Thank Your Body

 

Situation

A movement therapist wanted to branch out and connect with more people online. She had plenty of ideas of what she would write about, but she didn't know the best way to attract new people to her site.

Challenge

After discussing her goals further, we determined I would help her:

1. develop a look a feel to her site matching her holistic health and wellness perspective
2. implement the social networking tools necessary to attract new followers and regular site attendance

Solution

THE LOOK

Helping design the look of the site was actually really easy. She already had some ideas that matched her lively self, and all I had to do was help her refine the Photoshop files and get everything on her site the way it should be.


THE TOOLS

Drawing upon my organizational communication training, we decided to setup the site to handle two different types of social networking activities: pushing and pulling.

PULLING occurs when a site has a fan or follow type button, where once signed up the user will automatically receive site updates via email, rss, etc. This seems to be the first thing people think of putting on their site when you mention social networking.

However, there is another way to spread the word.

PUSHING occur when a user shares your site with their friends and contacts. It is commonly seen on Facebook as the “Like” button or in this site's case an Add This button.

So, why do most sites with social networking functionality offer only type of social activity button?

I believe the reason is two fold. First, its hard to place both sets of buttons on a page without it looking funny with similar icons so close together. (I think Thank Your Body is a particularly good example of how it can be done well.) Second, most people just don't know the difference between the two and why you would want both.

Think of it this way:

Pulling is a RETENTION activity. You want it to be as easy as possible for others to view your site again and again. I can't think of any better way to do this than to have your site updates automatically delivered their “inbox” of choice.

Pushing is an EXPANSION activity. As readers continue to read your site, they are in fact giving you more and more opportunities to hit them with the silver bullet. You never know when something you write will inspire them just enough to share your site on their facebook or twitter account and BAM!, all 130+ of their friends are instantly informed about you and your page.

(*According to the statistics, 130 is the average number of facebook friends per user.  Active social internet users are likely to have many many more.)

After setting up the necessary feeds, social networking profiles, writing the code, and uploading everything to her site, all that was left was for her to write some posts.

Results

Now, when I say “all that was left” was for her to write some posts, I am being sarcastic. This is probably the hardest part for people do.  In order to be a successful social networker you need to publish quality content consistently – especially at the beginning when you feel no one is reading your site.

But it does pay off, and it can happen quicker than you imagine.

In the past 7 months, since ThankYourBody.com was born into existence, it has already exceeded 3000 natural website hits, and has generated real money from movement therapy jobs procured entirely through the site.

I look forward to seeing how this site is doing in another year, five and ten years down the road!