Today I have the great pleasure of telling you that I was able to win Francisco Rosales for some questions. He’s the face behind Socialmouths, an extremely helpful source when it comes to blogging, Social Media and how to use the both to boost your businesses. I hope you enjoy his answers to the questions I asked him, I know I did ;) If you haven’t done it yet, I highly recommend you check out Socialmouths – you will grow to love it.
For the readers who haven’t heard of you and your work, can you tell them a little bit about yourself, where you come from and what you do for a living?
Well, I gotta say, I’m loving my current situation because I have the opportunity to work on strategies for global brands as partner and social media director for Plural And Partners while I also service small business and personal brands under SocialMouths.
My background is mostly in entrepreneurship. I never subscribed to the “do one thing and do it good” rule. Entrepreneurship was a great vehicle for me to enter different aspects of business. I can’t deny that I always lean a little more towards the marketing side of it.
What I know about marketing, on and offline, came from experience rather than books. At one point I found myself producing my own TV spots, buying my own media directly with national networks, taking calls in my own call center, fulfilling my own orders and providing my own customer service. Those days are over, now we’re all about outsourcing and we have social media, but learning from that experience and being successful at it, was priceless.
How did you get started in Social Media? What caused you to try it out and invest the time to make it work for you?
I think it was a natural transition; I have been involved in interactive advertising for the last few years but my recent studies on leadership made me focus more on the human aspect of the web. I love handing most of the control to the user instead of dictating every single step of a campaign with concepts and copy decks. You are forced to keep the creative juices flowing at all times and you are dealing with human beings.
What are some of the websites you visit often to stay in the loop of all things Social Media (besides the most obvious ones such as Mashable, SM Examiner etc.)?
I actually have to admit I’m not a frequent reader of Mashable. Instead of trying to stay up-to-date on every single event or new platform that launches, I subscribe to great individuals pushing the social media envelope such as Danny Brown, David Armano, Brian Solis or Mitch Joel. I’m more interested in learning about new concepts and ideas.
I consider my blog to be in the “how to” category, so I also visit blogs in that segment.
I’m an avid reader of your blog. I love how you always manage to pick topics that are relevant and put your personal spin on things. How do you get inspired and what’s your secret to engaging people?
Thank you Antonia, as a blogger yourself you know that at the end of the day that kind of validation is much more significant than any traffic or conversion rate.
Content creation is probably my biggest struggle in blogging, first because I am in a segment that has been saturated for a while, you get social media information left and right and that makes it really hard to come up with new ideas. And second, not only I’m not a writer but as if that wasn’t enough, English is my second language.
There are a couple of things that have worked for me in particular, when I have ideas for a post I always have the reader in mind and try to answer questions or provide value through very simple language, not because I think people won’t understand but because I believe they appreciate simplicity, which is the same reason for having a design that’s not high in graphics.
I leave room so the reader can express his/her opinion and I usually finish posts with a question. If you already covered every single possibility, then you’re only leaving room for comments like “Great post”. That’s not engaging…
And last, you need to have a personal spin, what some people refer to as “having your own voice”. This is always a big issue for new bloggers and I actually think I’m a good example myself. I’m aware of my grammar issues and I wish I could write like @redheadwriting but I think I have been able to communicate my message and hopefully provide value without trying to be someone else.
What advice would you give to all the aspiring bloggers? In your opinion, what’s the best way to build an audience and in what way can the social web help them?
As I always say, don’t get distracted by shiny objects. Applications, plugins, too many social networks, analytics, counting followers, they’re all secondary. Focus on providing solutions in your industry, write for the readers instead of the search engines and don’t be afraid of self-promotion, great content doesn’t promote itself.
Don’t over-think; if you follow your heart you’ll be ok.
The social web is a great help but we need to understand that we don’t look good just by being present; it is just an amplifier, for good or bad. This is where the game of “outside perception vs. inside reality” ends, the social web will expose your reality sooner than you think.
So, it is smart to take some time to observe your niche and make sure you know what you’re doing out there.
We often hear about people losing track of time in the social web. What would you recommend in order to avoid that from happening?
Write a strategy with clear goals and know exactly what your game plan is on a daily basis. I think is good to allow yourself some time for digital procrastination, just make sure you get your stuff done.
Don’t try to be everywhere if you can’t be present, you will get better results if you focus on being strong in 2 or 3 networks.
Are there any (free) tools that you can recommend to people trying to track their social media presence effectively?
While free is a beautiful concept and I do leverage these kinds of tools, I think there is a point where social media stops being free. Depending on what kind of goals you are trying to achieve, you should also consider paid services. A perfect example is PostRank, a platform that analyzes content engagement – a tool every blogger should have.
Among the free tools that are relevant to monitoring social presence I could mention Klout, SocialMention, Google Alerts, getting some RSS feeds on your reader and of course Google Analytics.
And last but not least, can you recommend any E-books for people trying to build an audience online, get more engaged or generally try to build an online persona?
Wow, there are so many but for people starting to build up online communities, I would say “The Social Media Starter Kit” by Amber Naslund or “Social Media and Network Starting Points” by Chris Brogan.
I could also recommend the book “Trust Agents” by Brogan and Smith.
Try to take it easy walking the blogging/social media learning curve; it’s not rocket science but it can be too much to digest all at once. Read only the necessary, the rest is all listening and learning from experience.
Thank you Francisco for taking the time to do this interview. :)
Don’t forget to check out Francisco’s blog and his Twitter.
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I wish there were more pictures (I admit it... I'm a photo junkie).
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