Have you ever had done something you thought was a really good idea at the time and then it completely backfires on you?

Well, it happened to my good friend Nancy Marmolejo, Viva Visibility.

If you don’t know Nancy yet, you really need to. She is a social media rock star. However, sometimes even rock stars have days where the guitar is out of tune and the speakers catch fire and explode on stage.

Here’s the story in a nutshell. As you all know, social networking is pretty darn new and Twitter is the brand spanking new kid on that shiny new block. Because it’s so new, things like vocabulary and etiquette are still being hashed out.

It’s better coming from Nancy herself why she got so fixated on this, but she was busy telling people you “tweet” not “twitter” (including yours truly). She also decided to write a letter to Inc Magazine about this.

The result? Inc Magazine called her on it and, well, won.

Now I’m telling you about this for 2 reasons.

1. I’m quite excited I can now use “twitter” as a verb (I just hated saying “tweet” — I felt like I should put a chicken coop in my yard.)

2. Nancy handled the whole situation brilliantly. In fact, I would go as far to say this was actually a really good thing in the end.

So what did Nancy do? Well, to start she owned up to it. She didn’t try to hide her mistake or pretend it never happened (which is simply not possible to do in this day and age anyway.) She ‘fessed up.

Lesson #1 — if you make a mistake, and it’s a public mistake, just suck it up and admit it. It’s when you start lying and hiding that things get so out of control. Look at Bill and Monica. People lied, tried to hide things, and that just made everything worse.

By owning up to it, Nancy completely diffused any negative publicity around it. In fact, if you read the comments, most people didn’t think this was a big deal at all. (Which it isn’t — until you start hiding and lying about it. Then suddenly everyone wonders why you’re lying and hiding and it can blow up into a bigger deal.)

The second thing she did was write a very charming and witty blog post about it. Now, you might not be able to write a charming and witty blog post, but it might be worth it to find someone who can for you. She was entertaining about it, which again helped diffuse the situation and caused all her followers to rally around her.

Now, humor isn’t good for all situations. Remember the Tylenol and Cyanide scare? If the Tylenol CEO had come out with humor that would have been completely inappropriate. However, what he did do was immediately take responsibility, come up with a solution, and didn’t come across as defensive or trying to shift the blame.

Lesson #2 — if you’re going to take a stand, do it graciously. Don’t be defensive, don’t try and shift blame, and for heaven’s sake don’t be a baby about it. Do it with class and people will respect and admire you for it.

The result? Nancy’s post got TONS of comments, pretty much all of them supporting Nancy. She’s back on stage, bigger than ever, with her guitar all tuned up and brand spanking new speakers.

Sooner or later, customers go online to find out more about your business and your reputation. What do they find when they search for your name, or your company? How visible are you?

It’s no secret that successful business owners and professionals can now have a strong Internet presence with little cost and without hiring tech staff.

So what do your potential clients find when they “Google” you? Have you checked lately?

Hopefully they find more than a static brochure-style website full of industry jargon, company kudos, and marketing hype.

Think about it in terms of what prospects really want to find out when they research you and your company… Here’s a big clue: what they want to know is: can they trust you?

No hype, no fluff, no dry lists of achievements. Your prospects want to learn more about you, and the people who are part of your organization. And yes, it would be nice if you put a little personality into your web presence. How else do you think they will begin to trust you?

People do business with people, not with companies. On the Internet, all you’ve got are words, design, and your brand. Your brand is more than your logo. It communicates your core message and implies your values.

The Internet is easy, user-friendly, cheap, and effective for getting your business found by the people who need your products and services. But not everyone is smart about building the trust they need with people searching for their services on the Web. Here are four paths toward creating a strong web presence to get found, get clients, and get massive visibility.

4 Paths to Create Massive Visibility

The truth is, it’s not about having a website anymore, is it? No, you can’t get massive visibility online with just a website.

You need a website and a blog, of course. All Internet marketing gurus will insist: you must write and publish a blog. And, they’ll tell you, you must write frequently on your blog, at least 3-4 times a week to generate search engine traffic.

But, you need more than that. You need the following elements in order to get massive visibility and gain the trust of readers in your niche:

1. A business blog (where you communicate in a conversational tone)

 

2. A brand (where you use design to help people to remember you)

 

3. Valuable, relevant content (to educate and engage with readers)

 

4. Participation in Social Networking sites (where you become easily accessible)

All four elements are necessary, and like the song goes, “You can’t have one without the other.”

Becoming massively visible on the Web means more than just a website and a blog. You now have the opportunity to be “everywhere.”

You must be prolific with publishing content, consistent with your branding and accessible in social networking sites if you want to leverage the Internet and create massive visibility.

The first time I heard the saying “How you do one thing is how you do everything” I didn’t get it. (Actually I think my exact response was: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”)

However, as I continued to work on myself and my business over the years, this statement has finally sunk in. And now I see how it relates to pretty much everything in my life. (After all, the state of your business is just a representative of what’s going on in your head at any given moment.)

So, what does any of this have to do with social networking? Well, it occurred to me as I look around at what people are and aren’t doing with their social networking that this is a microcosm of your entire business.

Let me explain. How do you approach your social networking?

• Are you someone who set up a bunch of social networking accounts months ago and haven’t touched it since? Where else has this shown up in your business? Are you someone who has a bunch of half-finished information products or books sitting on your desk? Or maybe you finished them but you haven’t put up the sales letter or did any other marketing so you’re not actually making any money off of them.

  Needless to say, with this habit, you’ve simply wasted a bunch of time without anything to show for it. You’re not making any money with your social networking nor are you making any money selling products.

• Are you someone who does your social networking in bursts? You ignore it for weeks, then for a couple of days you’re on it in a frenzy, only to go back to ignoring it. (Or you only jump on and do anything on it when you’re feeling stressed about cash flow and lack of clients.)

  So where else does this show up in your business? Are you someone who sends out an email newsletter once in a blue moon? Or you only pick up the phone to follow up when you’re desperate for new clients?

  With this habit, while it’s good you’re doing something, you’re only going to see consistent results when you’re consistently doing your marketing tasks. Communicating with people once in a while and/or only when you’re looking for something (i.e. for them to give you money) is an excellent way to have a feast-or-famine business model.

• Are you someone who is pretty good on one social networking platform but doesn’t do anything on any other one? For instance, you love Facebook but your Twitter account sits there unloved and you pretty much never update your blog, never mind anything else.

  So where else does this show up in your business? Are you someone who’s really good at going to live networking events and collecting business cards but doesn’t follow up? Or maybe you send out an email newsletter fairly regularly but you don’t do anything else with the articles you write for your newsletter (although you keep meaning to). And you don’t use any other methods to touch your prospects (i.e. direct mail or teleclasses.) You’re getting part of it right but if you followed an entire system you would see far more results. (And, in many cases, it’s not about YOU doing more but simply having a system and a team in place to support you so you get the biggest bang for your marketing time.)

Now, this isn’t about making you feel bad about what you are or aren’t doing. This is about looking at one piece of your business and using what you see there to make your whole business more successful.

Have you heard any of these?

• A guy who works part time for the Eagles Football team updates his status report by saying something to the effect that the Eagles suck due to a trade they made. The Eagles fire him.
• A woman gets a job offer from Cisco. She tweets “Got a job offer from Cisco. Now have to decide between a fatty paycheck versus a long commute and hating my job.” One of Cisco channel partners sees it on Twitter and comments. I didn’t hear how it turned out but I’m fairly certain Cisco rescinded the job offer. (And chances are she’s going to have a heck of a time finding another job since this story was all over the place to such an extent it will take awhile to get it out of Google.)
• A guy who I think is the agency owner travels to the headquarters of one of his biggest customers for a presentation (ironically on social networking). He tweets an unflattering tweet about the city where his client is headquartered. The employees spot it, call him on it and he ultimately loses the account.

I’m sure there are more of these stories, but you get my point. Social networking can give you credibility, visibility, leads and can help grow your business. It can also lose you jobs and customers.

So what do these stories have in common? Simple — the person forgot social networking was public.

And that’s the point of today’s article. What you do on social networking is public.

Now, I know that sounds obvious but, like most obvious things, it gets overlooked. And it’s easy to see why. I mean, half the time (or even more) you get no response to things you do on Twitter or Facebook. So it’s easy to start thinking no one’s watching.

And the moment you slip and think no one is watching, no one cares, that’s when it bites you. You think you can say whatever you want, and you do. Only to discover much to your dismay that people really ARE paying attention.

The same thing that makes social networking such a powerful networking tool is the same thing that can ruin you. Remember, your biggest strength is your biggest weakness. And that’s true here as well. The power social networking has to get your name out there in a big way can also replicate your unfortunate choice of tweets or posts in a big way and ruin your reputation faster than you can say “to tweet or not to tweet.”

Now, I’m not saying you should run scared of social networking. This isn’t about you agonizing over every comment, tweet, post, etc. you put out there. This is about being smart. It’s about never forgetting you’re dealing in a public arena and people are paying attention, even if there are days where you wonder where all that social networking love went.

And if you DO screw up and say something you shouldn’t? Well, depending on what exactly it was, you might have to do some damage control, and/or just come to grips you’ve put a black mark on your reputation and have to do some cleaning up. You CAN come back, it might not be easy or fun, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world either.

The other day when I was running/walking a 10K race, my knee started hurting. It had been troubling me off and on for about a month but I thought I had it under control.

My initial reaction was to grit my teeth and walk through the pain. That’s what I normally do, and it’s what I do when I walk marathons.

But then I reconsidered. I had just passed the 4K marker when it really started hurting so I had more than half the race ahead of me. And then I started thinking, why am I doing this?

Clearly I had an issue with my knee. And I could force the issue and hurt it worse. Or I could quit and work on healing it.

I opted to quit and live to walk another day (sooner rather than later).

So that got me thinking, when is it okay to quit and when should you muscle through it? How do you know if this is the time you should throw in the towel or is this just more of your demons popping up to torture you?

Here’s a little system you can follow to help you know the difference:

1. How important is this? Are you talking about the life of your business (i.e. quitting it all and getting a job) or are you talking about dumping a product that isn’t selling well (and to be honest, you never liked much anyway)? If it’s the product, then yeah — quitting might be the smart thing to do. If it’s your business, then it’s probably your demons doing a jig in your brain.

In my case, doing a 10K isn’t that big of a deal. I’ll do a 10K on a weekend. So to cut this race short wasn’t an issue. Not tearing my knee up was far more important than finishing the race. Which leads me to my next point:

2. How important is it for you to quit? Or what is the cost if you don’t quit? Is there someone you work with (like a customer or a vendor) who is toxic to you? (For example, they’re costing you tons of time and/or money and you’re getting very little in return. Or, worse yet, they’re involved in something unethical that could hurt your reputation, or worse, something illegal.) Depending on the severity of the issues, you probably want to dump that relationship. Or are you just feeling uncomfortable or discouraged or stuck with your business? Nope, not a good reason to quit your business.

In my case, not being able to walk for a month was way too high of a trade off then quitting the race early.

So, here’s how this works. When you’re faced with something you’re thinking about quitting, ask yourself both questions, then compare the answers. If the answer to number 1 is high, and the question to number 2 is low, then you shouldn’t be quitting. If the answer to number 1 is low and the question to number 2 is high, then you should be quitting.

Where it gets a little tough is if the answer to both questions is the same. Then, you need to dig a little deeper. One is got to be stronger than the other (for instance, if you’re looking at something that’s really important to you, is the cost not to quit as high as you’re really saying or are you just scared right now?)

My other rule of thumb is answer to the first question is probably the way you should go. If what you’re looking at is very important, then you probably shouldn’t be quitting. If what you’re looking at isn’t all that important then you probably should be quitting. (After all, why are you wasting your time with it if it isn’t that important?)