The Asian contestant, Alex Wong, is a ballet dancer. Yet for his challenge, he had to do a hip-hop routine with all-star dancer hip-hop dancer Twitch. Something completely out of Alex’s comfort zone, but as you can see from the video and crowd/judges reaction, he nailed it. He took a chance, knew what had to be done, and nailed it.

Now think of you and your business, and how this can relate to you.

Comfort zones are funny things. On the one hand, they keep us safe because we don’t expect any surprised. On the other, they stunt our growth because they keep us safe.

Staying within our comfort zone means we don’t have to worry about taking chances; we’ve found our niche and success level and we’re happy to stick to it. That’s fine, and if you just need a certain level of success to achieve the results you first started your business for, then comfort zones will absolutely work for you.

But if you’re looking to really push your business buttons and stand out in your niche or industry, comfort zones will only take you so far. The real success only comes from taking risks.

Push yourself mentally and creatively. Look at everyday things and see how you can take that to the next level. See beyond the simple.

There’ll be a lot of stumbles along the way, and it won’t be easy to take off your comforter blanket and take the steps into new directions. But think of it this way – your customers aren’t standing still. They’re always looking for the best for them, not just the best full stop.

Comfort zones might make you the best; but they don’t necessarily make you the best for your customers. There’s a difference – step outside your zone and you’ll have a better view of what that is.

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For that, the best option is setting yourself up with a self-hosted WordPress blog.

While there’s nothing wrong per se with free blogging options like Blogger or WordPress (the .com version; self-hosted WordPress is on the .org domain), they severely limit how much interaction you have with them from a user perspective. Designs are limited as well, and add-ons aren’t supported, and to make a truly effective social media hub on your blog, you need fluidity to design.

The worst thing about free blogging options is that you’re also placing all your content into the hands of a third-party. If Blogger, WordPress or any other free blogging platforms change their Terms and Conditions, you could find yourself without a blog. With a self-hosted option, all the control lies in your hands. While there are other options like TypePad and Squarespace, I just prefer WordPress for its ease-of-use and community support.

Going Self-Hosted

Just in case you aren’t already using self-hosted WordPress, here’s a quick guide to getting set up :

• Choose a domain name and a web host to host your blog. Bluehost is perfect for this, since it offers packages that set up the domain and hosting as an all-in-one package. There are several others, so Google “web host” and find the one right for you.
• Once you have your account, you’ll be taken to an area called C-panel. This is simply the Admin dashboard for all the backroom stuff associated with your site. Once in there, its simply a matter of using Fantastico to set up your WordPress account, as shown by my friend  John Haydon’s video.

Planting the Seeds

The reasons for using a self-hosted WordPress blog are numerous, but the main two (at least as far as a social media hub is concerned) are design and add-on flexibility. Since the hub is going to be both your home-base and outpost, you need a platform that can handle your needs – WordPress is perfect for this.

The look and feel of your hub will define how useful it is to your visitors. The less cluttered the look, the more effective the hub can be, although some folks prefer a more information-led design. This is where WordPress and a premium theme comes into play (a theme is just a pre-designed look or framework for your blog) -  you can choose a template, page, sub-pages, sub-domain or any number of design options to present your hub.

There are benefits to each option:

• A page holds everything in one area, although it could get cluttered.
• Sub-pages allow you to set up different niche hubs (more on that tomorrow).
• Sub-domains offer a completely separate hub altogether, but still tied to your blog’s main domain.
• Templates allow a different look and feel from your blog design, and help give that unique hub feel.

What you choose will mostly be determined by how many resources you populate your hub with. How you populate these resources is up to you; again, the great thing with self-hosted WordPress is that the flexibility of design is limitless, thanks to plug-ins.

Social Media Plug-Ins for Your Hub

WordPress is an open-source community, which means that there is a whole community of developers making really cool applications (or plug-ins) every day. These are released to the WordPress userbase (almost always free of charge) and you can then use them on your blog to help turn it into anything you like.

Some of the best ones for a social media hub (and ones that I’ll show you examples of in the design post coming next in the series) include:

• Enthropia’s Lifestream. One of the ways to show what you’re up to on different networks is Lifestreaming, and Enthropia’s plug-in for WordPress is one of the simplest. This is perfect for those that don’t want a full-on social media hub.
• Twitter Tools. Offers great integration between Twitter and your blog and vice versa, including tweet archives, posts, admin options and more.
• Smart YouTube. Ideal for video bloggers, this gives you a larger set of options than just video embedding – playlists, RSS feed support and iPhone compatibility being just a few.
• FotoBook. While there are plug-ins and widgets to integrate your blog with Facebook, one of the coolest to do this in reverse is FotoBook. This imports all your pictures from Facebook and enhances the personal aspect of your social media hub.

These are just some plug-ins that, along with your design and the existing applications from the various social networks, will make up your social media hub. The great thing with WordPress is that, no matter what you’re looking to do via your hub, you can probably find a plug-in for it. Just go to WordPress Extend and start searching – that’s where the treasure is to shape your hub, your way.

Takeaway: Make a list of how many features you’d like on your blog. Decide if you want to go for a single page, sub-pages, sub-domain and how intensive or lite you wish your hub to be. Sketch some ideas for layout, since tomorrow we’ll look at the various options available, with examples of each to a successful hub.

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So, yeah – social media is a pretty big thing. But it can also be a pretty fractured thing as well.

New platforms spring up, old ones wither and die, some are more beneficial than others and some will just take up valuable time and waste it. And it doesn’t matter if you’re using social media personally or professionally, time is a luxury very few of us can afford to be lenient with.

This is where having a single point social media hub comes into play (or at the very least, a single collection point for all the passengers that are your social outposts).

Instead of being fractured, you concentrate your efforts where they’ll have most impact. You also make it easier for people to connect and interact with you (which, from a business point of view, is the relationship to the sale). And for personal users, these interactions open you up to whatever future possibilities you may already be planning (career, business idea, non-profit support, etc).

And the best place for your social media hub? Your own blog.

The Blog is the Hub

Why your blog? Simple (and I’m talking mainly from a self-hosted option here – free is fine but self-hosted is your complete control) – the only limitations to what your hub contains are your needs and outreach goals.

You define the role your blog will play in your social outreach as well as your social incoming – and that’s the key word here. You.

A lot of people use  Facebook as their social media hub, and it’s a great platform for doing this. But it’s a third-party solution, so you’ll always be bound by their terms and conditions. All you’re doing is renting space and abiding by a landlord’s rule. But your blog – especially a self-hosted one – is your rulebook. For this alone, it’s the ideal platform to create a social media hub.

But there’s a lot more to your blog acting as your hub than not giving over control to third parties. By using your blog as your home-base and connecting the dots to your social outposts, you’re essentially making yourself both resource and resource centre.

Yes,  Twitter initiates great connections and is ideal for short-burst infomercials. Facebook is perfect for offering a neutral ground on connecting only with those you want to connect with.  Viddler and  blip.tv are both great platforms for finding and sharing more than just text.  LinkedIn is the portal that holds many a key to your business goals.

But every single one is a separate entity from each other. Not all the connections on one will be connected on the others. See the potential time suck for keeping up with every account, while doing your day job too? There is one common denominator though – you. You’re the filling on the sandwich; the bus driver to the destination; the glue that holds everything together.

Turning this glue to your blog makes it – and therefore, you – sticky. The reason kids like connect the dot books is that there’s a defined path, a clear goal and direction. Taking the pain out of finding you, what you do and where you do it is the adult equivalent of connect the dot books. Your blog-led social media hub is the perfect dot connector.

Defining the Hub Spokes

A good hub is only as strong as its spokes. Where it feeds to; how it feeds inward; who the spokes talk to and who speak via the spokes. To make your hub effective, you need to showcase its – your – strengths and build on them. You need to have a clear, defined path, how you’re going to travel it and what’s going to make the journey easier (both for you and fellow travelers).

To define your hub, you need to ask some questions:

• Where will my focus be?
• What is my goal?
• What are my measurement points?
• Where can I outsource to outposts and where should I build at home?

These are just some of the questions that will define what kind of hub you have and where the hub leads to (and leads back from). Answering these (and ones that will come organically because of them) will start to define you within your hub. And that’s where the real fun and success begins.

Takeaway: Look at where you currently have a presence online. Social networks; forums; community sites like  Ning; video or podcasting sites. Do a mini audit and see which ones are strong and which need work. Ask yourself if the weaker ones are worth continuing or if you can sacrifice them to take the others and use as building blocks to make a solid social media hub with.

This is the first part of a seven part mini-series looking at how and why to turn your blog into a social media hub. You’ll be able to find the complete series here.

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These are all quotes I’ve seen from various voices recently. Each one pretty much agrees with the other – that social media is a great tool for you to implement into your business because it’s so cost-effective and will give you quicker results.

Sadly, it’s not true.

Yes, you’ll save on equivalent costings from a traditional media advertising push. Yes, you can see instant results and measurable returns on your investment. But cheap and quick? Not quite. Particularly if you’re looking at implementing a strategy and social media campaign (and yes, social media purists, you can have a social media campaign).

It Costs Money to Plan

Let’s say you have a new product or service. Let’s also say that you’ve seen competitors enjoy success using social media to launch a similar product or service. You know yours is better, so you know that social media (used properly) would further see you outshine your competitors. So, easy, right? You just set up a Facebook page, a Twitter account, maybe a video sharing channel and off you go.

Stop. Back up a little. Have you asked yourself the right questions before you start?

• Have you thought strategy?
• Have you carried out a social media audit?
• Have you set measurements in place?
• Have you determined where you’ll be and who’ll be there for you?
• Have you set aside the right budget?
• Will you be using internal expertise or outsourcing?
• Do you have to build anything?

These are just some of the immediate questions you need to be asking before even starting. Getting the answers is going to take man hours. Lots of man hours. Multiply that by the payscale of the person/people doing that research and your costs are already starting.

Social Media is Cheap. Uh… No, It’s Not

It doesn’t matter whether you’re coordinating a social media campaign internally or externally, you’re going to have to allocate budget to it. This includes costs for strategy, community management, mobile app and moderation/maintenance. Let’s see how that might pan out (based on a 12-month campaign and with earnings based on survey results).

• Social media strategist: 10 hours per week @ $100 per hour = $1,000 per week. Total for 52 weeks – $52,000.
• Community manager: 30 hours per week @ $60 per hour = $1,800 per week. Total for 52 weeks – $93,600.
• Micro-site build (if not using existing platforms) – $15,000.
• Mobile application (more than 70% of web browsing is via mobile phone) – between $20,000 and $150,000 depending on functionality.
• Ongoing moderation and measurement using third-party specialists – between $30,000 and $80,000 depending on frequency.
• Total = $390,600.

Now I’ve given you worst-case scenarios, since you probably won’t need a social media strategist for the whole time during the campaign. You might only need a community manager half the time mentioned above. You can also build micro-sites for less; the cost will depend on how interactive you want the site to be.

But even if you halve the total cost used in my example above, you’re still looking at $195,300. Almost $200,000 for a year-long social media campaign.

Compare that to a print ad that may cost anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000 for one run, and yes, it’s clear that social media offers a comparably cost-effective solution. But to say that it’s cheap and quick? That’s setting you up for a flawed approach from the start and will only bite you in the long run.

How about you? How expensive (or inexpensive) have you found social media, both from a financial and time management angle? I’d love to hear your experiences.

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