That's what it's all about isn't it? To get people to talk about and recommend you to others? So how are you doing? All this work you've been doing with social media and building community, is it working? That is, are you developing the kinds of relationships with people that influences them to want to tell others about you?

No, I'm not talking about having thousands of "likes" on Facebook or thousands of "followers" on Twitter, those don't help you gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns above and beyond your ability to attract people, I'm talking about your ability to influence positive word-of-mouth. And yes, there is a difference between attracting people and influencing them to talk about and refer others to you. Where do you stand on that? I know that you can probably name a few customers, or a few people that are connected with you on Facebook, that would probably recommend you, but what about the overall feelings of your community towards you... would they recommend you to their friends and family?

I know that's a tough question to answer and one even harder to quantify but what if there was an easy to understand metric that you could use to gauge the effectiveness of your relationship marketing campaigns?

Enter the Net Promoter Score

The Net Promoter Score is a customer loyalty metric developed by Fred Reicheld, which was introduced in 2003 in his Harvard Business Review Article, The One Number You Need To Grow. From NetPromoter.com

NPS is based on the fundamental perspective that every company's customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. By asking one simple question — How likely is it that you would recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague? — you can track these groups and get a clear measure of your company's performance through its customers' eyes. Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point rating scale and are categorized as follows:

• Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
• Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
• Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

To calculate your company's Net Promoter Score (NPS), take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors.

While there is no one metric that you can use, that will tell you everything there is to know about how influential you are over your online community, the Net Promoter Score gives you a great generalization of how things are going.

Getting The Score

With the onset of Facebook questions it's easier than ever to poll your Facebook Page. Just ask the question, "How likely is it that you would recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague?" From there just enter the available answers from 0 to 10 and viola! To figure out what your Net Promoter Score is, just take the percentage of people that answered 9 to 10 (Promoters) and subtract the percentage of people that answered 0 to 6 (Detractors).

Example: 60% Promoters - 25% Detractors = +35% NPS

The Net Promoter Score ranges from -100% to +100% and of course the higher the better. In simple terms the number represents a business's efficiency at creating promoters and detractors. Best case, a business is converting 100% of its customers into promoters, worst case 100% into detractors, where do you stand?

From NetPromoter.com

Companies with the most efficient growth engines operate at NPS efficiency ratings of 50 to 80%. But the average firm sputters along at an NPS efficiency of only 5 to 10%. In other words, Promoters barely outnumber Detractors. Many firms — and some entire industries — have negative Net Promoter Scores, which means that they are creating more Detractors than Promoters day in and day out. These low scores explain why so many companies can't deliver profitable, sustainable growth, no matter how aggressively they spend to acquire new business.

While the Net Promoter Score wasn't initially used to gauge your influence over your online community, and your ability to generate word-of-mouth, it's a great metric to use and a fairly easy one to figure. Keep in mind that if you run this one-sentence-survey too often you will wind up skewing your numbers, instead, run it once a quarter to gauge your promoter growth.

David Johnson
Social Media Workshop

That's what it's all about isn't it? To get people to talk about and recommend you to others? So how are you doing? All this work you've been doing with social media and building community, is it working? That is, are you developing the kinds of relationships with people that influences them to want to tell others about you?

No, I'm not talking about having thousands of "likes" on Facebook or thousands of "followers" on Twitter, those don't help you gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns above and beyond your ability to attract people, I'm talking about your ability to influence positive word-of-mouth. And yes, there is a difference between attracting people and influencing them to talk about and refer others to you. Where do you stand on that? I know that you can probably name a few customers, or a few people that are connected with you on Facebook, that would probably recommend you, but what about the overall feelings of your community towards you... would they recommend you to their friends and family?

I know that's a tough question to answer and one even harder to quantify but what if there was an easy to understand metric that you could use to gauge the effectiveness of your relationship marketing campaigns?

Enter the Net Promoter Score

The Net Promoter Score is a customer loyalty metric developed by Fred Reicheld, which was introduced in 2003 in his Harvard Business Review Article, The One Number You Need To Grow. From NetPromoter.com

NPS is based on the fundamental perspective that every company's customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. By asking one simple question — How likely is it that you would recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague? — you can track these groups and get a clear measure of your company's performance through its customers' eyes. Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point rating scale and are categorized as follows:

• Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
• Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
• Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

To calculate your company's Net Promoter Score (NPS), take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors.

While there is no one metric that you can use, that will tell you everything there is to know about how influential you are over your online community, the Net Promoter Score gives you a great generalization of how things are going.

Getting The Score

With the onset of Facebook questions it's easier than ever to poll your Facebook Page. Just ask the question, "How likely is it that you would recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague?" From there just enter the available answers from 0 to 10 and viola! To figure out what your Net Promoter Score is, just take the percentage of people that answered 9 to 10 (Promoters) and subtract the percentage of people that answered 0 to 6 (Detractors).

Example: 60% Promoters - 25% Detractors = +35% NPS

The Net Promoter Score ranges from -100% to +100% and of course the higher the better. In simple terms the number represents a business's efficiency at creating promoters and detractors. Best case, a business is converting 100% of its customers into promoters, worst case 100% into detractors, where do you stand?

From NetPromoter.com

Companies with the most efficient growth engines operate at NPS efficiency ratings of 50 to 80%. But the average firm sputters along at an NPS efficiency of only 5 to 10%. In other words, Promoters barely outnumber Detractors. Many firms — and some entire industries — have negative Net Promoter Scores, which means that they are creating more Detractors than Promoters day in and day out. These low scores explain why so many companies can't deliver profitable, sustainable growth, no matter how aggressively they spend to acquire new business.

While the Net Promoter Score wasn't initially used to gauge your influence over your online community, and your ability to generate word-of-mouth, it's a great metric to use and a fairly easy one to figure. Keep in mind that if you run this one-sentence-survey too often you will wind up skewing your numbers, instead, run it once a quarter to gauge your promoter growth.

David Johnson
Social Media Workshop

Word-of-mouth is gold and social media is the vessel we use to promote it, but how exactly is it accomplished? As businesses we are always looking for ways to lower the cost of acquiring new customers. It's simple economics, the lower the acquisition cost the more sales (and money) we make...simple right? Not exactly, as with most things it's easier said than done but if you make it part of your daily customer/employee interaction to give your customers something positive to talk about you go a long way to influencing a higher rate of word-of-mouth, let's call it your ROE or Return On Experience.

In this post I'm going to throw out some radical ideas. Radical ideas that, at first, you will discount as being just that, radical. Then these ideas will start to work on you as you mull them over in your mind, more than likely you will talk with your spouse about them or maybe a co-worker asking yourself and them what if? What if you did try what I'm about to suggest, what would happen? Would it produce rapid word-of-mouth, would it reduce your cost per customer, would it create you more sales? The answer to all of those questions, of course, is yes but I understand that there will be a certain amount of skepticism involved but as you will soon find out, the logic is iron clad.

Customer Experience

I've brought this up before but I thought it important enough to bring it up here again and that is: it's the difference between what people expect and the actual level of customer service received that will dictate whether or not a person will talk about how their business with you went. Of course it goes without saying that if you fail to meet those expectations the word-of-mouth will be negative but if you exceed them, well ...all sorts of magical things start to happen, such as repeat and referral business!

The idea is to go so above and beyond what the customer expects that you earn massive amounts of exposure on the level of Return on Experience (ROE) you receive from shocking your customers with your level of customer service. In fact, I don't want you to think about it as "customer service" at all, instead think of it as:

Customer Enchantment

It might just be me but when I think of the term customer service I think about doing all the things that I'm supposed to do such as be helpful and friendly but when I think in terms of customer enchantment I think on a much, MUCH grander scale. In other words I don't want you to think about how you can give good customer service, I want you to think in terms of "how can I enchant my customers?"

Enchantment: (en·chant·ment ) Captivation: a feeling of great liking for something wonderful and unusual.

Before I get into some ideas of what I mean I feel it's important to remind you about the story of the boy and the starfish. You know the one, the one where there are thousands of starfish beached upon the sands where a little boy, one-by-one, is throwing the starfish back into the water. When asked why he's even bothering when there are too many to make a difference, the little boy replied after throwing a starfish back in the water, "It mattered to that one."

I bring up that story because I understand that what I'm about to propose would be impossible to do with every customer, of course you wouldn't want to do what I'm about to propose with every customer anyway because then it would become expected and the whole idea is to go beyond what is expected. Another thing to keep in mind is that you are trying to work your way into your customers social graph (both online and off), or at least become a conversation within it. By influencing your customers to say positive things about you, you in effect create customer that create other customers, thus reducing your customer acquisition cost theoretically in half.

Scenario #1 Let's say you have a customer come in to your dealership to purchase a vehicle for his daughters 16th birthday. He of course is excited but you decide to take things to the next level by getting the car wrapped for him, complete with a big bow on top. But you don't stop there because you really want to enchant your customer so you then give to his daughter a year's worth of free oil changes, 5 complete details and a $150 gas card.

Scenario #2 A customer drops off her car for an oil change and you learn that she is due to give birth to a baby boy in two weeks so you decide to go shopping for her. You buy her some baby related items, maybe a diaper bag and diapers, maybe some baby clothes or baby blankets. While talking with her you learn that she is in need of a car seat or maybe even a stroller so you picked one of those up for her as well and put them in her car for when she comes back to pick it up.

Scenario #3 You learn that one of your customers has had a death in the family so you send a big bunch of flowers to their house, along with a gift certificate for a free house cleaning and yard maintenance with a hand written card that says, "It's always tough losing a loved one and we understand that there are always too many things to worry about during times like these. Attached you will find a gift certificate for free house cleaning and yard maintenance, two less things that you have to worry about. We truly are sorry for your loss."

Do you get what I mean when I say customer enchantment? I sure hope so because by doing things such as the three scenarios above you go a long way to influencing word-of-mouth. Think about what will happen once the word gets out about the things you are doing for your customers and it will get out. In fact your customers will find a way to bring up the amazing things you did both in person and all over Facebook (and Twitter, MySpace, and others) any and every chance they get. They will happily do this because you made a difference in their lives and did something they would NEVER have expected. You now have a customer and a word-of-mouth generating machine for life.

Another Crazy idea

What if you empowered your employees to do this sort of thing. Maybe create an enchantment budget, think of it as advertisement if you have to but by allowing your employees to get creative with customer enchantment and then giving them the means by which to do so you are creating an environment that creates rampant word-of-mouth.

What ideas do you have when it comes to creating customer enchantment, how can you increase your ROE?

Word-of-mouth is gold and social media is the vessel we use to promote it, but how exactly is it accomplished? As businesses we are always looking for ways to lower the cost of acquiring new customers. It's simple economics, the lower the acquisition cost the more sales (and money) we make...simple right? Not exactly, as with most things it's easier said than done but if you make it part of your daily customer/employee interaction to give your customers something positive to talk about you go a long way to influencing a higher rate of word-of-mouth, let's call it your ROE or Return On Experience.

In this post I'm going to throw out some radical ideas. Radical ideas that, at first, you will discount as being just that, radical. Then these ideas will start to work on you as you mull them over in your mind, more than likely you will talk with your spouse about them or maybe a co-worker asking yourself and them what if? What if you did try what I'm about to suggest, what would happen? Would it produce rapid word-of-mouth, would it reduce your cost per customer, would it create you more sales? The answer to all of those questions, of course, is yes but I understand that there will be a certain amount of skepticism involved but as you will soon find out, the logic is iron clad.

Customer Experience

I've brought this up before but I thought it important enough to bring it up here again and that is: it's the difference between what people expect and the actual level of customer service received that will dictate whether or not a person will talk about how their business with you went. Of course it goes without saying that if you fail to meet those expectations the word-of-mouth will be negative but if you exceed them, well ...all sorts of magical things start to happen, such as repeat and referral business!

The idea is to go so above and beyond what the customer expects that you earn massive amounts of exposure on the level of Return on Experience (ROE) you receive from shocking your customers with your level of customer service. In fact, I don't want you to think about it as "customer service" at all, instead think of it as:

Customer Enchantment

It might just be me but when I think of the term customer service I think about doing all the things that I'm supposed to do such as be helpful and friendly but when I think in terms of customer enchantment I think on a much, MUCH grander scale. In other words I don't want you to think about how you can give good customer service, I want you to think in terms of "how can I enchant my customers?"

Enchantment: (en·chant·ment ) Captivation: a feeling of great liking for something wonderful and unusual.

Before I get into some ideas of what I mean I feel it's important to remind you about the story of the boy and the starfish. You know the one, the one where there are thousands of starfish beached upon the sands where a little boy, one-by-one, is throwing the starfish back into the water. When asked why he's even bothering when there are too many to make a difference, the little boy replied after throwing a starfish back in the water, "It mattered to that one."

I bring up that story because I understand that what I'm about to propose would be impossible to do with every customer, of course you wouldn't want to do what I'm about to propose with every customer anyway because then it would become expected and the whole idea is to go beyond what is expected. Another thing to keep in mind is that you are trying to work your way into your customers social graph (both online and off), or at least become a conversation within it. By influencing your customers to say positive things about you, you in effect create customer that create other customers, thus reducing your customer acquisition cost theoretically in half.

Scenario #1 Let's say you have a customer come in to your dealership to purchase a vehicle for his daughters 16th birthday. He of course is excited but you decide to take things to the next level by getting the car wrapped for him, complete with a big bow on top. But you don't stop there because you really want to enchant your customer so you then give to his daughter a year's worth of free oil changes, 5 complete details and a $150 gas card.

Scenario #2 A customer drops off her car for an oil change and you learn that she is due to give birth to a baby boy in two weeks so you decide to go shopping for her. You buy her some baby related items, maybe a diaper bag and diapers, maybe some baby clothes or baby blankets. While talking with her you learn that she is in need of a car seat or maybe even a stroller so you picked one of those up for her as well and put them in her car for when she comes back to pick it up.

Scenario #3 You learn that one of your customers has had a death in the family so you send a big bunch of flowers to their house, along with a gift certificate for a free house cleaning and yard maintenance with a hand written card that says, "It's always tough losing a loved one and we understand that there are always too many things to worry about during times like these. Attached you will find a gift certificate for free house cleaning and yard maintenance, two less things that you have to worry about. We truly are sorry for your loss."

Do you get what I mean when I say customer enchantment? I sure hope so because by doing things such as the three scenarios above you go a long way to influencing word-of-mouth. Think about what will happen once the word gets out about the things you are doing for your customers and it will get out. In fact your customers will find a way to bring up the amazing things you did both in person and all over Facebook (and Twitter, MySpace, and others) any and every chance they get. They will happily do this because you made a difference in their lives and did something they would NEVER have expected. You now have a customer and a word-of-mouth generating machine for life.

Another Crazy idea

What if you empowered your employees to do this sort of thing. Maybe create an enchantment budget, think of it as advertisement if you have to but by allowing your employees to get creative with customer enchantment and then giving them the means by which to do so you are creating an environment that creates rampant word-of-mouth.

What ideas do you have when it comes to creating customer enchantment, how can you increase your ROE?

That all elusive holy grail of marketing, word-of-mouth, is right up there with Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster in that we hear reports that their real, but most of us have our doubts. The biggest reason why this is, is because most businesses fail to plan for it. Like anything else, if it's worth doing its worth planning for, below I will show you 5 powerful ways to get your customers to talk about you, in their online social graph.

Up, Up And Away - Going Way Beyond

One of the best ways to get people talking is to give them more than they expect. I know that can come across as 101 but it's the basis of word-of-mouth, let's face it if you don't give your customers something to talk about, they won't.

Each one of us, when we make a purchase, expect a certain level of customer service but it's the difference between what's expected and the actual level of customer service received that will influence your customers to want to talk about you. Of course that can be a double edged sword in that if you fail to meet those expectations the word-of-mouth received will be negative. But, if you take a look at all of your customer touch points and ensure that each one over delivers you will go a long way to producing positive word of mouth. Never let a moment to over deliver pass you by if you want to enchant your customers into talking about you.

Sam Walton said it best when he said, "The goal of a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary."

Achieve legendary status in the customer service department and you'll be a legend in the ROI department.

Don't Go Faceless - Show Your Personality

What is the personality of you dealership or other business? That is, who are the people that make it up? What are their stories and what makes them unique? Answer those questions and make sure to put it out there for people to see. Have employees create videos about why they work there, let them tell their story and the story of the dealership. It's okay to get personal because that's what you want, you want their personality to shine.

The idea is to create a voice that people can relate to, that people want to be part of. Think of personality as a magnet, what kind of people do you want to attract?

Correcting Mistakes - Listening To What They Are Saying

It's okay to make mistakes, we all do and nobody is under the illusions that you are going to be perfect, it's just not in our DNA, things will always crop up! Just remember that it's in how you fix those mistakes that will differentiate you from the competition and get people talking.

The first rule of thumb is to not let the negative stuff people may say about you get you down, look at it as a way to improve, as a way to stand out and better meet your customers needs. Remember, people won't always come to you and let you know what they think about your customer service but you better believe they are out there talking about it, which is why it's so important that you set up a social mention listening station. Don't stop there, make sure that you take to heart what other are saying and make a change, integrate the negatives, turn them into positives and make them part of your day to day processes to ensure that it doesn't happen again (The Most Powerful part of Social Media that You're NOT Using).

Making Connections - Staying Connected

Connect with your customers online, go to where they are and get to know them. By building relationships that go beyond the transaction you are better able to influence people to talk about you and your dealership. Relationships, by their very nature, are influential and working to become part of your customers social graph will go a long ways to creating word-of-mouth, increasing repeat business and boosting the number of referrals you receive.

Give, Give, Give - Working Philanthropy Into The Budget

Every business should be doing this. As part of your monthly budget you should include charitable donations, keep in mind that not all charity means that you have to donate money. What do you think would happen to word-of-mouth if once a month employees got together and mowed grass for the elderly, picked up trash on the highway or covered over some graffiti? That's right, it would go through the roof!

Plan For Word-Of-Mouth

Include it as part of your strategy, plan for it, otherwise word-of-mouth will continue to allude you and you will never find your way into your customers social graph. Take a look at your processes and integrate the information in this post into them. Make sure that it's the goal of EVERY employee to enchant your customers by creating exceptional customer service, developing their personality, correcting mistakes, connecting with their customers online and being philanthropic. Word-of-mouth isn't as elusive as you think, as long as you know how to coax it out... are you ready to start coaxing?

David Johnson
Social Media Strategist
PersuasiveConcepts.com

That all elusive holy grail of marketing, word-of-mouth, is right up there with Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster in that we hear reports that their real, but most of us have our doubts. The biggest reason why this is, is because most businesses fail to plan for it. Like anything else, if it's worth doing its worth planning for, below I will show you 5 powerful ways to get your customers to talk about you, in their online social graph.

Up, Up And Away - Going Way Beyond

One of the best ways to get people talking is to give them more than they expect. I know that can come across as 101 but it's the basis of word-of-mouth, let's face it if you don't give your customers something to talk about, they won't.

Each one of us, when we make a purchase, expect a certain level of customer service but it's the difference between what's expected and the actual level of customer service received that will influence your customers to want to talk about you. Of course that can be a double edged sword in that if you fail to meet those expectations the word-of-mouth received will be negative. But, if you take a look at all of your customer touch points and ensure that each one over delivers you will go a long way to producing positive word of mouth. Never let a moment to over deliver pass you by if you want to enchant your customers into talking about you.

Sam Walton said it best when he said, "The goal of a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary."

Achieve legendary status in the customer service department and you'll be a legend in the ROI department.

Don't Go Faceless - Show Your Personality

What is the personality of you dealership or other business? That is, who are the people that make it up? What are their stories and what makes them unique? Answer those questions and make sure to put it out there for people to see. Have employees create videos about why they work there, let them tell their story and the story of the dealership. It's okay to get personal because that's what you want, you want their personality to shine.

The idea is to create a voice that people can relate to, that people want to be part of. Think of personality as a magnet, what kind of people do you want to attract?

Correcting Mistakes - Listening To What They Are Saying

It's okay to make mistakes, we all do and nobody is under the illusions that you are going to be perfect, it's just not in our DNA, things will always crop up! Just remember that it's in how you fix those mistakes that will differentiate you from the competition and get people talking.

The first rule of thumb is to not let the negative stuff people may say about you get you down, look at it as a way to improve, as a way to stand out and better meet your customers needs. Remember, people won't always come to you and let you know what they think about your customer service but you better believe they are out there talking about it, which is why it's so important that you set up a social mention listening station. Don't stop there, make sure that you take to heart what other are saying and make a change, integrate the negatives, turn them into positives and make them part of your day to day processes to ensure that it doesn't happen again (The Most Powerful part of Social Media that You're NOT Using).

Making Connections - Staying Connected

Connect with your customers online, go to where they are and get to know them. By building relationships that go beyond the transaction you are better able to influence people to talk about you and your dealership. Relationships, by their very nature, are influential and working to become part of your customers social graph will go a long ways to creating word-of-mouth, increasing repeat business and boosting the number of referrals you receive.

Give, Give, Give - Working Philanthropy Into The Budget

Every business should be doing this. As part of your monthly budget you should include charitable donations, keep in mind that not all charity means that you have to donate money. What do you think would happen to word-of-mouth if once a month employees got together and mowed grass for the elderly, picked up trash on the highway or covered over some graffiti? That's right, it would go through the roof!

Plan For Word-Of-Mouth

Include it as part of your strategy, plan for it, otherwise word-of-mouth will continue to allude you and you will never find your way into your customers social graph. Take a look at your processes and integrate the information in this post into them. Make sure that it's the goal of EVERY employee to enchant your customers by creating exceptional customer service, developing their personality, correcting mistakes, connecting with their customers online and being philanthropic. Word-of-mouth isn't as elusive as you think, as long as you know how to coax it out... are you ready to start coaxing?

David Johnson
Social Media Strategist
PersuasiveConcepts.com

Before I get into what this blog is about I think it might be better to tell you what this blog isn't. First, I won't be discussing why you should be blogging, I'll take the fact that you are reading this as a sign that you already know you should. Second, it won't be a technical how -to-manual of setting up and maintaining blogging software. In this post I will take it for granted that you have already decided to blog, and that you already have blogging software, whether it's hosted or self-hosted. Now that we have gotten that covered let's get right into the meat of this post.

It's important to note that when I refer to establishing a corporate blog, I am referring to blog that is written by multiple people within the business, not just one person whose job it is. Always remember, a business that blogs together, thrives together (more tongue-in-cheek but you get the point!).

Step One - Establishing A Goal

What is going to be the goal of your blog? I know that your end goal is going to be to generate leads but how will you accomplish that? Are you going to use it as a pass through to another site, such as a dealerships retail site or are you going to use it to generate leads right on the blog? Here are a few questions to ask yourself when establishing the goals of your blog:

• Are you trying to create brand awareness?
• Are you trying to build an email list?
• Are you trying to increase the conversion rate of your website (thing about a dealerships retail site) by creating trust and influence through the creation of valuable content?
• Do you want to connect with other leaders in your market, in hopes that they will refer others to you?
• Do you want to spread the corporate culture so that your readers can get to know you know you on a more personal level?

Here are a few more goals to keep in mind, while you're establishing them:

• How many posts per month do you want published? Once a day is best, but that's not always feasible, at a bare minimum if you can publish 2 or 3 a week you are doing good.
• Which departments will be included? I'd prefer all, but you know your business better than I.
• Who will be in charge of editing and publishing the posts? It's good to have one person that collects, formats and edits all posts.
• How will leads be handled? Who will leads go to, will it go to the blog author or to a single person (or persons)?
• Who's job is it to respond to comments? Yes, you must reply to EVERYBODY that comments on a post, even if it's a thank you. Will it be the blog author or somebody else?

You could even drill down your goals further and set traffic goals, click-throughs to your website or even conversion rate (readers vs. the number of people that perform an action such as submit a lead or sign up for your newsletter). Always remember that when you set goals to make them specific, realistic and timely.

Step 2 - Develop A Set of Keywords

Traffic is important. Wow, that was an understatement, but is the reason for step number 2. In order to get the kind of traffic that will equal sales (buying cars, service, or parts if you're a dealership) you must write for the audience that you are seeking. In order to do that look no further than the questions that your customers ask of you and take a close look at what interests them. Once you do that take a look at Google's Keyword Tool, it will tell you how many people are searching for a specific keyword, it will even let you know what the competition level is on specific words.

Step 3 - Map Out Specific Topics and Create An Editorial Calendar

Now that you have established a set of keywords, both long and short it's time to create topics out of them. For instance if you found that "auto repair in Denver" had over 4,000 searches per month (it does I looked) then you might consider writing a blog post titled something like, "5 Things You Need To Consider BEFORE Searching for Auto Repair in Denver."

Make your list of post topics as long as possible before you start writing, always adding to it so that you never run out of things to write about, thinking about things to write about, here are a few places you can go to find topics:

• Your Customers, just ask them what interests them.
• Twitter Search.
• Yahoo Answers.
• Industry Magazines.
• Your own life experiences, don't be ALL professional write about what is going on in the lives of employees.
• What other places can you think of?

After you have your list of topics it's time to put a date to them and schedule when each topic will be posted, this will serve as your editorial calendar.

Step 4 - Pick Blog Authors

Now that you have an editorial calendar along with a list of topics it's time to choose who is the best to write them. Using the example post title above, and if you're a dealership or an auto repair shop, who would be best suited to write it? A service adviser maybe? How about the service manager or even a service tech? On your editorial calendar put the name of the person writing the post next to each topic.

Step 5 - Set Writing Guidelines and Stick To Your Editorial Calendar

At the onset its import to put certain writing guidelines in place such as length. While it's hard to say how long a post should be, because if you ask me I will say as long as it needs to be to get the point across I will say that you should probably keep your posts to a 300 word minimum. As always, spelling and grammar is important and as I mentioned above its good to have one person in charge, don't worry grammar doesn't have to be college English level good but it should be well written. Along with length also talk font type and size, it's important that the formatting remain consistent. A few other things to think about.

• Whenever possible use bullets, they are easy to read and is less intimidating than long paragraphs.
• Use short paragraphs.
• It's okay to use links to outside content, make sure that the content linked to isn't scandalous in anyway.
• Use powerful headlines that will make people want to read the rest.
• While you do want to use your keywords, don't go overboard with them.
• Use images to spruce up the look of the post.
• Use sub headlines whenever possible.
• Let everybody know that plagiarizing is NOT acceptable in any way, shape or form.
• No profanity of any kind.
• What other criteria can you think of, use the comment section below.

Following this simple 5 step process you can have a corporate blog up and running in no time that will create word-of-mouth, increase repeat customers and generate you more traffic than you ever thought possible. Your blog is the center to your social media strategy and is a very important part of any online marketing strategy.

Before I get into what this blog is about I think it might be better to tell you what this blog isn't. First, I won't be discussing why you should be blogging, I'll take the fact that you are reading this as a sign that you already know you should. Second, it won't be a technical how -to-manual of setting up and maintaining blogging software. In this post I will take it for granted that you have already decided to blog, and that you already have blogging software, whether it's hosted or self-hosted. Now that we have gotten that covered let's get right into the meat of this post.

It's important to note that when I refer to establishing a corporate blog, I am referring to blog that is written by multiple people within the business, not just one person whose job it is. Always remember, a business that blogs together, thrives together (more tongue-in-cheek but you get the point!).

Step One - Establishing A Goal

What is going to be the goal of your blog? I know that your end goal is going to be to generate leads but how will you accomplish that? Are you going to use it as a pass through to another site, such as a dealerships retail site or are you going to use it to generate leads right on the blog? Here are a few questions to ask yourself when establishing the goals of your blog:

• Are you trying to create brand awareness?
• Are you trying to build an email list?
• Are you trying to increase the conversion rate of your website (thing about a dealerships retail site) by creating trust and influence through the creation of valuable content?
• Do you want to connect with other leaders in your market, in hopes that they will refer others to you?
• Do you want to spread the corporate culture so that your readers can get to know you know you on a more personal level?

Here are a few more goals to keep in mind, while you're establishing them:

• How many posts per month do you want published? Once a day is best, but that's not always feasible, at a bare minimum if you can publish 2 or 3 a week you are doing good.
• Which departments will be included? I'd prefer all, but you know your business better than I.
• Who will be in charge of editing and publishing the posts? It's good to have one person that collects, formats and edits all posts.
• How will leads be handled? Who will leads go to, will it go to the blog author or to a single person (or persons)?
• Who's job is it to respond to comments? Yes, you must reply to EVERYBODY that comments on a post, even if it's a thank you. Will it be the blog author or somebody else?

You could even drill down your goals further and set traffic goals, click-throughs to your website or even conversion rate (readers vs. the number of people that perform an action such as submit a lead or sign up for your newsletter). Always remember that when you set goals to make them specific, realistic and timely.

Step 2 - Develop A Set of Keywords

Traffic is important. Wow, that was an understatement, but is the reason for step number 2. In order to get the kind of traffic that will equal sales (buying cars, service, or parts if you're a dealership) you must write for the audience that you are seeking. In order to do that look no further than the questions that your customers ask of you and take a close look at what interests them. Once you do that take a look at Google's Keyword Tool, it will tell you how many people are searching for a specific keyword, it will even let you know what the competition level is on specific words.

Step 3 - Map Out Specific Topics and Create An Editorial Calendar

Now that you have established a set of keywords, both long and short it's time to create topics out of them. For instance if you found that "auto repair in Denver" had over 4,000 searches per month (it does I looked) then you might consider writing a blog post titled something like, "5 Things You Need To Consider BEFORE Searching for Auto Repair in Denver."

Make your list of post topics as long as possible before you start writing, always adding to it so that you never run out of things to write about, thinking about things to write about, here are a few places you can go to find topics:

• Your Customers, just ask them what interests them.
• Twitter Search.
• Yahoo Answers.
• Industry Magazines.
• Your own life experiences, don't be ALL professional write about what is going on in the lives of employees.
• What other places can you think of?

After you have your list of topics it's time to put a date to them and schedule when each topic will be posted, this will serve as your editorial calendar.

Step 4 - Pick Blog Authors

Now that you have an editorial calendar along with a list of topics it's time to choose who is the best to write them. Using the example post title above, and if you're a dealership or an auto repair shop, who would be best suited to write it? A service adviser maybe? How about the service manager or even a service tech? On your editorial calendar put the name of the person writing the post next to each topic.

Step 5 - Set Writing Guidelines and Stick To Your Editorial Calendar

At the onset its import to put certain writing guidelines in place such as length. While it's hard to say how long a post should be, because if you ask me I will say as long as it needs to be to get the point across I will say that you should probably keep your posts to a 300 word minimum. As always, spelling and grammar is important and as I mentioned above its good to have one person in charge, don't worry grammar doesn't have to be college English level good but it should be well written. Along with length also talk font type and size, it's important that the formatting remain consistent. A few other things to think about.

• Whenever possible use bullets, they are easy to read and is less intimidating than long paragraphs.
• Use short paragraphs.
• It's okay to use links to outside content, make sure that the content linked to isn't scandalous in anyway.
• Use powerful headlines that will make people want to read the rest.
• While you do want to use your keywords, don't go overboard with them.
• Use images to spruce up the look of the post.
• Use sub headlines whenever possible.
• Let everybody know that plagiarizing is NOT acceptable in any way, shape or form.
• No profanity of any kind.
• What other criteria can you think of, use the comment section below.

Following this simple 5 step process you can have a corporate blog up and running in no time that will create word-of-mouth, increase repeat customers and generate you more traffic than you ever thought possible. Your blog is the center to your social media strategy and is a very important part of any online marketing strategy.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

The rose, the symbol of love, beauty and romance can teach us a thing or five about social media. I bet you never looked at a rose and thought, wow rose that's deep. But in this post I am going to share with you five insights that the rose has taught me about social media, what can you add?

Influence Word-of-Mouth, BE The Reason Why

In order to flourish, reproduce and keep its genetic code alive the rose must rely on others, such as the bumblebee, to help with fertilization. In fact the rose, like most other flowers, have only one purpose -- to reproduce the plant. In other words, the only reason the rose exists in the first place is to attract attention, which is does through the production of pollen, its sweet smell and beautiful color.

What does that teach you about social media? As an example think of your company blog, its only in existence to attract people, maybe it doesn't smell all that great but it has other things going for it, like valuable content, specific keywords and calls to action. If done correctly others will link to it and spread what you share around (think bumblebee) so that others will become influenced by it and either keep sharing or make a purchase from you.

Bring Forth Great Discoveries, BE A Thought Leader

Columbus’ crew picked a rose branch out of the ocean on October 11, 1492. This signaled the presence of land. The very next day, Columbus discovered America.

Be a thought leader. Showcase your expertise and professionalism by bringing ideas to the market that others don't. By proving you're the expert and always staying ahead of your competition you go a long way to developing a strong personal brand. And of course a strong personal brand goes a long way to creating inbound leads.

Protect Yourself Online, Manage Your Reputation

Mythology says that roses grew thorns when Cupid accidentally shot an arrow into a rose garden.

People say things, sometimes mean things online, about their business with you, about how they were treated or about the deal they got, are you listening? I'm not saying that you should grow thorns and fight back but you should do something about it, don't just sit around acting like it isn't happening. Do what it takes to monitor what is being said and take the steps necessary to correct it and make sure that processes are put into place to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Keep in mind that what is being said, especially the bad, is a great way to make your customer experiences even better!

Be Likable

In a recent survey it was found that the rose is the favorite flower of 85% of the Americans. Be like the rose, be likable.

Let people get to know you so that they can get to liking you. The main different between traditional marketing and social marketing is that traditional marketing is all about marketing the business while social marketing is all about marketing the people OF the business.

Without showing your personality and letting people know you, then you aren't utilizing social media the way it was meant to be. Don't be all business, get a little personal and let people know the real you.

Stay Relevant

The world's oldest living rose is believed to be 1,000 years old and it grows on the wall of the Cathedral of Hildesheim in Germany. Think about that a moment, over a 1,000 years old... a rose! That means generation after generation of people had to find that rose plant relevant enough to just let it grow, century after century.

The technology behind social media is always changing, in fact its only constant is the fact that it changes! Be sure that you stay up to date with what your customers want, don't let their desires or the technology pass you by. The auto industry is a notoriously late adopter of any new technology, they like to take the wait and see approach and while that isn't always a bad thing take a close look at what's going on and decide if it costs more to do nothing that it does to do something. Be like the rose, always stay relevant no matter what happens around you.

David Johnson
Digital Marketing Strategist
PersuasiveConcepts.com

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

The rose, the symbol of love, beauty and romance can teach us a thing or five about social media. I bet you never looked at a rose and thought, wow rose that's deep. But in this post I am going to share with you five insights that the rose has taught me about social media, what can you add?

Influence Word-of-Mouth, BE The Reason Why

In order to flourish, reproduce and keep its genetic code alive the rose must rely on others, such as the bumblebee, to help with fertilization. In fact the rose, like most other flowers, have only one purpose -- to reproduce the plant. In other words, the only reason the rose exists in the first place is to attract attention, which is does through the production of pollen, its sweet smell and beautiful color.

What does that teach you about social media? As an example think of your company blog, its only in existence to attract people, maybe it doesn't smell all that great but it has other things going for it, like valuable content, specific keywords and calls to action. If done correctly others will link to it and spread what you share around (think bumblebee) so that others will become influenced by it and either keep sharing or make a purchase from you.

Bring Forth Great Discoveries, BE A Thought Leader

Columbus’ crew picked a rose branch out of the ocean on October 11, 1492. This signaled the presence of land. The very next day, Columbus discovered America.

Be a thought leader. Showcase your expertise and professionalism by bringing ideas to the market that others don't. By proving you're the expert and always staying ahead of your competition you go a long way to developing a strong personal brand. And of course a strong personal brand goes a long way to creating inbound leads.

Protect Yourself Online, Manage Your Reputation

Mythology says that roses grew thorns when Cupid accidentally shot an arrow into a rose garden.

People say things, sometimes mean things online, about their business with you, about how they were treated or about the deal they got, are you listening? I'm not saying that you should grow thorns and fight back but you should do something about it, don't just sit around acting like it isn't happening. Do what it takes to monitor what is being said and take the steps necessary to correct it and make sure that processes are put into place to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Keep in mind that what is being said, especially the bad, is a great way to make your customer experiences even better!

Be Likable

In a recent survey it was found that the rose is the favorite flower of 85% of the Americans. Be like the rose, be likable.

Let people get to know you so that they can get to liking you. The main different between traditional marketing and social marketing is that traditional marketing is all about marketing the business while social marketing is all about marketing the people OF the business.

Without showing your personality and letting people know you, then you aren't utilizing social media the way it was meant to be. Don't be all business, get a little personal and let people know the real you.

Stay Relevant

The world's oldest living rose is believed to be 1,000 years old and it grows on the wall of the Cathedral of Hildesheim in Germany. Think about that a moment, over a 1,000 years old... a rose! That means generation after generation of people had to find that rose plant relevant enough to just let it grow, century after century.

The technology behind social media is always changing, in fact its only constant is the fact that it changes! Be sure that you stay up to date with what your customers want, don't let their desires or the technology pass you by. The auto industry is a notoriously late adopter of any new technology, they like to take the wait and see approach and while that isn't always a bad thing take a close look at what's going on and decide if it costs more to do nothing that it does to do something. Be like the rose, always stay relevant no matter what happens around you.

David Johnson
Digital Marketing Strategist
PersuasiveConcepts.com