Join the Party: How to Develop Your Blog Tribe As a "Valuable Marketing Tool"

Found ‘Em. Now What?

Congratulations! You found your tribe. Now what do you do with ‘em? How do you change then from just a bunch of people on the web to a valuable marketing tool?

First: stop thinking of them as a “valuable marketing tool.”

I Hate the Word “Networking”

Let’s be clear (I’m a big fan of “clear”): people don’t like to be used. Almost as much as they hate networking. Seriously. Show me someone who loves “networking” and I’ll show you someone who basically loves handing out cards and makes a game out of how many she can collect in one cocktail hour. NOBODY LIKES NETWORKING.

Also: Nobody likes to be networked.

But you know what everybody loves? Friends. Everybody wants more friends. Especially good friends. The ones who don’t call you at four in the morning with a request for bail money or a spare pregnancy test. Those aren’t good friends (unless they’re also really good friends but those are precious commodities and the subject of some other blog).

Everything You Need to Know About “Networking” You Learned in Kindergarten. No. Seriously.

Remember kindergarten? Remember “the rules”?

1. Share your toys.
2. Be nice.
3. To get a good friend, be a good friend.
4. Listen with your eyes, ears, and heart.
5. Do your best work.
6. Raise your hand if you have to go to the bathroom. (OK, that one? Not so much to do with the marketing.)

So.

Share your toys. Don’t hang on to your knowledge. Think about what your new playmate wants most. Does the journalist want a good juicy story? Does the lobbyist want an introduction? Does the citizen’s group leader need an entertaining speaker for the next group monthly meeting? Give it to ‘em. With a smile on your face and (this is absolutely key so read carefully) with absolutely zero expectation of reward or benefit.

Be nice. This ought to go without saying but, let’s be real. We’re all susceptible to a certain diminution of attention over the years, especially when we’re concerned about making payroll. So be aware of your manners. Say “please” and “thank you” and don’t hog the spotlight. Open doors, make eye contact, smile, and be kind.

To get a good friend, be a good friend. Make your introduction about the other person, not about yourself. Ask yourself: If the positions were reversed, what would make me want to get to know this person better? Do that thing. Act that way.

Listen with your eyes, ears, and heart. You know how people are sometimes when you’re talking to them, when they’re all shifting eye focus and fidgety and you just know they’re not really listening to you but thinking about the next thing they want to say when you finally shut up? Yeah. Don’t do that. Ever.

Do your best work. Again, should go without saying but it’s all too easy to allow yourself to be distracted from the purpose of your business – to render kick-ass services to your clients — when you’re trying to build your business. Don’t let it happen. The marketing serves your work. NOT the other way around.

Three Specific Strategies For Connecting With Other Bloggers

Finally, when you’re making friends through the context of other people’s blogs, there are a few specific rules you need to know.

First, though, a word about rules, and the breaking thereof: I’m all for creative flouting of rules, any rules, as long as doing so serves your purpose and doesn’t hurt anyone, including yourself. But rules are rules for a reason. Know the reason, and think critically and hard before you break a rule about whether that reason might not be an important one. Think carefully about whether the potential reward will be worth the potential risk — a reputation as a “newbie” or worse, rude or selfish; an internet flame war; a lost contact. Yes, the reasoning might seem silly to you, but what you need to ask yourself is “Will it be that silly to everyone else involved?” If the answer is no … well, be sure. That’s all I’m saying.

Use comments the right way. One of the best ways to break the ice and get the party started is through commenting on other people’s blogs. That’s what they’re there for, after all — to get conversations going. But there are some rules here that you flout at your own peril.

• Offer something of value to the conversation. It must be a substantive addition to the conversation — ideally, something beyond a “great post” or “good point.” Do a little research. Find the other viewpoint. Think about your opinion. Find another resource that might be useful to the blogger you’re trying to connect with.
• DO NOT, under any circumstances, make your comment all about your own blog, services, or self. Just don’t. ‘Nuff said.
• Read the blog’s comment policy, if it has one, carefully. Obey it strictly.
• Think twice before picking a fight. Now, some so-called blog experts will advise you this is a great way to generate traffic to both blogs. And they’re right. But there’s also a huge price to be paid for this kind of approach. Are you willing to pay it? Beyond the impact on your reputation (which can be substantial and negative, at least for those reading who agree with the other guy), there’s a growing sophistication among blog readers. They can spot this kind of gimmick a mile off, and it puts them off. Personally, I’d rather be known for my opinions and the way I express them than for my ingenious mad trickery skillz. Maybe that’s just me.
• But don’t be afraid of saying what you really think, or offering a different viewpoint. Blogs are there for the free exchange of ideas (among many other things), so exchange away.
• Use good grammar and correct spelling. On this point I will not be budged. Particularly for lawyers, your command of the English language is your stock in trade. Demonstrate a facility with words and you’ll maybe impress someone, maybe not. But show the world you don’t care about things like punctuation and vocabulary and typos and you’ll definitely turn several off. They may not think about it in explicit terms — “oh, I was going to hire that lawyer but he doesn’t spell ‘their’ correctly” — but they will form a negative opinion of your work product.
• It’s perfectly all right to offer up your blog URL in the comment input box. And you definitely should provide it if there’s a space to do so. But don’t link to your own blog in your comment itself.

Use social media. This ought to be its own post, and will be, but for now, just be aware that your blog is just one small part of your marketing and one small part of your relationship-building strategy. Use tools like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, FriendFeed. Use them wisely, appropriately, and regularly.

Reach out regularly. One of the best ways to go about a relationship-building program is to set a goal of x number of contacts each week. Some folks send out five handwritten notes every week. Others aim for five a day. Whatever your schedule permits, make it a schedule you commit to and can keep up with. Whether you do it with handwritten notes, hard copies of articles you find on the web the other person might be interested in, a short email, a comment on that person’s blog, or all of the above, make this a concerted effort. Also: keep track of your efforts. Keep a small log somewhere in a text file or a desk diary to show who you contacted, how you contacted them, and when. This process is vital for future planning. After all, you need to review your efforts and their results before you can decide whether they’re working for you.

Making new friends in any context is hard work. It’s not going to happen overnight, and it won’t necessarily be easy. But it turbo-charges your results, and has the added benefit of giving you a whole slew of new people you can call at 4 AM for bail money. Or whatever.

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