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I sent my team an email today about how to leverage your research for SEO / marketing value. After reading it, I thought it would actually make a helpful blog post for those who ask lots of questions.
I am in no way implying anybody is dumb, I just thought that title would be nice and catchy for the blog post. Here’s the email I sent out today:
Hi Team,
Often our jobs require that we need to research a topic… software, new info for content development, changes in the advertising landscape, etc. We “Google” things probably a dozen times per person per day in this department. We also ask each other tons of questions, which is great communication.
There is a way however, that we can get the answers we need AND some SEO value (maybe some links, maybe some buzz) from our own curiosity as well. By visiting forums, blogs, question & answer sites (like answers.yahoo.com), and other social media sites, we can create relevant profiles and even have little signatures that have a link back to our site. We can link to our website in our questions too if it makes sense and is not spammy.
Researching this way has a triple benefit. You can get your questions answered by people who are experts or junkies in a certain area (try visiting a software forum for a question about software, they will probably be very passionate about the discussions), you can help brand our company by being a friendly contributor to these communities, AND you even can help our SEO efforts by getting free links back to our site where it makes sense.
I strongly encourage you to try this method of research, since it will help us expand our presence into the social web and may help us for SEO as well. We might even learn some neat new things that we can bring back to our colleagues here :-)
Keep up the good work guys, you rock!
Now that my team is growing, I can imagine these types of emails will be more frequent than things like “Is this project done yet” or “Can you try this font?” or “Please go get my dry cleaning” (kidding!)
Do you think that emails like this, ones that give broad guidance instead of specifics, are an effective way to manage a large team of web marketing managers and professionals? Seems like the higher up you get in an organization, the more it is about vision than specifics.
Tags: Blogs, Chris Hooley, Communities, Dumb, Executive-Management, Forums, Hooley, Marketing, Professional, SEO
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Leave YOUR Comments!
Tina Says:
December 6th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Really cool - Im gonna try to get this by corporate today LOL
Chris Hooley Says:
December 6th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
BTW- the title of the email was not “Are you dumb” it was something like “Suggestions to get more out of your questions” lol
David Temple Says:
December 6th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
I absolutely think emails that are broad and vision guiding are way better than ones that deal with specifics. One reason is it allows for more creativity and another is that you don’t look like a micro manager. After all you don’t think your people are dumb do you?
Chris Hooley Says:
December 7th, 2006 at 12:13 am
My Team? Dumb? HELL NO!
My team is probably the most brilliant group of individuals I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Driven, dedicated, fun loving, hard working, these adjectives just tough the surface. My team is amazing.
Now that we have over a dozen people in my department, it seems that I can no longer be involved in everything. I learned the art of delegation, I am learning the art of office politics, and I am now kinda feeling my way around managing managers and providing a more broad vision for a larger group.
The foundation for success has been laid, the people around me are “the ones”. Now I need to work on some leadership skills that are different from what I already know and understand to get the best out of this talented group. I just hope I don’t go too broad and lose touch with the front lines.
David Temple Says:
December 7th, 2006 at 1:51 am
Great answer, I hope you know it was a rhetorical question. I highly doubt you surround yourself with dumb people, fun yes, dumb no. I get your point on being too broad but I don’t think you’ll lose touch with the “front lines”.
Why? Because you’ve been there, done that. I wouldn’t want to hear “how” to do my job from you, I’d want to hear “why”. You said “I strongly encourage you to try this method of research” that’s good enough for me. You see I don’t even work for you and I’ll most likely implement these ideas.
Keep up the good work, you rock!
SEOThursday Says:
December 7th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
I think the way you explained it was phenomenal - the key is showing or explaining to your team “why” something will be helpful to your cause. They all want to work hard and work well for you (I am assuming this, but seems so), but just ripping off the “we need to rank better for XXX, get us some links” or the like isn’t gonna do much. The way you explained it highlights the value and also the complexity of the task. Becoming a valuable contriubtor to a thread or forum is something that would get me excited, AND it’s helping the company - hell ya. Like David said, you’re showing them “why” and I agree - I’m going to take your advice too.
Chris Hooley Says:
December 7th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Sweet. Seems like I can work on being more of a visionary than a manager and still get people moving the right ways.
It starts with smarts and ends with heart. If there is one thing I know I do well, it’s spotting talent. Everybody has a certain type of fire inside, and it seems I just need to point it in the right direction to get the max burn.
You guys who commented on this blog rock too BTW :-)
Mark B Says:
December 8th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
You are doing the right thing. Our company has an email marketing system that everyone has an account for. Each employee can send out an email like this every month to all employees with new ideas or news or anything of interest that will help the company as a whole. All we ask is that whatever they send, they back it with facts and reasons that they think this is important to the company. A voting poll is in the email and everyone votes on how it ranks for company benefit.
This allows everyone to feel equal and also helps to pass along something new to the company as a whole. This is also nice b/c everyone is reading different blogs and picking up different pieces so this helps build the whole puzzle for each employee. Also it allows each employee to help shape the vision and direction of the company.