The Wax Blog

Bart the Dumpster Dog

I realized right away that @bartthedog was gaining followers at a much faster rate than @waxgirl333 , my twitter handle. Not to mention the fact that he has more than ten times the number of Facebook fans for his Bart the Dumpster Dog fan page. Neither of us are megastars in the social media stratosphere (yet!) but I thought taking a look at how @bartthedog pays attention to his social media might give you an idea of how he’s added more than 3000 followers in such a short time – with very little effort.

1. Bart has a GREAT back story. Not everyone can say they were rescued starving and frozen from a dumpster on an Indian reservation.

2. Bart has a unique and consistent voice. This is probably because I have anthropomorphized Bart and his brother for the past three years to such an extent that I’m fairly fluent in Dog.  His followers call him “cutey” and “sweetie” and “lovey” so I guess it doesn’t matter that he’s over 90 pounds – his voice is crystal clear to them.

3. The dog lover niche, particularly for rescued dogs, is really strong, if not zealous. I told a car dealer once that if he supported his local humane society in a big way he’d have more customers than he could handle and I was right. One woman drove from South Dakota to Minnesota to buy a car from the guy – for helping rescued animals.

4. Bart’s not selling anything. He’s just a friendly guy that sends out tweets about interesting dogs for adoption on petfinder, cool doggy news and stuff he’s been doing lately.  He’s also very good at RT’ing information for animal rescue groups, so there’s a certain altruistic side to the boy.

5. Finally, Bart is always positive and never controversial. He doesn’t take sides and has no politics.

I started Bart’s accounts as a way to test some of the programs and apps for Twitter and Facebook, not to grow his profile.  Before long he’ll be writing a book and signing pawtographs.

Wax Marketing mug to the first 5 who ID this photo

I got so many questions about my last post “7 Steps to Bigger Marketing Muscle in 2010″ I thought I’d give you some detail on each one of the steps.  Measurement seems to be really tricky for people – but it’s actually pretty simple. Once you have some basic measurements in place and you feel a need to go deeper, visit KD Paine’s measurement blog – she’s the real guru. I’d love to hear specific examples of how people are measuring their own results, so comment away! Here’s my quick and dirty take – (more…)

I talk a lot about the need for the right “mix” when you promote your product, business, book, whatever it is – engaging in social media is no different. To get a good result you have to find the recipe that’s 100% ALL YOURS. But just like the hard-to-bake souffle, there are some ingredients I’ve seen in of the work of ALL successful social media contributors.   Here are the components I believe you should always use for your  social media recipe…and some of experts who cook it up just right. Feel free to add your favorite folks – let’s get a good list going! (more…)

I didn’t have time to write a blog post last week mainly because I was busy helping clients set up their blogs. Like Mickey Rourke, the corporate blog seems to be making a comeback this year. But not for the reasons we used to use- so our CEO sounded smart, or to  place brilliant thoughts on our industry and life in general into the infinite archives of the Web. These days consider this – if your website is “home” on the Internet then your blog is the front porch.

REASONS WE LOVE BLOGS 1) They improve search optimization. There is no more frequent place that search engines visit than blogs (I think). My own blog shows up in search within 24 hours. There are no changes to a website that will cause that.  I hear from folks like Kim Jones  many companies are building their entire websites within Wordpress and other CMS tools just for that reason.

2)The blog builds credibility on line. If you want to seem knowledgeable about a topic, write about it. If you want your company to seem knowledgeable, write in your blog about it. 

3)People find you. I’ve had calls from reporters that saw a particular blog post and needed an “expert” comment. I don’t know if B2B companies or other services firms are going to sell business based on a blog but I know it helps reinforce that these guys know what they’re doing.

Here are a few key things to remember. I’m sure you’ve seen these before but these are the tips I give my clients about blogging and the ones I think are most important:

• Put your blog WITHIN your site so the address is blog.waxmarketing.com for example. Don’t use forward slash blog.
• Update 2-3 times a week with short (200 word) posts. Add a longer one once in a while.
• Use photos and videos as often as you can.
• Don’t insist on reviewing and approving content – you’ll never get anything posted. Give up control and review the guidelines instead.
• Hire more than one blogger to help you write – perhaps a “problogger” as well as an industry expert. That way if a blogger flakes out (and they will) you won’t be stranded.
• Interview people from your firm and post the Q&A online.
• Invite influencers to write guest posts on a frequent basis.
• Make sure you’re blogging about news events in your industry.
• Use a blogroll, tags, and trackbacks liberally
• Use popular blogging software or a CMS. DO NOT use your programmers little tool he/she coded up at home.

Once set up, a blog should be something that an admin can manage. And it’s probably one of the most powerful tools you can use to build credibility and search results FAST.

Many thanks to Yann Roper at Extanz for all he’s taught me about the power of blogs and social media. If you are looking for the experts, go not further than Extanz.