What do you say when you have nothing to say? Repurpose!

It is funny that over the last number of days I keep telling myself that I need to do a blog entry – something witty, educational, outstanding and full of “thought provoking” moments, but nothing. Nada. Zilch. Nothing has come to me. Because I am too busy? There is too much noise out there already? (I have already blogged about the noise!) Everyone else is saying everything so well?

I realized that this is the same situation that many of vendor clients must run into when considering how to keep a strong stream of content and information getting out there. What content will peak the interest of your prospects? What newsworthy information do you want to share in a Press Release? What kind of content is NEW and EXCITING for a webinar? It is difficult.

As we all know – Content is King – as the HRmarketer blog has shared before, and it is true but how do you get some great stuff out there when you are just “dry”.

Some ideas could be:

1/ Do a Tip Sheet – a one pager that will give you the top 10 of something – thank you to David Letterman. This allows very small and easily digestible bits of information to be used.

2/ Take a piece that has been published before and add updated, new and exciting information to it. New stats – new quotes – news that makes the topic and content ALIVE again.

3/ Take a piece that you have published and create an article to be offered to the many media outlets in the space. Our HRmarketer.com software resource tool tells me that there are 690 HR and Business focused media outlets and 381 of them consider and accept outside articles for publication. HOLY CRAP! (you know you wanted to say that!)

4/ Take a very successful webinar and create a series of Podcasts with the same content. Build that buzz, and create a following to your expertise.

5/ What about creating a series of blogs around the content? Most content pieces can be broken down into logical sections. Nothing new here, it is being done but are you doing it?

6/ Use the exciting information that you have created in a content piece/client story and submit speaking proposals to present them to the industry conferences and expos.

I know, I know, I am preaching to the choir and telling you something that you already knew – but have you done it? Look back in your archives of content pieces and consider – can I make this relevant again. AND if you don’t have any content to back on, then that is a totally different blog!!!!

Would Ben Franklin Tweet? How B2B Social Networking Kills Productivity.

I believe Ben Franklin would tweet if he were alive today.

But how often?

Once a day? Once an hour? And if he had a blog would he update it daily? Would he walk around with his face buried in a smart phone texting Jefferson and posting Twitter updates every hour of the day? Would he be a gamer?

Lets hope not because if so he would likely be just another Ben Franklin and not THE Ben Franklin. And we may not have sanitation and fire departments, library's, hospitals, universities, lightning rods or bifocal glasses.

Ok, a bit of an exaggeration. But really, if not managed properly, the Internet -- particularly social networking -- is a huge waste of time and drain on productivity. Yes, even for business use.

When Ben Franklin wrote his now famous “Thirteen Virtues" he included such things as temperance (eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation) and silence (speak not but what may benefit others or yourself). If Mr. Franklin were alive today he might add a 14th virtue to address the Internet and its accompanying vices. Or maybe he did with his "moderation" (avoid extremes) virtue.

At HRmarketer, we are huge advocates for using social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs) to build brand awareness, credibility, trust and thought leadership via sharing useful information through these mediums.

But it seems to have gotten out of hand.

Really out of hand.

Wait, you might argue, isn't there value in providing a continuous stream of industry information? Yes, and the businesses that do this best are called publishers. And contrary to what some experts say, HR vendors are not publishers.

True, many HR vendors produce articles and white papers and Tweet useful information on a regular basis as a part of their marketing. And they should (and you should too). But that doesn't make them publishers. I like to strum my guitar for an hour or so each day but that doesn't make me a musician. It's not my profession. And constant news distribution/publishing is not the profession or business purpose of HR vendors.

And from what I am seeing, a lot of marketing professionals in the HR space are going way overboard with their use of social networking - and it's likely costing their employer a lot in lost productivity.

If you work in marketing for an HR vendor and you find yourself thinking about tweeting every hour of the day you likely have a productivity problem. And you might be a candidate for Twitters Anonymous.

I recently conducted an informal survey with the CEOs and CMOs of HRmarketer's largest customers. What I found was interesting. Very few blogged or Tweeted - and most did not even have a Twitter account. Why, I asked? The response was typical - "because I'm too busy and don't have the time". All these companies are very successful and have very aggressive marketing - they just don't do much social networking. And apparently it is not hurting their business. I'd also be willing to wager that most HR buyers spend very little time on Twitter.

In an amusing yet somewhat sad article in the Wall Street Journal titled Your BlackBerry or Your Wife, there is a story about a mother and her children who unplugged everything with a screen for six months. For entertainment, they went to the movies, ate family meals, played board games and read the newspaper on Saturday mornings. The result? Her son rediscovered his saxophone. Her daughters began cooking and wrote a novel together.

What could you accomplish in your job if you gave up social networking and spent the time on more productive activities?

By the way, I'm no hypocrite. I admit that I too have an addiction. But awareness is the first step in recovery :-) In the time it took me to write this blog post (30-45 minutes) I could have made a sales call, scoped out some new HRmarketer.com software features or had a productive meeting with one of my direct-reports.

But I didn't because I felt pressured to write a blog post since I haven't written one in a few weeks.

Was it worth it?

Hard to tell, and that's an entirely different problem (measuring this stuff)!

Post by HRmarketer CEO Mark Willaman. Join Mark on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Stop the Noise!!! I want to hear something distinctive.

It was an interesting day the other day as I sat at my home office thinking about my goals, objectives and focuses for an even more successful 2011, and I was having a very difficult time keeping my attention to the task that I had set for myself. I was distracted by the dog coming to visit me; by my husband working in his workshop hammering, sawing (and some periodic swearing); by the very quiet music that I have in the background of the office and I just couldn’t focus. I started thinking that this must be how the consumers feel when trying to do some research for a buying decision – noise, noise, noise.

I think my best way of describing what I am looking for is – be distinctive, create information that is credible, informative, educational and perhaps puts a NEW LOOK to the situation. It is interesting that just today I was reading through a draft of an e-book that HRmarketer and my CEO, Mark Willaman, is creating as research to post on our site soon(and we give it away for free if you didn’t know, under White Papers and Downloads) and he talks about noise, and white noise on ALL LEVELS of MARKETING and how to do you cut through that to reach your targeted buyer. The e-book will talk about marketing allocation and all the different ways to try to promote your company, your solutions and that you are the best, awesomest, grooviest (for my friend Kevin), different, the one and only.

These marketing tactics can be old school – like branding in print, on radio and on billboards which still have their place in the perfect budget. They can be traditional or “old faithful” like print, emails, speaking, trade-show exhibiting, media outreach and more. OR the new kids on the block and innovative (though not as much as before) social media reach in blogs, Twitter, online groups, podcasts and SEO.

And they are all noise, noise, noise, unless you have something to say; unless you have something to educate; unless you have something of value to provide and add.

We have preached on this blog before about the Holy Grail of content and I have to put in my vote to say that around all of this noise, if you can provide content that validates who you are as a company (client stories); that you have knowledge of the true issues in the space (speaking, research reports); and that you can provocatively and eloquently discuss, comment on and challenge the ever changing views in your space (blogs, twitter, press releases) then you have my attention.

Don’t be part of the noise – be like a wonderful and unforgettable classical aria in a 16^thcentury composition, and rise above it.