If you’re struggling to create compelling content for your blog or enewsletter, here are some simple steps you can follow for a never-ending supply of great blog content ideas.

Here are some simple steps for creating compelling content

1. Pay attention to the big news stories
2. Pay attention to the online universe
3. Think “story”
4. Connect the dots

The Big Story Everyone’s Paying Attention to
Our beloved Apple (the company formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc.) has changed. It was once the scrappy underdog with serious creative attitude. But then something happened. They became wildly successful, released a “magical and revolutionary” new product, which they followed up with another great product that “changes everything, again.”

The Online Universe is Paying Attention to and Talking about the Big Story
At the moment, Apple has stumbled. The product that “changes everything, again,” the vaunted iPhone 4.0, apparently doesn’t work right. A Google search of “iPhone recall” at 10:00am on July 16, 2010 returned 7.8 million documents. A tweet from the parody Twitter profile CEOSteveJobs saying, “The only recall you’ll get on your iPhone is from pressing redial” has been retweeted over 400 times within the last nine hours.

Think Story
You’re probably already thinking about the story most of us in the Western world might connect with the Apple story. It’s a story connection that popped into my mind when I saw the cover of FastCompany’s latest cover. They called Apple “invincible.”

Connecting the Dots
Olivier Blanchard, who is quite well-known as @thebrandbuilder, is skilled at  picking up of the major undercurrents flowing through both traditional media and online media. After the BBC contacted him to get his thoughts on Apple’s looming fall from grace (Olivier Blanchard quoted in the BBC), Olivier wrote a thorough blog post analyzing Apple’s past, present, and possible future. He started with that story we readily recognize—David and Goliath.

There’s only one Olivier Blanchard, so don’t be intimidated by the length or thoroughness of his David and Goliath Apple post. Instead, see how he saw the archetypes and masterfully crafted a modern day story from them by combining a current news story and online chatter.

If you’ll pay attention to the current news stories and what the online world is saying about them, you can call up your favorite archetypes and create compelling content for your blog.

Sources for archetypes
The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brand Through the Power of Archetypes by Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson
The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By by Carol Pearson
Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World by Carol Pearson
The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations by Stephen Denning
The Story Factor by Annette Simmons (see her Six Types of Stories for helpful story categories)

If you want to use social media to build relationships with your customers and prospects, you’ll want to have a very good idea of exactly who they are. ExactTarget and CoTweet have done the heavy-lifting to develop 12 online personas to help you understand customer expectations and behavior on social media.

Their report examines both user-generated content and user-content consumption and charts the results. Here is a quick list of the 12 social media profiles.

1. Inner Circle: more interested in keeping and enhancing existing relationships than making new ones. Facebook is the tool of choice. Marketers will have a tough time reaching them.
2. Cautious: very selective about what they share online. If they “Like” a company Facebook Page, it’s only because their friend owns the company. Facebook is their daily tool, but they attempt to keep their social footprint small.
3. Info Seeker: they’re in search of information and consume it when they find it. They don’t create much content. They’ll “Like” a Facebook Page so they can share, not receive.
4. Enthusiasts: their offline interests and hobbies drive them online. They intentionally use Facebook to show their support for favorite brands. Enthusiasts rely on each other, not companies, for information.
5. Deal Seekers: they’re hungry for promotional content everywhere they can get it. Believe it or not, their median income is actually above the national media income.
6. Shoppers: these folks are more interested in talking about shopping than actually buying something online. Instead, they scour the Internet researching upcoming purchases. Quality, not savings, drives their quest for content.
7. News Junkie: you know this one—they spend a lot of time searching for late-breaking news. The contribute a ton of content, too, especially as comments on news sites. Surprisingly, they’re even “more likely to read product reviews than Shoppers, Enthusiasts, and Deal Seekers.”
8. Gamer: the Internet exists to connect these folks with both games and other gamers.
9. Social Butterfly: you also know this one—”making and maintaining a lot of online friendships” is top priority for them. [hey, stop staring at me. I'm not a social butterfly. I could stop at any time, if I wanted to. Really, I could.] They both create and consume massive amounts of content. Folks fitting this persona make up a relatively small portion (13%) of online users.
10. Business First: heavy content creators but focused on using everything for business purposes. Also a small group (8%). Though they’re not likely to follow brands on Twitter, “they are the most active on Twitter.” Facebook is NOT the tool of choice. [see, I told you I'm not a Social Butterfly. I'm a Business First guy, right? Oh, wait, maybe not: this is the "most affluent" persona. Guess I'm back to Social Butterfly.]
11. Megaphone: another one you’re probably quite familiar with. They’re aggressive online, receive more email than anyone else, but see Facebook and Twitter as preferred avenues of interaction with brands. While they’re The Influencers, they are also easily influenced and are “more likely to become a subscriber, fan or follower at the recommendation of others.”
12. Open Book: they lay it all out on the table. Though they don’t follow brands on Twitter, they are very active on Twitter. If you want to reach them, you’ll have to be very open in encouraging and responding to candid feedback.

How to leverage personas to build your business:

1. Download the complete The Social Profile #3 report
2. Understand that the audience/participants online are just as diverse as human beings are offline (like, in the real world)
3. Come to grips with the concept of providing every thing you do in as many forms and on as many platforms as you possibly can
4. Even so, focus on the one thing you do that creates value for other people
5. Determine who you can help best, get a clear picture of who they are, where they are, and what they expect, and
6. Make sure those people have Wow! experiences with you.

That’s all.

Free download of complete report of the 12 personas of people using social media:  The Social Profile #3.

More by ExactTarget:

• Help your C-Suite Get Serious About Social Media: a post on MarketingProfs (contributor)
• Jay Baer’s original post for Help Your C-Suite Get Serious About Social Media: short, actionable letters to encourage your C-Suite to get in the game.
• ExactTarget’s Subscribers, Fans & Followers Social Media Research Page

Seth continues to demonstrate the use of new currency: free. Here’s his personal addendum to the best-selling Linchin. It’s called Insubordinate.

Seth asks, “What the opposite of insubordinate?” The answer requires a label none of us entrepreneurs and small business owners want to wear: SUBordinate. So, I reckon the world of opportunities awaits the insubordinate. Wonder if corporate America could turn the insubordinates loose?

Download your free 40-page ebook Insubordinate. (shared with permission of the author)

Get an MP3 of Seth Godin’s small group presentation of Linchpin in Manhattan recently.

Wondering how to put Facebook to work building connections with prospects and customers? You can use unused photos from your catalog photo shoot to give catalog recipients behind-the-scenes access. When you do, you use the power of social media to help customers experience your “who we are” story for themselves. You make it possible for them to personalize your story and make it their own. Encourage comments. More importantly, ACKNOWLEDGE comments.

from DHC's August 2010 catalog

Here’s an example of a direct mail company integrating social media with a printed catalog to give customers greater access to how-things-work at the company. They’re leveraging an asset that would have been discarded in the past (extra photos from a photo shoot) to create a new opportunity for customers to understand them better. DHC is effective in shining the spotlight on others—a solid Spitball Marketing principle hard at work.

“Word-of-mouth marketing is the greatest thing since…”

“It’s all about stimulating word-of-mouth conversations…”

Okay. So, what IS word-of-mouth?

As part of their quite robust celebration of ten years of doing word-of-mouth together, my friends at 1000Heads put together a compelling info-graphic to clarify the phrase once-and-for-all. Visit 1000Heads for a complete definition of word-of-mouth marketing.

Why be excited about a firm 3,600 miles away from me, in another country, celebrating their 10th anniversary? It comes down to two simple reasons: 1. Molly Flatt and 2. James Whatley. Here are two videos of the United Kingdom’s word-of-mouth evangelists so you can see for yourself just how charming, captivating, and bright these folks are. Y’all enjoy now, ya hear.

If you’re in business, you probably want to increase your sales, get more customers, get more business. Sometimes we need 7 Habits or 12 Steps to get what we want. Sometimes all we need are the words our kindergarten teachers told us.

When I was in London recently, I asked a 19-year old small business owner—a rickshaw driver—how he got people to notice him and buy his services. He eloquently defined the key for getting more business for him:

1. nice speaking
2. smile every time

More importantly, he demonstrated all three by what he DID. (Oh, I just listed two? Here are the three things he did to increase his business: 1. Be nice. 2. Be pleasant. 3. Work hard!)

More posts featuring hard-working entrepreneurs in big cities:

• Entrepreneurship Manhattan Style (the New York Pedicab Driver)
• Sales Sizzle New York City Style (the Manhattan Street Vendor: Show your sales force THIS before sending them out into their sales week. They’ll sell more.)

With Facebook marching toward 500,000,000 users, it looks like social influence is gaining power. What business people are looking for are ways to tap into that power and generate positive word of mouth conversations around their brands and products. The good news is, it’s fairly simple to create buzz.

Last week I was in London once again. This time, I stayed in a hotel way off the tourist trail and 1.5 miles or more away from the closest tube station. Most of the restaurants and shoppes nearby closed up by the time I made it back to the hotel each night (and it wasn’t THAT late!).

One night I returned to my hotel room, opened the cupboard where the in-room coffee supplies were stored, and searched for a packet of decaf coffee. There was none. So, I walked down three flights of stairs and to the front desk. “Do you have any decaf coffee?” I asked. “Let me check,” the attendant replied. “No, it looks like we’re out of decaf, but please wait for just a moment,” he continued.

He walked around the desk and out the front door. A few minutes later he returned carrying a jar of Nescafe decaf coffee. When he handed it to me, I said, “Did you just go to the store and buy this for me?” He said, “Yes. We’re out of decaf.”

Want positive word of mouth? Do the unexpected; expect nothing in return

You may be thinking, “That’s no big deal.” Well, the week before I stayed in the gorgeous, brand new, contemporary Radisson BLU in Bristol. The floors are marble, the main dinning room first rate, and the late night bar well-appointed. They even had free Wi-Fi and wired high-speed Internet! But, they had no decaf in the room either.

When I went to the front desk at the Radisson BLU and asked, “Do y’all have any decaf coffee,” the well-trained and smartly dressed attendent said, “Let me check” and then returned empty-handed and said, “I’m sorry. We’re out of decaf coffee.”

The Radisson BLU employee, no doubt, was perfectly within the bounds of “the procedures,” followed protocol, and was really out of decaf coffee. He was professional, courteous, and made an effort to take care of me. He wasn’t remarkable. He did nothing that would have made him the subject of a blog post (not that that is a goal, by the way), except as a contrast to someone who was remarkable.

The remarkable attendent was at the Pasha Hotel at 158 Camberswell Road in London, England. His name is Levent Aksoy.

What did Levent do at the Pasha Hotel that created the opportunity for positive word of mouth conversation?

• He did the unexpected.
• He expected nothing.

He didn’t reference a policy or procedure book before acting. Instead of worshiping policy, his heart was tuned into purpose. His INSTINCT was to solve his customer’s problem and he acted immediately on it.

So, if you really want to stimulate positive word of mouth conversations about you,

1. Do the unexpected.
2. Expect nothing in return.

You probably won’t find this in your employee handbook.

Now that everyone is a publishing, sooner or later, you will have to deal with a negative blog review. When someone posts negative comments about you or your work online, it will feel like a bad experience. It’s actually a relationship-building opportunity.

Recently blogger Bill Parlaman wrote a negative review of a post by Michael Martine (famously known as Remarkablogger on Twitter) and the product SEO Scribe. Parlaman called the post SEO Scribe-8 Reasons SEO Scribe is NOT Worth the Money!

Parlaman’s post was challenging for several reasons:

• it was a pointedly negative review
• he had some solid reasons in support of his negative blog post
• he leveraging someone else’s product to sell his own product

Here’s Michael Martine’s response:

And, here’s Bill Parlaman’s reply to Michael:

Michael kept his cool, replied calmly; so did Bill. The end result? Most likely a strengthened relationship between the two men and a solid pro/con presentation about the product in question. Readers are the clear winners (the two bloggers win, too).

Here are seven steps to help you keep your cool and respond to negative blog posts or comments so that you, the reviewer, and your audience all win.

1. Monitor
2. Smile
3. Respond
4. Acknowledge
5. Affirm
6. Contrast
7. Appreciate

Monitor: whether you want to “do social media” or blog, you are already the subject (or target) of folks who are already creating content. It pays to monitor what’s being said about you. To start, set up Google Alerts on your name and company name. For more sophisticated monitoring options, see the comprehensive wiki created by Ken Burbary and follow Marshall Sponder, Nathan Gilliatt and Michelle Chmielewski on Twitter.

Smile: apparently, negative reviews and comments hit our brains in the region that fires up the self-defense mechanisms. It’s natural to feel attacked when someone says something bad about you or your products. In my experience, people rarely intend personal attacks when they right. So, when you’re monitoring turns up negative content about you, before you move to step three, pause at step two long enough to get a smile on your face (picture the author of negativity as your converted best friend enjoying your favorite beverage with you this Saturday. Maybe picture them in grotesquely out of style 1980s clothing or something.). Wait until you feel the smile in your heart before proceeding to step three.

Respond: no need to simply ignore negative comments. Go ahead and engage. This is a chance to contribute, to learn, to lead, and to gain new friends. It’s not a time to hide.

Acknowledge: usually the negative review has at least a kernel of truth underlying the negative post. Seek to understand their issue and acknowledge it. Notice how Michael did it: “You’re absolutely right…”

Affirm: let the author know you value them as an individual. While the Acknowledge step deals with accepting relevant details/specifics of the negativity, the Affirm step deals with accepting the human being who wrote the piece. Both are essential for developing relationships online (and offline, too).

Contrast: after acknowledging the nugget of truth in the negative reviewer’s content, clearly present any mitigating or offsetting features. Michael positioned the SEO Scribe as something appropriate for people who want to be more efficient with their time. Within his response, Michael also offered a clear call to action (try it) and reassured readers that it would be safe to try it.

Appreciate: both men started their content with an expression of appreciation. It’s hard to be too upset with someone who says, “thank you.”

Don’t let negative content about you or your product discourage you or slow you down. You can engage the content and it’s creator in a way that adds value for everyone. Chances are, a negative review will lead to more business for you if you will.

FedEx played a significant role in bringing Chris Brogan to Memphis recently. Ryan Furby, Manager of Digital and Social Media Strategies for FedEx, took a moment to share with me his perspective on social media.

When I asked him, “What is something that has surprised you about social media,” he said, “How quickly you can turn a negative experience into a positive one as long as you’re PRESENT and PROACTIVE.”

The #broganmemphis event was organized and made possible by Amy Howell of Howell Marketing. A group of friends took advantage of the opportunity to travel to meet each other face-to-face there. We started organizing ourselves with the hashtag #face2face10, but quickly adopted Amy’s #broganmemphis. You’ll be hearing more about this group. You can read our blog posts on The Social CMO.

Caught up with popular tweeter and Denver-based intellectual property attorney Kendall Thiessen at the Starbucks inside the Denver REI. He’s a remarkable friend, brilliant attorney, and has a profound imagination about the future of how things-can-be. I didn’t have my big camera gear handy, so I whipped out the ever-handy Kodak Zi8 (given to me by Kodak) and shot this video.

Kendall shares his thoughts on the value of Twitter (education: he’s learned more from Twitter friends than from college. Think about that. He’s a practicing attorney!), how to make Friday Follow something worthwhile (don’t give long lists, give people context and purpose, just like you’d do with your real-world introductions), and what he thinks about the future (you’ll have to watch the clip).

A few social media videographer lessons learned from this experience:

• the Kodak Zi8 is a cool machine, but it requires at least four feet separation between camera and subject in order to lock focus on the subject’s face
• you’ll need an external mic in order to get enough distance for the camera to focus. By the time it focuses, you’ll be too far away from the subject for the internal mic to pick up his/her voice. In high-distortive-ambiance environments (like, where you’ll be most of the time when you’re creating social media content), the internal mic will pick up too much background noise.
• you simply must have your equipment ready at all times. I had no idea I’d run into Kendall in REI. If I hadn’t had the Zi8 with me, I would have missed the moment.

Kendall Thissen: Twitter | Web