Here are a few statements that can lead to being captured by the conventional thinking trap:

• “I’ve been doing this for years and it works just fine.”
• “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
• “But that’s not how other companies do it.”
• “That potential employee is innovative and intelligent, but they just don’t have the experience/résumé.”
• “It seems a little risky.”

What’s wrong with these statements? If it isn’t broken why would you want to fix it? Experience is a good thing. Other companies do it that way because it works. There are a lot of costs associated with risky endeavors. This is all true, but consistently falling into conventional thought can stifle innovation, growth and improvement. The conventional thinking trap stops you from being the first to do something awesome, it stops you from creating something viral, it stops you from being a leader and slowly steers you into mediocrity.

How do you avoid the conventional trap? Here are a few ideas:

1. Try it – If you have an idea for your website, your Facebook page or Twitter, just try it. One of my favorite quotes by Wayne Gretzky explains this principle: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Stop wondering “what if” and do it.
2. Establish an innovative culture – Make it a practice to come up with fresh ideas. Take half an hour each week to brainstorm on how to improve your marketing. If you manage a bigger organization then get ideas from your employees. You could even create a contest and give a small bonus every week to the person that has the best idea. If you encourage innovation your company will thrive.
3. Be different – This is a simple but powerful principle. If you conform to what everyone else is doing then someone will most likely do it better than you. If you can differentiate yourself from the norm, you become the standard. How can you be the leader if all you do is follow?

These are just a few ideas I had that help me to avoid the conventional trap. What are some of the thing you do?

So what is the extra degree needed to take your Facebook page to the next level? What is the extra degree needed to make your YouTube video the next viral sensation? What is the extra degree that will turn your social media efforts into a strong source of revenue?

Take a little extra time to think through your social media strategy. You may already be doing a lot. Just remember, you could be one degree away from real success.

What is your target audience? Cater your posts to your niche.

Why do you use Twitter, Facebook or a blog? Are you trying to reach a specific niche, like business people, moms, teenagers or social media experts? Who do you want reading what you post? These are questions I recommend you ask yourself often to keep the correct perspective before posting different social messages.

Sometimes, as a social media professional, I find myself tweeting less of the things I find interesting (articles, videos, etc) because they’ve already been shared online by millions of people. For example, just look at the Mashable home page and you’ll see that hundreds and sometimes thousands of people tweet Mashable’s content regularly. I find myself less motivated to tweet this popular content because it seems like everyone has seen it already. But this is false! Just because I’ve read or seen a piece of content doesn’t mean the people who follow me have encountered it too.

In reality, it doesn’t matter if you post a piece of content someone may have already seen. The point is to post content that is interesting to you, and what you believe your audience will appreciate. I don’t care if some social media person sees my profile and thinks, “I’ve already read that.” Why? Because they’re not my target audience. My target audience includes the people who don’t read all of the social media blogs. They don’t have time to read the hundreds of interesting posts out there, so they come to me to read the ones I feel are the best. Why do they care? Because I consistently post things they like.

The moral of the story: no matter what industry you’re in, don’t forget that your target audience comes to you for updates. They’re not visiting all of the sites you’re visiting. They rely on you to sift through what’s good and what’s not.

Here’s the short version of the story: On March 5th Conan decided to randomly follow one person on Twitter. He chose Sarah Killen, a.k.a. @lovelybutton. She immediately went from a few followers to almost 25,000 in six days…crazy. Click here to read more.

So what? Good for Sarah, no big deal right? Wrong. If Sarah is smart she will do something with this unexpected fame. If you watch this ABC report, you’ll see that she got a few things for her wedding. She is even encouraging people to donate to a cancer fund. That’s wonderful, but she needs to do something more. This is an amazing opportunity!

So Sarah, here are a few ideas on what you could do with your new-found fame:

1. Start a blog: You already have thousands of people who are listening to what you’re saying on Twitter. As a result, you would get thousands of hits on your blog. You already have people sending you free stuff for your wedding, just think of how many people would pay you to have an ad in the sidebar of your blog. You could generate a pretty good income just from advertisements. Make sure your blog has focus and isn’t just a diary of your life. Make it about something of worth and it will grow instead of fading out when all of the hype dies down. If you’re not a good writer then take a writing class ASAP!
2. Start a business: What do you like to do? What are you good at? Start a business and use your audience to help it grow.
3. Become an unofficial spokesperson for a good cause: Pick a topic or cause that you’re passionate about. Maybe it’s helping to cure cancer. I’m sure the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation would love your help and support, and may even pay you to be an official spokesperson for them.
4. Connect with other celebrities: You could try to connect with other comedians or celebrities. They may be interested in getting in on the joke. As they connect with you more people will follow you, which would increase your ability to influence.

Please be smart, Sarah! Do something more than just tweeting random stuff. You could do so much. Of course if you want more advice let me know!

In addition to having large numbers of supporters on the major social networks, Obama has done a great job galvanizing his fan base. Outside of his official pages, there are thousands of groups, profiles, YouTube videos, websites, forums and blogs supporting his cause.

Obama has proven himself a worthy campaigner. Edelman, one of the top independent PR firms in the world, wrote a great report on how Obama used social media to win the 2008 Presidential Election. Click here to read the report.

A warning to all politicians

President Obama isn’t the only one who has used social media effectively to influence elections. A more recent example can be seen in Scott Brown’s surprise victory in Massachusetts. As of Jan. 1, Brown had over 70,000 fans while Martha Coakley had just over 13,000. Click here to read this Wall Street Journal report for more telling statistics about the Massachusetts election.

If you want an idea of who may or may not win their elections this upcoming November, just compare how the candidates are doing in the social media race.

Politicians beware; do not ignore social media!

The Jonas Brothers performed in 2009's Stadium of Fire.

Blue Helm is proud to work with America’s Freedom Festival at Provo, a nonprofit group that dedicates itself to promoting family, freedom, God and country. One of the Freedom Festival’s great annual events is the Stadium of Fire, an awesome celebration every 4th of July featuring past performers like the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, the Beach Boys, Blue Man Group and the Osmonds. This year, Blue Helm has sponsored the festival’s successful Vote the Voice campaign—an opportunity for Facebook and Twitter fans to recommend who they would like to see perform in a future Stadium of Fire event. Here’s the most recent press release we sent out to Utah’s media about the campaign:

Provo, Utah – November 17, 2009 - America’s Freedom Festival at Provo, in partnership with Blue Helm Communications, officially released today the final online poll for the Stadium of Fire’s Vote the Voice event. After aggressive grassroots and viral lobbying among thousands of fans, the community may now choose between David Archuleta, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Bon Jovi and Eric Dodge to become a potential performer in a future Stadium of Fire celebration.

Fans must visit the Freedom Festival’s Facebook page to access a link to the new online ballot. Over 15,000 votes have been cast since October 15 to narrow the list of favorite contenders to five. The new online poll of five names is comprised of leading nominees from the last two phases of the Freedom Festival’s Vote the Voice campaign—an energetic and ongoing vote held since September on the festival’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

A unique example of how Vote the Voice has influenced the Freedom Festival’s consideration of future performers is the inclusion of southern Utah country singer Eric Dodge in the final five. The Freedom Festival was unaware of his enormous popularity among many Utah residents before Vote the Voice began. Through Facebook, Twitter and Eric Dodge’s website, fans have coordinated and lobbied to vote in strong numbers, thus securing his name among other, better-known contenders in the final five.

In another distinctive use of social media campaigning, David Archuleta’s fans dominated Twitter discussions about Vote the Voice. Their lobbying for the American Idol runner-up was so relentless, one of the largest David Archuleta fan pages on Twitter took notice and encouraged its thousands of followers to get involved.

Members of the community are encouraged to visit the Freedom Festival’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/freedomfestival to learn more about how to vote for their favorite performers. Fans can also stay up to date with Vote the Voice on Twitter at www.twitter.com/freedmfestprovo.

When the Freedom Festival tallies all the votes at the end of the year, it will do its very best to book its fans’ favorite performer for a future Stadium of Fire event. No guarantee of any future performer, despite the outcome of the vote, can be made.

So what’s the best way to use social media this upcoming Thanksgiving week? Here are a few ideas:

1. Tell your family and friends (employees and clients if you’re a business) why you’re thankful for them. Write on their Facebook wall or tweet something nice about them. Expressing your gratitude for them will not only brighten this person’s day, it will make you feel great too.
2. Share your favorite recipes. We all love the delicious foods that accompany Thanksgiving dinner. Stop hoarding your favorite dish and share it with the world! Maybe someone else will love your stuffing, cranberry sauce or homemade apple pie. When you’ve posted the recipe, ask for other people’s favorite recipes and try one of them this year. If you’re a business, start a conversation about great recipes on your Facebook page, blog or on Twitter.
3. Make a list of things you’re thankful for and share it with everyone. It could be a list of the weirdest things you’re thankful for or even the top YouTube videos you’re thankful for. Just be thankful. That’s the idea of this holiday, right?
4. Share the best Black Friday deals! Not only is Thanksgiving Day awesome, but the day after is awesome too. Let people know where the best deals are. If you’re a business, let your followers know you’re having a killer deal. But don’t just share your own deals. Share deals for products from other businesses that will complement the items you sell. Karma pays dividends.

These are just a few of my ideas. How are you using social media to brighten your Thanksgiving?

1. Educate yourself: Before jumping onto the social media bandwagon, search around online and find out how other professional leaders in your industries have used social media to enhance their business opportunities. You’ll find stories of shopkeepers using Twitter to advertise specials and driving customers to their stores, financial advisors using LinkedIn to network with prospective clients and construction firms sharing home improvement tips on blogs and Facebook pages. Take the time to learn more about social media and how it works, even if it’s just a few minutes each day. Like we tell our class participants, you don’t have to use all the social networks at once. Learn about the tools, start small, develop a simple marketing plan and go from there.

2. Use Twitter: Go here to learn more about the basics of how to set up and understand your first Twitter account. I think what I want to stress most to our readers is that Twitter can be a powerful listening tool for your business. You can easily search for what tweeters are saying about your business, product or industry in the site’s search box. Then you can respond and engage. For example, let’s pretend you manufacture juice makers. You get to work each morning and type “juice maker” into Twitter’s search box to see what people are saying that day. You happen to see a lot of complaints about complicated or expensive juice makers. You can respond personally to these people on Twitter, explaining to them that your company’s juice makers are neither complicated nor expensive, and that you’d love to send them a generous e-coupon for your product if they’d like. Maybe one or two will respond and purchase your product that day. And the whole ordeal took ten minutes.

3. Blog: Read that as a verb—BLOG! Your business must have a specialty or area of expertise and it doesn’t matter if it’s plumbing, accounting, rock climbing, electrical engineering or chimpanzee grooming. You should blog about it. You should share valuable, genuine, consistent content with readers about your area of expertise. You should communicate and enhance relationships with your readers and other bloggers. This will generate buzz and excitement about your product and augment your status as an opinion leader in your field. Find out how to start blogging here.

This should get you started. Remember: educate yourself, try Twitter and blogging, and don’t give up! Social media can be overwhelming at first but the more you use it, the more you’ll come to understand it and discover your special niche.

“Celebrity is currency, so I [want] to use mine effectively.”

Social media can be a powerful marketing tool for any business, but only if it’s used effectively. Do you have a Facebook page or Twitter account? They must be sources of good content. Do you have a blog? It must be genuine. Are you incorporating social media into your traditional PR or marketing strategies? You must engage, converse and monitor. Do you measure social media ROI? You must set intelligent goals beforehand. Effectiveness, effectiveness, effectiveness!

“I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep s***. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace.”

But Bono won’t find grace in social media, and neither will you. Karma is everything here! If you aren’t retweeting, commenting on other blog posts, answering LinkedIn questions or engaging with your fans/followers, you will hardly attract new converts to your business through social media. Reach out to others online and they will reach out to you.

“We’ve got to follow through on our ideals or we betray something at the heart of who we are….The culture of idealism is under siege, beset by materialism and narcissism and all the other ‘isms’ of indifference.”

I often see this with other bloggers and tweeters, and I hope I’m not too guilty of it myself. When we use social media, it’s so easy to think about our own needs and wants and forget about the necessities or even the reality of others. When you post a tweet, for instance, are you doing it for you? Or do you really believe it contains beneficial information for your customers and followers? The same goes for a blog post, a YouTube video or a bookmark. Don’t use social media as a display case for your personal brand or business. It’s meant to be a conversation, not just a money-making monologue.

“There are many side roads and back streets to rock ‘n’ roll, and most of us get lost down them at times.”

I believe Bono is referring to MySpace here, but I could be wrong.

In conclusion, U2 is awesome. Maybe one day there will be social media theory classes in college. But for now, we have to rely on the wisdom and acumen of The Great Bono.

So what’s the answer? Well, it depends. I think the reason it’s been so hard to write this post is because there are so many factors in play when deciding what kind of content your company should release. The content you release depends on whether you’re selling a service or a product. It depends on the size of the company and the existing market share you possess. It depends on the goals you’ve set and the direction you want to take your company. There really is no easy answer that applies to everyone.

So instead of trying to write the one-stop-post on why you should or shouldn’t publicize free content, I’m going to focus on a few reasons why releasing valuable and free content is advantageous.

It establishes credibility

People will read your material if it’s useful for them. If a first-time visitor to your website, blog, Twitter page or Facebook page finds something of value, they’re more likely to return at a later time. If they get something valuable most of the time they interact with your company or website, they will accept you as a trusted and credible source. For example, Darren Rowse (author of problogger.com) received this email from a reader in response to his latest ebook:

“I’ve never bought an ebook before, partly because I don’t trust people with my credit card information and partly because I’ve always suspected most ebooks are just fluff…. But after reading your blog for 12 months and being on the receiving end of useful information every day over that time I decided you were probably a credible source of information”.

The credibility gained from your content will set your company apart as a go-to source in your industry.

It strengthens your brand equity

As your credibility increases so does your brand equity. Brand equity is when people are willing to pay a higher premium for your product just for the name. As you become an opinion leader in your industry, clients will see your company name as a premium brand and will be willing to pay more for your product.

It produces referrals

Now that people trust you and see you as a credible source, chances are good they’ll tell their friends and colleagues all about you. This is the essence of social media. Your business increases as customers and readers refer people to you.

Seth Godin posted this on his blog: “If you really want to make a lot of money then you need to tactically use free content to sell your own premium content/product/service.”

What do you think? If you disagree, I want to know. If you have any more ideas, please impart of your wisdom.