Found Online: “The Problem With Being Free”

I don’t just like to post links without editorial, but I don’t have time right now - may write more later, but this was found on Chris Brogan’s Twitter, about the problem with being free in social media and web work.

After all, having been in this game for a decade in both “traditional” and “online” media, I totally get where Justin’s coming from.

Love Your User #1: Keep Friction Low

I twittered on this earlier today, and thought it good enough for a blog post to share with the rest of you.

I saw a cool campaign for some pretty valuable B2B information - sounds snore-o-riffic, but it was some pretty cool stuff for business nerds.

However, when I got the link from a friend, I got a note that “the form was too long and they want too much information, but it sounds interesting.”  Well, I went over there - and lo and behold, 20 fields of information that they need.  Obviously, they are qualifying people for follow-up; however, don’t you just basically need a name, an email and (maybe) a phone number?  After all, there is nothing stopping someone from entering 20 fake fields of information instead of just say 4 or 5.  The term in the industry is to aim to have “low friction.”

The lead-generation CRM nerds might dislike me for this - but we’ve seen consistently that more fields = less participation = less reach.

One of the reasons I like to “put things out there” and make sure podcasts are in big directories like iTunes and the blog that’s attached to the podcast is in Technorati and other high-profile places is that you want content to be sharable for this whole “viral” thing to work.  Yes, metrics suffers a little, I know - but the goal is to sell stuff, or influence minds, isn’t it?

Interview on Internet and Online Marketing

Thanks Rob McNealy (@RobMcNealy on Twitter) and the folks at StartupStoryRadio.com for interviewing me on internet marketing and how to find a good firm for your business.

Take a listen and enjoy!