Participating in social media activities is like participating in any other social activity. It can be as valuable as a lunch with the boss or as vapid as a breeze shooting session at the water cooler. Or vice versa.

What follows are some highlights and lowlights from a typical day of “connecting” in my life. I find the most value appears when I’m connecting with people who help me get my job done, of course. On the other hand, some exchanges are just plain fun even though they won’t help my business right away.

For starters, I posted a question to several of my LinkedIn contacts that I know have experience in the marketing and Web development field. I was looking for a WordPress developer that could help quickly launch Word Press Web sites. I’d need the person to “turn the lights on” every time I launch a new site or have a client that wants to transition to the flexible, powerful WP platform. I quickly found a great resource (in New Zealand of all places) that’s already helping out with a rather extensive client project. In the words of Jack Davenport on Britain’s Coupling, “result!”

Next, I read a bunch of links from thought leaders and link-sharers that I admire and trust. I use Seesmic Desktop and Twitter to do this. I follow quite a few people on Twitter, but Seesmic allows me to put them into groups (I think you can do this with TweetDeck, too). I have a group called “A-List,” and this is the place where I filter out those that consistently bring useful and entertaining links, ideas and articles. This can be a major time sucker, because if you follow a lot of the thought leaders on Twitter, there are a lot of tantalizing titles flying around. I try to limit my window for this activity to an hour or less. I like to take one action idea from each piece I read and get it into my calendar or task list. That way, I’m not just admiring articles. I’m actually using information to move my business forward. I came across an article yesterday that was really intriguing, How I got to the first page of Google thanks to ONE bookmarklet (by Zee on TheNextWeb). It shows you how to use Posterous and optimize WordPress for an ultimate SEO pick-me-up. I’ll be tinkering with those tools/tips today.

Then I moved into the realm of the unproductive. I put up some pictures of our kids’ soccer games [taking very little time, mind you: 1) Eye-Fi wireless SD card takes the pictures from the camera and automatically uploads them to my computer and Kodak Gallery, 2) A quick email puts the best ones on Posterous, which 3) automatically updates to Facebook]. Everyone’s updated in a matter of minutes, and I’ve only clicked a couple of times. The videos from the camera go to YouTube automatically, as well. It’s amazing.

Next, I commented on a bunch of inane but funny Facebook friend stuff. There were some good/ugly Kanye West/Michael Jackson funeral jokes and more of those silly Hitler videos from Valkyrie, where they put in subtitles about current events. I also caught up on friend photos, videos and whereabouts. I may score a ticket to the Cal-USC football game, as a result. That would be productive!

How do you use social media for fun and profit? Any stories or tips that are useful and insightful?

Are your marketing documents ready for an overhaul?

Do you have in-house writing staff but need a fresh, outside perspective?

Is your existing copy connecting fully with prospects, partners, employees and customers?

Here’s an offer that won’t cost you anything but a simple referral once you’ve completed the process.

This month (May ‘09), QualityWriter is giving away a few free copy tune-up and critique packages to select prospects and past clients (this is something we usually charge $300 to $400 for). This is first come first served – we can only do so many between regular deadlines.

Here’s how it works:

First, call us or email to get the ball rolling (949) 515-3510 dunn@qualitywriter.com.

Next, send us Web content, a landing page, a direct mail or email piece, a case study, a data sheet, a short brochure, or two pages of a white paper (anything up to 500 words), and we’ll give it a complete content analysis and evaluation (review notes and improvement plan included).

Make small progress today with your marketing documents, and ensure big progress in the future:

• Connect with prospect/customer motivations.
• Restructure your copy to get a natural conversation going
• Immediately get customers thinking about the key issues and questions that matter to them most
• Present solutions in a clear, compelling manner
• Strengthen your calls to action and show readers what you’d like them to do next
• Bolster your credibility and authority with 3^rd party analyst or customer quotes, testimonials and insights

You can also get a taste for how I work and think.. and perhaps we can work on a writing project some day.

Get started right now – call (949) 515-3510 or email dunn@qualitywriter.com. There’s nothing to lose here. If the improved copy helps you sell more and improve your brand/image, you actually come out ahead.

Technology executives, marketing managers, creative directors, sales people, CMOs, VPs and CEOs all have one thing in common. You have to sell despite the current economic climate.

You can’t just turn off the bull-horn and expect to save money by being quiet, though. That’s a recipe for disaster.

I’ve detailed this elsewhere, demonstrating how the smart companies actually gain market share during recessions or depressions. So I won’t belabor that point any further.

So, how do you connect with customers when they’re so resistant to new spending initiatives? How do you generate better leads when customer budgets are shrinking?

Here a quick, high-level run-down of the pertinent answers.

First, you should show them:

• How your solution saves them money.
• How your solution helps them make money.
• New ways to make money.
• How your solution helps simplify their business.
• How your solution helps them reduce head count (painful as that subject may be).
• How to eliminate wasteful activity.
• Real life customers you’ve helped do all of the above (as case studies)

I can help you do this by writing your white papers and customer case studies, which are crucial lead generation pieces.

The next question you should be asking is: How do I find people that are interested in these topics (with respect to my solutions/products/services)?

I have several different approaches to this last question. Some are social media related, some involve emailing people, some use good old-fashioned direct mail, some utilize Google Adwords and Facebook ads.

If you’d like to explore these topics in more detail and create a marketing campaign that gets immediate results, please give me a call at 949-515-3510 or email me at dunn@qualitywriter.com.

P.S. I have a really efficient system for carrying out these types of direct marketing plans. Please give me a call or email and I’ll tell you how I automate direct response campaigns with my assistant.

P.P.S If you end up hiring me to write some content for you, there’s zero risk. When the copy drives sales it’s essentially free. (All it takes is one extra sale to absorb your writing costs. You can’t lose.) Plus, I personally guarantee my work. You get a full refund by just calling up and telling me where I missed the mark and what I could have done better. I need you to tell me at least five things we could have done better. There’s one little catch: If you decide to keep the copy and continue using my services, I’d like you to give us a referral to one of your colleagues who you think can benefit from our services. Easy.

Yes, times are tight. However, as marketing managers, creative directors and sales people, you still have to sell. I’ve detailed this in other posts and showed you how the smart companies actually gain market share during recessions or depressions. So I won’t belabor that point any further.

Here are the important issues:

How do you connect with customers when they’re so resistant to new spending initiatives? How do you generate better leads when customer budgets are shrinking?

Here a quick, high-level run-down of the pertinent answers:

• Show them how your solution saves them money.
• Show them how your solution helps them make money.
• Show them new ways to make money.
• Show them how your solution helps simplify their business.
• Show them how your solution helps them reduce head count (painful as that subject may be).
• Show them how to eliminate wasteful activity.
• Show them real life customers you’ve helped do all of the above (as case studies)

The next question you should be asking is: How do I find people that are interested in these topics (with respect to my solutions/products/services)?

I have about 10 different approaches to this last question. Some are social media related, some involve emailing people, some use good old-fashioned direct mail, some utilize Google Adwords and Facebook ads.

If you’d like to explore these topics in more detail and create a marketing campaign that gets immediate results, please give me a call at 949-515-3510 or email me at dunn@qualitywriter.com.

P.S. I can help you start figuring out what your prospects are looking for in just a few simple steps. And, conveniently, I’m a marketing writer that can help you develop content that drives sales.

P.P.S. I have a really efficient system for carrying out these types of direct marketing plans. Please give me a call or email and I’ll tell you how I automate direct response campaigns with my assistant. You, too, can do big things with very few people.

Just read a great article that addresses lead generation and white papers. Roger Warner makes a great case for ditching the carrot method of trading email addresses or login info for white papers.

I’ve clipped some of the insightful tid-bits below. Thanks Roger!

Insight #1: “For B2B web sites, the content that really matters in terms of positioning and prospecting isn’t your ‘markitecture’ pages – your product and services descriptions, corporate histories and such…. it’s your ‘thought leadership’ pages – the places where you express opinions and ideas rather than features and benefits.”

Insight #2: “Furthermore, what of the people that you lose along the way? To me, a commitment to form-filling is no great measurement of the quality of a sales lead. A far better tactic is to set your thought leadership content free and give people more ‘opportunities to engage‘ with who you are and what you stand for.”

Warner continues, “Let’s face it, most of us are commitment-phobes when it comes to the web anyway. Why not just accept this fact and move on?”

Here are Warner’s review questions for evaluating your own white paper exchange process:

“Ask yourself:

• What’s your most valuable and engaging content?
• Do you make you accessible enough?
• What’s the upside of providing more opportunities to engage with it?
• What’s the downside of removing a subscription line?
• How scientific is your answer to the previous question? (Gut feeling, conventional wisdom, or based on small side-show experiment and validated by stats?)”

Whether you’re writing SEO copy for your Web site or writing SEM copy for a Google AdWords landing page or just writing a new brochure (or even an eBay listing), there are always some very simple, timeless things you need to do. Here they are in stripped down, bare bones bullets:

* Write strong headlines

* Describe benefits before features

* Use specific subheads

* Write about the reader (not about yourself or your company)

This is simple marketing copywriting 101, but sometimes we need to remind ourselves what the basic techniques are.

Strong headlines contain delicious offers, benefits and intrigue. Benefits sell the dream before the hardware that produces the dream (and the relationship between the two). Specific subheads are key because many readers scan the page and follow subhead stories before diving into specific sections of your body text. Finally, when you use the word “you” and talk directly to and about the reader, you make better connections and sell more effectively. Nobody wants to hear about the genius behind the product. They want to know how it’s going to help them specifically.