social networking Archives - Daniel J. Lewis

[easyazon_image align=”right” cart=”y” identifier=”1118176286″ locale=”US” src=”https://danieljlewis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/UnMarketing-by-Scott-Stratten.jpg” tag=”danieljewls-20″ width=”200″]Business-owners and content-creators need marketing, at least until that can be delegated to someone else. Scott Stratten's book, [easyazon_link identifier=”1118176286″ locale=”US” tag=”danieljewls-20″ cart=”y”]UnMarketing[/easyazon_link], is a concise reference for modern marketing as well as a challenge to overhyped ideas.

[easyazon_link identifier=”1118176286″ locale=”US” tag=”danieljewls-20″ cart=”y”]UnMarketing[/easyazon_link] may not be your most marked-up book. There aren't amazing quotations on every page. But it does contain page after page of actionable advice, case studies, and inspiration to help anyone who needs to “Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.” (That's the book's subtitle.)

I've seen Scott Stratten speak a couple times before and I greatly enjoy his style. He's straightforward, honest, and filled with insight. But he never takes himself too seriously and his presentations are always fun.

Stratten's writing style is no different. It's both authoritative and entertaining. You'll get great marketing information as well as plenty of laughs, especially from the footnotes. Of course, a book called “UnMarketing” would be a very different approach from most dry marketing books!

While reading [easyazon_link identifier=”1118176286″ locale=”US” tag=”danieljewls-20″ cart=”y”]UnMarketing[/easyazon_link], I didn't highlight a lot of things Scott Stratten said, but I did find plenty of new inspiration and ideas I can apply in marketing my own business and content.

Scott Stratten is good at representing common human feelings about marketing and customer service. With that understanding, he's able to present marketing ideas that will truly connect with other people. Some of the ideas seem so obvious that I would think, “Of course that would work!” But most of us have our heads so buried in our work that we miss these obvious opportunities to stand out.

“UnMarketing” is the perfect title. It's like zombies who move like they're alive, but behave like they're dead. That's why we call them “undead.” Stratton's work is the same. It's about marketing, but it's about not marketing. It's really a book secretly about amazing customer service and relationships disguised as a book with “marketing” in the title.

I read UnMarketing within a week and have plenty of ideas to last for years. My favorite chapters were “Hierarchy of Buying,” “Pull and Stay,” and especially “Viral Marketing.” These chapters do have highlights in my copy!

Inside, you'll learn about engaging online and offline; in-person and over the Internet; and attending events and hosting your own events.

I highly recommend [easyazon_link identifier=”1118176286″ locale=”US” tag=”danieljewls-20″ cart=”y”]UnMarketing, by Scott Stratten[/easyazon_link]. I suggest you read it straight through, and then re-read the chapters that inspired you the most. Most of the chapters are short enough to read in only a few minutes. Scott clearly knew UnMarketing would be a great reference book, too, because he includes a helpful index in the back.

This isn't the “SELL SELL SELL” kind of overhyped marketing. It's practical, effective, and engaging.[easyazon_link identifier=”1118176286″ locale=”US” tag=”danieljewls-20″ cart=”y”]Get your own copy of UnMarketing[/easyazon_link] and tell me the biggest insights you gained!

I host a podcast about the Once Upon a Time TV show. This podcast is getting rave reviews and quickly growing in popularity, keeping ours among the top-three podcasts about Once Upon a Time.

But with this popularity comes a good problem—so much feedback and discussion! We receive long emails from listeners with great theories about past, current, and future episodes. It's getting to be more than we can handle and easily share.

The comments on each blog post are also becoming extremely active, and commenters are wanting to discuss issues that are asides to the post's content. Again, this is a good problem!

So now that the community has grown up, it's time to bring the community together with a forum. But that's not so easy.

There are many free and paid forum solutions out there. But I'll be testing them for some ten requirements that I believe every forum needs.

Guest access. Visitors should not have to register to read or search the forum.
Social registrations. User accounts are a requirement, but don't have to be a pain. Users should be able to “mindlessly” create a forum account by logging in with their Facebook, Twitter, or Google ID, as well as create a separate account.
Freedom. The point of a forum is to let people initiate their own conversations. Limiting this freedom to post new content is distrusting of the humans who come to the forum. If new members must wait any longer than a couple hours before they can start their own topics, the forum is a legalistic prison.
Maintain branding. Forums should not all look alike. They should fit within the branding of the parent website.
Formatting. Writers must have the simple tools to bold, italicize, hyperlink, quote, list, and apply many other formatting to their posts. This shouldn't require HTML knowledge.
Social sharing. Forums have been social networks before social-networking was popular. As such, they must integrate with other social networks for easy crossposting and aggregation.
Friendly spam protection. Forums are easily bombarded with spam. But this is also usually easy to fix without requiring visitors to pull their heads inside-out to read a Captcha. Spam protection should be invisible.
Mobile-friendly. The full web is no longer just for desktop computers. A forum must be accessible and friendly to mobile devices without an app (while still integrating with popular forum apps like Tapatalk).
Easy to moderate. Everything up until this point has been about the user experience, which is the most important. But a good online forum should also be easy for administrators and moderators to manage.
Website integration. Unless the forum is the sole purpose of a website, the forum must be easy to integration with the rest of the website via widgets, accounts, comments, and more.

That's what I'm looking for. I'll be evaluating the top, free and one-time-licensed packages:

I may already be leaning toward phpBB for its power and lots of plugins out there to make it do what I require.

What are your thoughts? As a user, what makes a forum easier for you and more enjoyable? What do you hate about forums?

As an administrator, what features do you like in a forum? What works best for you?