Search for the problem your product is the solution to, and find out if people care enough to pay for that solution, then that they can afford to do so. There’s a lot of people who are looking for jobs at any given time, recession or not.

All of those people aren’t willing or able to pay for resume services or for job seeking advice. If your solution has a price tag on it, target the people who see the value in paying for information they may find freely online. Make sure you remind them what that benefit is.

Can an expert give them more precise advice? Do you have a track record of matching jobs to people? Would the time wasted looking for the information possibly cost them the open position?

Now, once you find where the pain in your market is, even if you aren’t planning on relying on search engine traffic, the insight you can gain from doing simple keyword research is invaluable. keyword research can tell you who is searching, what context people are discussing products like yours in, who your top competitors are, and most importantly, give you an intelligent estimate of how large the market is for your solution.

Many is the entrepreneur who is shocked to find that upon discovering the perfect solution, and marketing to the perfect market, that there just aren’t enough of those people in the niche they’ve chosen to make a living from month to month. Armed with this information, it’s easy enough to expand a product line into nearby niches, but if you don’t know this, you might spend months attempting to gain traffic that just isn’t available.

Once this research is over, it’s time to attack on all fronts. Make sure you are reaching them in all the ways discussed. Start with one primary way to gain customers, like advertising, then add ways to make money from existing customers, like a new product. It’s simple enough to find your customers online if you know what they’re doing and where you need to be to be connected to them. Then all you need is a system for keeping the visitors coming to you consistently.

So a week ago, I started out with intention of doing a series on Social Currencies. Then I realized that depending on your perspective, the way I wanted to talk about Social Currency didn’t really work.

This concept of currency within the economy of social interaction is really a much smaller concept within a book I’m writing about how small businesses gain the upper hand online through the leverage of resources.

But I digress. Here’s the point.

Before we can start talking about social currency we have to discuss what exactly is.

A currency is the prevalent item or unit that can be taken universally by anybody in a given economy for goods or services, in that same economy.

That is  an acceptable definition but first to apply it here we must agree that we have a social economy, meaning that we have a structure where, things of value are being exchanged, whether for personal use or for business.

So. for example, I could give you my trust. Until I give that trust to you, even in a limited capacity, I won’t give your business my email address unless I’m a fool, or I fully trust the laws that protect me if you abuse it.

In return for my trust, I have to get something back that is worth not just the risk of getting burned by you or a third party that hacks your server, but the act of opening a line of communication itself.

Another definition of currency is any form of value exchange that can be circulated within an agreed economy. In order for one to get another unit of value back, I offer a unit of value.

Of course, in a value exchange it’s all about the perception of value. Money itself isn’t static.

Even though were not on the gold standard anymore we do have comparisons between different countries and economies as far as what a certain currency’s value is here. The value of the dollar against other world currencies is different than it was ten days ago, ten years ago even, and not the same as it will be in ten years.

So this is also an accepted definition for our purposes, given that what we’re trying to do is to get relative value.

I may give you a technique for increasing your visitors that brings you $1350 worth of traffic, for $100 because I know the relative value of you learning it yourself versus paying me to do it.

Or maybe having you as a future lead is worth a loss of $1250 in potential revenue to me, perhaps I value you as a client over a lifetime at least that much.

Relative value.

Next, we’re going to talk about the criteria I measured each component of social currency against in order to determine their usefulness to you as a business person. Then we’ll jump right into the series with an overview of the first social currency.

27,000 visitors from StumbleUpon in one week is my personal high score for generating social media traffic. 40k is my overall best in one day.

But if you ever look at my SU profile, by all outward appearances, I’m a pretty average user.

I don’t have 1000 subscribers, like Andy Beard, who can rock my server with one stumble.

And my both my Stumbling record and number of reviews certainly pale in comparison to someone like Zaibatsu.

And yet. Whether you’re talking social media or online news site, online reputation management or offline social networks, I seem to have a knack for knowing where all the pressure points are, and where to apply – or relax – force, to get the coverage that I want, and to pass that on to my customers and clients.

You can’t buy social media traffic, with the exception of Stumble Ads and Facebook Ads, which really aren’t the same as what I’d call social media traffic – even under those circumstances, it’s just not the same.

It’s the same way you can’t buy good vibes. Either you can get them, or you can’t. You can’t pay someone to genuinely feel good about your products, services, and customer support. Though I’m sure in this economy, lots of people would fake it really well if you offered them the right price.

As I get closer to retiring, I’ve wondered- and studied, what it is that I’m doing differently , more and more frequently. What  am I dong in half an hour on StumbleUpon that has the same effect as what some others do in 40 hours?

As it began to dawn on me, I started to take notes. This excerpt is from a PDF guide I wrote about what I have logically concluded, and repeatedly tested, to be the Secret to my Success in drawing social media traffic and generating massive traffic in general. [download it | pdf].

For the next 24 hours, I’m not going to ask for your email address or anything else in order for you to read it. After the opening day sale is over, there’s no more free peeks – you’ll have to give somethin to get somethin. wink wink.

Have a Happy Weekend. If you’re in the DC metro area, remember to stop by Faith Gifts and Stationery in Laurel Mall across from the Macy’s to visit me between 11 am and 2 pm. You can corner me and ask me questions about your web site.

There was a really important post at DoshDosh today called “An Essential Marketing Principle: Give Before You Try to Get“. It went over a very basic marketing principle that has somehow gotten turned into a gimmick – the idea that in order to get someone, anyone, to do something for you, that you must first do something for them. 

It struck me, reading that article that everyone knows you’re supposed to do that. 

Everyone thinks they understand why to do that. 

And yet few people know HOW to do it. Or everyone would, and everyone would buy everything and all our problems getting the word out and  would be solved. 

I wonder why that is. Thinking back to when I was a newbie, thinking about how current newbies to traffic generation behave when they meet me, I think this quote from the article best alludes to the mystery:

You’re not selling to robots or animals. You’re selling to people whocare about the seller. Get what you want by first giving unconditionally. Manage what people think or feel about you and you’ll get what want easily.

When I was a newbie, I didn’t get that. I got into business to be able to help people and have some extra spare change – I was looking for a part time supplemental income.

One day put out some valuable information for free, and for a while got a lot of great attention for it. Then when flipping through Clickbank, I noticed that someone had turned my idea into a product. Out of curiosity I bought it, thinking they had the same idea I had at the same time – maybe we could work together and make something bigger.

And I saw that, word for word, some of the content in the product was stuff I was giving away free on my blog.

At the time I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

Sue? I didn’t have a lawyer and couldn’t afford one.

Contact the person and bluff that I was going to sue? I couldn’t make good on the threat, and besides, it was a lie. And people knew that person well – they were just getting to know me in the marketplace.

Ultimately I figured out that due to the ranking of the product, they couldn’t have been making a lot of sales. So I made a better product, and put it on the market. Six months later the market for that particular item was flooded with competition, and I was still on top.

I always believed it was because I provided better value, and people knew it. I gave away most of the information others make you pay for, and then heaped a lot of actionable content to pay for on top of that. Eventually my tactic paid off.

Because I wanted to build a business. The other guy just wanted to make a quick buck.

And that’s the difference between some of the new blood in any business and the veterans, between some of those living the “guru” lifestyle and the true experts.

One wants to build a business, the other is hoping to run away with some of your cash. One has to shoot straight with you or they risk losing your future business. The other doesn’t care because they just want to get you to buy this one thing and then run away.

If you want to earn trust with your audience, before everything you do, think, “will this build me a long-term relationship with subscribers, customers and clients?”

Ask yourself why they would come back for more.

Ask yourself why YOU would come back for more.

This month in Traffic Reality we’re going to be talking about how to use social media properties to build your business. I’m not going to just talk about Twitter, or Facebook or StumbleUpon or forum marketing.

I’m going to talk about all of them as a whole, from the technical points of how to use them, to the tips and tricks on each separate site in my Web 2.0 strategy and how I use them together to generate traffic, leads and sales.

I’ll be focusing on Actionable Steps, and how to reduce your daily social media workload to half an hour a day. We’ll discuss the intimate nature of how and why some things get popular in social media and other items fail miserably.

We’ll be looking into why these occurrences have nothing to do with quality of the resource, and everything to do with leverage. Actually we’ll be talking about that fact that I feel leverage is so important that, years ago, I named my company Leveraged Promotion.

This topic is so important that I’m going to start giving away bonsues in Traffic Reality at the beginning of the month of lessons instead of the end, so I can get them all in.

In the next post in this series, I’ll give you a few take away points for right now, as well as an announcement of our last content winner.

Here’s a trick people fall for all the time. It’s so common the really scuzzy people have a name for it – it’s called “False Proof.”

It’s when they tell you something that is technically true, but completely irrelevant or immaterial. 

Like when a person shows you a check for $75,000 they made from affiliate sales. But they don’t tell you they spent $60,000 in advertising and have to share the rest with several JV partners. 

Or when a so-called search expert will say, “I’m number one out of  33 million results.” And you think, really? 33 MILLION?

Then you get their software, ebook, or system, and you find out that even though you’re also able to rank number one for a term that gets 33 million results, none of it sent you any sales, or leads – and really, not much traffic either.

If you don’t want to get hustled by this little trick, remember that proof has to be MEANINGFUL. 

If you’re in a traffic or search tool buying frenzy, paste this notice to your computer.

Unless The Keyword They’re So Proud of Ranking For Is Actually a Difficult Task Even for a Professional, They’re Not Teaching You Anything You Can’t Find Out On Your Own.

Unless the thousands of links they’re getting are Valuable links, it’s a waste of your time and money to get them. 

If the technique they’re showing you is unethical, remember you’re risking your entire business for a possible short term gain – is the possibliity of losing everything you built worth a few extra sales? 

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True, It’s Not Always Because You’re New to This. Most of The Time It Probably IS. Look for the Proof. Look for the Respect of Peers OUTSIDE THEIR INDUSTRY Who Don’t Benefit Monetarily From the Product’s Success. 

 

It’s fine to profit from a JV deal with a friend, I’m not saying it isn’t. I’ve done it and when I have, I’ve slept great. 

What’s NOT Okay is when the testimonials of friends are the Only testimonials they have. What did their peers think? What did their clients think? What do people who didn’t know them from Adam before they tried it think?

If a person selling you an SEO product or search consulting is a layperson, and they figured out how to get results better than the next guy, though not on a professional level, and they say so, that is completely above board.

But if they’re claiming to be a guru or expert in any way, and they’re using keyword rankings or number of links generated, or anything else to prove their results, make sure they stand up to scrutiny.

Here are some things to test for:

• The number of results doesn’t always tell you how comparatively difficult the keyword is to rank for. 
   
• If the keyword is more than 4 words long, a monkey could probably rank for it under the right conditions.
   
• Even if it is hard for a newbie, and the program will help you get to the next level of expertise, if the terms you would rank for are those that don’t send any traffic, or help you build up to terms that will send traffic, it’s a waste of time
   
• If it’s just one keyword, and not at least hundreds, if not thousands that they have gotten rankings for? They aren’t an expert. You do NOT really know what you’re doing with search until you have been able to maintain hundreds or thousands of rankings for a few years. You can get to number one by cheating in the short term – until they catch you and ban your site.  Luck or cheating doesn’t make you an expert.
   
• Is the top result they have in Google or Yahoo their own site? It’s not that it’s a bad thing to get to number one using Ezine Articles or Hub Pages. It’s that you don’t control the rankings, and you don’t need someone to teach you something fancy to get that ranking.Anyone can get a popular site to rank at the top for an article they’ve contributed – there are free articles for how to do this around the Net. That’s not some coveted secret worth $97. You just use your keywords in the title of the article you’re contributing. The real trick is getting that ranking to mean money for you – just because it’s technically listed higher for you, and a link on that page goes back to your site, doesn’t necessarily mean it will help your search rankings or that the person reading the article or watching the vide will go to your site. 

  It Can be a good technique. But knowing that doesn’t make you an expert.

Now, I won’t sit here and say that every expert trying to get you to buy a search or traffic related product is full of it. There’s a lot of good programs out there that work. But the instant you’re being promised outlandish results with a minimum of effort, it’s right that your BS radar should go off.

There are plenty of programs out there that work – to tell them apart, scrutinize your expert, and the results of the tool. You may be surprised at what you find.

What do you get for the person who has everything? Freebies!

Today is your first of 12 warnings not to be last person to pick up all the free stuff from the 12 Days 2008 special going on over at Mark Hendricks’ site. If you’d like to contribute gifts to thousands of people, go on over to the same 12 Days 2008 link and follow the instructions.

Don’t make me tell you every day!

photo credit: bitmask

I’m looking at what feeds to keep or delete in Google Reader and I discovered something.

I can pretty much tell what a site is about if I look at it in list view, which just lists the headlines in a feed. That’s helping me categorize un-categorized feeds. Which blog I’m writing in determines what I’ll prioritize reading that day, so being able to tell at a glance what a blog’s “voice” or “message” is strikes me as important.

You know how I think — would my blog pass that test?

And sadly, (though not surprisingly, given that I’ve been quiet in anticipation of my “retirement” next month), even if I take out our special Friday editions, I can only give a qualified yes to answer that question.

IF the person subscribing already knows a bit about traffic, they can tell my posts are on that topic from the headlines. If not, you can’t really tell.

Granted, I like to get creative with my titles. But headlines are everything. Am I losing the core audience this site was built for by leaning too much towards witticisms?

Could you gain more visitors by tweaking your titles?

Try this exercise on your own site and tell me what you found out.

You’ve probably heard the story of how my ego-laden jealousy fit led to participation in a wonderful opportunity.

That, of course, is the honor of contributing to a business book that will be a best seller, help thousands of business people navigate the murky waters of new media, and if that wasn’t enough, all proceeds go to a worthy charity.

The Age of Conversation 2008 edition is now being finalized, and the final names of the 237* authors appearing in it has been posted at Drew McLellan’s site. (He and Gavin Heaton are the books edtiors.)

Now that we have the final tally, I’m looking forward to starting my series about the authors, and attempting to get to know them all.

If you want to get a head start, here’s the list of their sites:

1. Adrian Ho
2. Aki Spicer
3. Alex Henault
4. Amy Jussel
5. Andrew Odom
6. Andy Nulman
7. Andy Sernovitz
8. Andy Whitlock
9. Angela Maiers
10. Ann Handley
11. Anna Farmery
12. Armando Alves
13. Arun Rajagopal
14. Asi Sharabi
15. Becky Carroll
16. Becky McCray
17. Bernie Scheffler
18. Bill Gammell
19. Bob LeDrew
20. Brad Shorr
21. Brandon Murphy
22. Branislav Peric
23. Brent Dixon
24. Brett Macfarlane
25. Brian Reich
26. C.C. Chapman
27. Cam Beck
28. Casper Willer
29. Cathleen Rittereiser
30. Cathryn Hrudicka
31. Cedric Giorgi
32. Charles Sipe
33. Chris Kieff
34. Chris Cree
35. Chris Wilson
36. Christina Kerley
37. (CK)
38. C.B. Whittemore
39. Chris Brown
40. Connie Bensen
41. Connie Reece
42. Corentin Monot
43. Craig Wilson
44. Daniel Honigman
45. Dan Schawbel
46. Dan Sitter
47. Daria Radota Rasmussen
48. Darren Herman
49. Dave Davison
50. David Armano
51. David Berkowitz
52. David Koopmans
53. David Meerman Scott
54. David Petherick
55. David Reich
56. David Weinfeld
57. David Zinger
58. Deanna Gernert
59. Deborah Brown
60. Dennis Price
61. Derrick Kwa
62. Dino Demopoulos
63. Doug Haslam
64. Doug Meacham
65. Doug Mitchell
66. Douglas Hanna
67. Douglas Karr
68. Drew McLellan
69. Duane Brown
70. Dustin Jacobsen
71. Dylan Viner
72. Ed Brenegar
73. Ed Cotton
74. Efrain Mendicuti
75. Ellen Weber
76. Eric Peterson
77. Eric Nehrlich
78. Ernie Mosteller
79. Faris Yakob
80. Fernanda Romano
81. Francis Anderson
82. Gareth Kay
83. Gary Cohen
84. Gaurav Mishra
85. Gavin Heaton
86. Geert Desager
87. George Jenkins
88. G.L. Hoffman
89. Gianandrea Facchini
90. Gordon Whitehead
91. Greg Verdino
92. Gretel Going
93. & Kathryn Fleming
94. Hillel Cooperman
95. Hugh Weber
96. J. Erik Potter
97. James Gordon-Macintosh
98. Jamey Shiels
99. Jasmin Tragas
100. Jason Oke
101. Jay Ehret
102. Jeanne Dininni
103. Jeff De Cagna
104. Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral
105. Jeff Noble
106. Jeff Wallace
107. Jennifer Warwick
108. Jenny Meade
109. Jeremy Fuksa
110. Jeremy Heilpern
111. Jeroen Verkroost
112. Jessica Hagy
113. Joanna Young
114. Joe Pulizzi
115. John Herrington
116. John Moore
117. John Rosen
118. John Todor
119. Jon Burg
120. Jon Swanson
121. Jonathan Trenn
122. Jordan Behan
123. Julie Fleischer
124. Justin Foster
125. Karl Turley
126. Kate Trgovac
127. Katie Chatfield
128. Katie Konrath
129. Kenny Lauer
130. Keri Willenborg
131. Kevin Jessop
132. Kristin Gorski
133. Lewis Green
134. Lois Kelly
135. Lori Magno
136. Louise Manning
137. Luc Debaisieux
138. Mario Vellandi
139. Mark Blair
140. Mark Earls
141. Mark Goren
142. Mark Hancock
143. Mark Lewis
144. Mark McGuinness
145. Matt Dickman
146. Matt J. McDonald
147. Matt Moore
148. Michael Karnjanaprakorn
149. Michelle Lamar
150. Mike Arauz
151. Mike McAllen
152. Mike Sansone
153. Mitch Joel
154. Neil Perkin
155. Nettie Hartsock
156. Nick Rice
157. Oleksandr Skorokhod
158. Ozgur Alaz
159. Paul Chaney
160. Paul Hebert
161. Paul Isakson
162. Paul McEnany
163. Paul Tedesco
164. Paul Williams
165. Pet Campbell
166. Pete Deutschman
167. Peter Corbett
168. Phil Gerbyshak
169. Phil Lewis
170. Phil Soden
171. Piet Wulleman
172. Rachel Steiner
173. Sreeraj Menon
174. Reginald Adkins
175. Richard Huntington
176. Rishi Desai
177. Robert Hruzek
178. Roberta Rosenberg
179. Robyn McMaster
180. Roger von Oech
181. Rohit Bhargava
182. Ron Shevlin
183. Ryan Barrett
184. Ryan Karpeles
185. Ryan Rasmussen
186. Sam Huleatt
187. Sandy Renshaw
188. Scott Goodson
189. Scott Monty
190. Scott Townsend
191. Scott White
192. Sean Howard
193. Sean Scott
194. Seni Thomas
195. Seth Gaffney
196. Shama Hyder
197. Sheila Scarborough
198. Sheryl Steadman
199. Simon Payn
200. Sonia Simone
201. Spike Jones
202. Stanley Johnson
203. Stephen Collins
204. Stephen Landau
205. Stephen Smith
206. Steve Bannister
207. Steve Hardy
208. Steve Portigal
209. Steve Roesler
210. Steven Verbruggen
211. Steve Woodruff
212. Sue Edworthy
213. Susan Bird
214. Susan Gunelius
215. Susan Heywood
216. Tammy Lenski
217. Terrell Meek
218. Thomas Clifford
219. Thomas Knoll
220. Tim Brunelle
221. Tim Connor
222. Tim Jackson
223. Tim Mannveille
224. Tim Tyler
225. Timothy Johnson
226. Tinu Abayomi-Paul
227. Toby Bloomberg
228. Todd Andrlik
229. Troy Rutter
230. Troy Worman
231. Uwe Hook
232. Valeria Maltoni
233. Vandana Ahuja
234. Vanessa DiMauro
235. Veronique Rabuteau
236. Wayne Buckhanan
237. William Azaroff
238. Yves Van Landeghem

*I’m aware that it says there are 237 authors, but that there are 238 on this list. I’ll have to square that with Drew and Gavin- both this list and that number are from the email all the authors were sent.

People’s need to protect their own egos knows no bounds. They will lie, cheat, steal, kill, do whatever it takes to maintain what we call ego boundaries.

Dr. Andrew Samuels
Professor of Analytical Psychooogy, University of Essex

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

Recently I wrote that there is only one true power of social media.

Before that I said that the simple secret to social media is understanding that it’s about relationships, and that fixing, founding or forgetting a relationship with solve the majority of problems you have with social media.

Actually that applies to just about any type of traffic generation you’re going to do, whether it’s foot traffic to a local restaruant, or online traffic to a website.

Now what does any of this have to do with egos?

We’ll come back to that in a minute. First, riddle me this.

Who is the most powerful person in a game where gaining approval is the ultimate goal?

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Is it the person seeking approval?

Certainly not.

If you’re this person, you’re asking other people to give you their power (of approval), which puts you in the position of need. So you’re actually the weakest person in the game.

Is it the person giving approval?

Not if they can only give their own approval. This person is just one vote of approval in a sea of many.

Think about it – if I wasn’t an all-around traffic expert, published in reputable expert publications, or didn’t have traffic advice that consistently works, you wouldn’t care if I blogged about some new resource.

You’d be thinking so what, what does she know, why am I even here? As you’re probably thinking with anyone who touts themselves as an expert without establishing that it’s actually true first.

We’re skeptical, and we should be. Not everyone is honest in business, sadly. Not that I’m some paragon of virtue, I just like to save time, and honesty? HUGE time saver.

Which leads us to the two exceptions to this rule.

If that one person’s vote has more weight than others, they are more powerful than another person whose vote only has regular weight.

And if their vote influences others, they are more powerful by the factor at which their approval moves other people to action. We see the former in the case of super delegates. An example of the latter would be a celebrity endorsement of a product that increases sales.

So. What person is most powerful in a game based on approval?

It’s a person who can influence people to give their approval but does not need this approval themselves.

Here’s where all of the traffic and social media talk has to do with egos.

The social media world is based on the shifting of group approval. If you can predict or control the sway of a group’s approval, yes, you do have some power. But if you’re constantly spending the votes of the people you influence on your self, three things happen.

First, the group you’re interacting with catches on that you’re only interested in their approval so that you can get more approval. The more sophisticated your product or services are, the more sophisticated your audience is, and the faster they’ll catch on to this.

At that point, they stop listening. And you lose.

Second, you aren’t banking or growing your voting back account. It’s always depleted, and it’s always going to the same place.

Your investment isn’t growing. What could have been an asset is now a liability. You lose again.

Third, the influencers in your approval sphere eventually abandon you. Why should they wield their influence to assist you if you’re not wielding yours in reciprocation?

Losing the influence over the influence? All bad. Third time loser.

And why would we spend all that approval on ourselves? Many reasons – almost all of them lead back to the ego. By definition in our purposes: your consciousness of what your own identity is.

The ability to gain approval from others defines us as humans because we identify our egos as ourselves. If you think this isn’t you, consider the last time you tripped in public or said or did something embarrassing.

Think of the last time someone admitted they look up to you publicly. Remember what you did to get the last person you wanted to date to notice you. Consider what you’d do to get a new customer or client.

A huge percentage of our interactions with others has to do with gaining the approval of others. This carries over into our social media activity. We’re so much ego whether we like it or not.

(Which isn’t Actually your identity, but if you want to get into that discussion, go rent Revolver. Excellent thinking man’s action picture. If you don’t get it the first time, watch it again with the director’s commentary on.)

That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing to build up an influencer profile and then spend some of that influence on yourself, to spend it on clients now and again, or even to build one just for the sake of self importance. Not to do so would be like going into business with no intention of making a profit.

Sharing just because you care is great, but if you can personally gain from it sometimes, why not?

It’s just — that can’t be your sole point of doing it. It simply doesn’t work.

Now what happens if you are able to master your craving for power, and utilize social media without the constant need for approval.

Three things.

photo credit: Katayun

1- The group is naturally drawn to you. Ponder – do you do more business with the high-pressure salesperson more, or the person who helps you make an educated buying decision?

2- The approval you get becomes collectable. People start to follow you to see what you will suggest next that benefits or entertains them. You can get repeated votes from the same people. You wield influence. You can invest it, spend it or save it for later.

Kind of like currency.

3- You influence the influencers AS an influencer. Your clout increases expontially with each influencer who follows you. And instead of having mediocre results the one time you desire (rather than need) attention for a resource that is based in self-interest, the easier it is to get them to help you.

Now you know WHY you ought to master your social media ego.

Which leaves us with the question – how do you balance your specific selfish interests with your more social ones?

Simply take your ego out of the equation. You can do this by investigating what your own ego boundaries are, and adjusting them as necessary. You can give yourself some artificial ratio for promoting yourself (only once every 25 or 50 shares is a good target.)

Or you can just ask, with each time you use social media, who is going to have more short-term benefit from this? Me or the person reading this?

As often as possible, the answer should be, both.

photo credit: pbyrne

If you understand this, truly understand this, about social media, you’ll never be confused about how to benefit wildy from it.

Notice I didn’t just say “get traffic from it”.

The One and Only True Power of Social Media is that it is completely based on getting approval from others.

So to understand how to use that information, answer this question for yourself: in a situation where popularity is driven by approval, who is the most powerful person?

Hint: It’s not the person who Gets the most approval.

Ask me below and I’ll give you another hint. A big one. For free, but I will only deliver it in private. And if you guess correctly or figure it out, I’ll let you know that too.

Within the next seven days, I’ll write in public about the answer. You’ll have to figure out for yourself which writing is the answer though.