Strategy Archives | ARI HERZOG

Frozen in Time

Oct. 12, 2018 By Ari Herzog

My LinkedIn network includes over 2,000 people; but most of them only know me through my past. They remember me as a social media consultant, or a government manager, or a teacher, or a classmate. They don’t necessarily know who I am today or where I want to be tomorrow.

Carol Fishman Cohen describes this concept as being “frozen in time.” Simply stated, it’s when people from your past only know your past.

Whether you embraced a new career direction, started a family, or took on new responsibilities, if the people from your past aren’t aware of who you are today, then their perspective of you is dated.

The barrier shows itself when I reach out to John or Sally for a referral or recommendation, and we quickly recognize that neither of knows the other as we want to be known today. We are living in the other’s past. We are frozen in time.

I want people to know where I’m living, what I’m doing with my life, and where I see myself in five years. I’m slowly reaching out to those LinkedIn connections (and others spread across social media) to tell them my story and build upon our past relationship to create something new.

How To Be a Better Guest Blogger

Aug. 16, 2015 By Ari Herzog

Every blog publisher wants to increase eyeballs and visits. We are open to introducing our readers to new voices by way of guest posts; but, after years of blogging and receiving email requests from wannabe bloggers, I’ve learned that a lot of people don’t understand the difference between blogging and article marketing.

Here are 6 real examples of emails that suck:

The 6th reason your email sucks:

You never researched nor read my blog.

I wanted to make sure my topic fits with your theme. I have two guest posts that I would like to have published. One is about how to plan for retirement in your 20s. The second post is about odd things that need to be transported.

The 5th reason your email sucks:

You confuse guest blogging with article marketing.

Hey there,

We have been reading the articles on your website and are very impressed with the quality of your information. We have a team of copywriters who specialize in writing articles on various topics and would like to write an original article for you to use on your website.

The 4th reason your email sucks:

You are the same as the 6th reason. What has a cost here?

I came across your site, Ariherzog.com, and would like to offer you free content.

The 3rd reason your email sucks:

You are the same as the 4th reason.

I read some of your content and really found them interesting and informative. So I was just wondering if I can also do something for your site, maybe writing an article for your site FREE of cost as a guest writer.

The 2nd reason your email sucks:

You don’t even introduce yourself, and your article is off-topic.

I have attached an article for guest posting please review it. Waiting for response.

And, the number one reason your email sucks:

[insert drum roll sounds here]

I was wondering if you accept guest postings?

I used to have a page with guest posting guidelines. I don’t anymore. But I will still publish guest posts. I don’t care if you make a living as a content marketer or a search engine optimizer but try to personalize your email to me. Accept the fact there is a difference between guest blogging and article marketing, as Ann Smarty elaborates in this table:

	Guest posting	Article Marketing
Unique content?	Yes, absolutely	No (“spunn” content is NOT unique. Period)
Extra links? (to your article)	Yes!	Hardly possible
Potential promoters and followers?	Yes!	Hardly possible
Increased exposure to social media?	Yes!	No
Networking power?	Yes!	Hardly possible
Boosting reputation?	Yes! (if you are great)	Maybe (if you are great!)

Michael Dolen is among a slate of guest bloggers for me. He wrote a great 2-part series about the online successes and failures of the credit card industry. His email?

Hi Ari,

It’s interesting that your focus is on emerging media, because I own/operate a very popular forum and blog; CreditCardForum.com. On behalf of my site I do quite a bit of guest posting and take pride in the fact that I don’t write the cookie-cutter and bare minimum “guest posts” that a lot of people churn out these days, ha. Is there any particular topic you would like to see me cover? I reviewed your archives showing the last 100 articles and here are a few ideas that popped into my head from looking at those…

[Mike shared three sample titles and related content.]

Would you like me to write up one of these? Or something else? Just let me know what’s best for you.

By the way, congrats on being elected to Newburyport’s city council! Even though I live some two-thousand miles away on the other coast, just want to say I dig local politicians… I feel they’re the only politicians who actually get stuff done 😉

Thanks,
Mike

Show me you are a person and I’ll be your best friend. But the moment your email seeking guest blogging opportunities turns into a spamfest of SEO qualifications, pluralized pronouns, and irrelevant content, you make it painstakingly clear you never visited my blog, shared a post, or would ever think of talking about your passion to my readers.

Why You Should Ask Why

Mar. 23, 2015 By Ari Herzog

Run a Google search for the exact phrase, “how to write a blog,” and peruse through 416,000 results.

Type “why to write a blog” and see 47,300 results.

If you agree successful online content (the type that one bookmarks and shares with others) involves human interaction, there are reasons for creating blogs, websites, and social networking profiles, argues Jason Morrison:

One of my motivations was sharing some of the research done for classwork – it seemed a shame to write up a report, turn it in to a professor, and then let it gather dust in some corner of my hard drive. My undergrad degree was in journalism and I do miss writing, so that’s another motive. Also, having been through some rough patches in my career during the dot-com downturn, I thought blogging might help me establish a bit of a professional brand. I have my URL on my resume and I would hope that any company looking to hire me would get an idea that I’m knowledgeable and interested in relevant areas.

That’s why he created his blog. Why did you create yours? Or, if you think you want to create something — a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, an online video to go viral — why do you want to create it? What’s the plan? Where’s the strategy?

Doing something is answering the what. Explaining background is answering the how. Providing motivation is answering the why. People are more inspired to take action if there is an emotional connection and that is better portrayed through a why than a what or how. Make sense?

P.S. An exact search is when you type a query inside quotation marks. The above search statistics are from March 2015. The same searches from March 2010 resulted in 2.2 million and 131,000 results, respectively. Either Google deleted spammy results from their algorithm or thousands of items over five years were deleted. I’m more inclined to believe Google changed.

Why (and How) I Forced 912 People to Unfollow Me on Twitter

Mar. 18, 2015 By Ari Herzog

This screenshot, courtesy of TwitterCounter, shows a 3-month tally of my Twitter followers from early 2014. Notable milestones include 4,721 on January 14, 2014; and 4,887 on February 2, 2014.

Do you see the downward slope on the far right? Notable numbers there include 4,832 on February 18; 4,503 on February 20; and 3,975 on February 22.

Fast forward a year and I had 2,117 followers on March 18, 2015.

While some people may have unfollowed me, the primary reason for the slope is because I forced inactive accounts to unfollow me. I will tell you why and I will tell you how.

First, meet my former followers

I’m not sure what Team Eclipse Pro did but they don’t do it anymore. Not on Twitter, anyway. And they follow over 4,000 of you.

The Standard, an internet newspaper, hasn’t tweeted for five years but it’s following over 1,400 people. I was one of those people.

But those are companies, you might say. What about people?

Give the next screenshot a whirl — and then keep scrolling for my explanation.

Why I forced them to unfollow me

“Oh, look, @AriHerzog has so many thousand followers. He must be someone special. I should follow him too!”

You know you say it. Something like that.

I wanted the number of people who followed me to be an accurate representation of real people — who still tweet today; and not outdated accounts that haven’t tweeted a message in years. And yet the above screenshots are from people and companies who followed me. They inflated me. They boosted your opinion of my influence.

I want you to follow me because of me. But moreover, in the age of social influence ranking systems such as Klout and Peer Index, I want to be current. I don’t want to carry around dead weight.

How I did it

Tinkering with Twitter management systems in recent months, my favorite is Tweepi. It’s simple. Most of its functions are free; but to do the above, I paid the developer $7 for the ability to perform advanced functions.

The “force unfollow” function debuted in 2012. It’s not a block (which can prevent you from seeing anything of mine) but it’s truly a forced unfollow. I told the program to sort my followers by their last tweet, with the oldest up top, and I clicked buttons.

I don’t know how it works; and frankly, I don’t care. All I know is 912 accounts that haven’t tweeted in over 6 months are no longer following me.

Oh, and the same is true for who I follow: Accounts that hadn’t tweeted in recent history I’m not following either. But that’s just an unfollow, not a forced unfollow. Two different functions depending if I’m following or being followed.

I always blog about my social media actions as a way of 1) charting my own evolution; and 2) helping you discover something new.

Many don’t care (or don’t know) inactive accounts still follow them. Many don’t take the time to look and sort. But now that you know the likes of The Standard could be following you, do you care?

I hope I planted a seed in you today by discovering something new; namely, that the number of people who follow you on Twitter (or any social networking site for that matter) is meaningless unless they are current. If I’m right, then please share this blog post and help others discover it too.

What You Do is Not That Important

Jun. 2, 2014 By Ari Herzog

“Strive not to be a success but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein

Tara Hunt created a wonderful video that highlights the difference in Youtube video introductions. Some people begin the video in a friendly manner and others begin with their title and employer.

I attend a lot of meetings and gatherings when it is common for the host to ask everyone to introduce themselves. One by one, people say their name and title. Sometimes it’s a title on their business card, other times it’s a title they created on the fly. I used to echo that routine — but lately, I’ve just said my name. “Hi, my name is Ari Herzog.”

There is nothing wrong with introducing yourself by title and employer — but does anyone truly care what you do?

Introduce yourself by saying your name and jump into whatever you want to say. Yes?

Bring Balance to Your Social Media

Feb. 24, 2014 By Ari Herzog

Penelope Trunk once wrote about portraying yourself on social media:

Each of us is multi-faceted. With a selection of media to choose from, we can express different parts of ourselves in different ways.

It’s clear to me that blogging is best for expressing big ideas. If you can’t convey new ideas on your blog, then you probably won’t get a lot of traffic…

But Twitter is not good for fleshed-out ideas. I see people using Twitter for a lot of stuff, but not for fleshed-out ideas. And Flickr is good for expressing passion. Way better than, say, Twitter.

Assuming you have a minimum of two social profiles, e.g. a Facebook account and a Pinterest account, and maybe more than two, do you portray yourself the same everywhere? Do you share the same updates and pictures everywhere? Do you follow the same people everywhere? Do the same people follow you?

Considering the majority of Pinterest users are women and the majority of Slashdot users are men, you do not want to share the same message in both places. Neither will be read because neither is customized to the dominant user base. It’s branding 101. You need to sweep with that broom, dig with that shovel, and cut with that saw. You can try sawing with the shovel but it will take a long time to see a positive return.

If you portray the same slice of your self everywhere, you are boring and redundant.

Branch out. Balance yourself.

I share different stuff on each site. There is occasional echo but it’s not the norm and that’s my point.

I also follow different people on each site. There is occasional overlap but that is also intentional.

I like watching John Haydon‘s spin on nonprofit technology but I focus my attention on his Facebook and Google+ accounts. I don’t need to follow him everywhere. I also enjoy reading Danny Brown‘s marketing advice but I don’t need to follow him everywhere because I am satisfied by his blogging. And so forth and so forth.

You can find me today in several places.

Follow me on Facebook to see my insights.
Follow me on LinkedIn to see my skills.
Follow me on Twitter to see my thoughts.
Follow me on Instagram to see my passion.
Follow me on YouTube to see my creativity.
Follow me on Google+ to see my ideas.
Follow me on Pinterest to see my discoveries.
Follow me on Tumblr to see where I go with that.

Follow my blog to read my insights on digital media.

Any questions?

If inspired, add a comment below…