My biggest frustration with Blogger has been the absolute lack of spam moderation. This has been a problem, because I’ve had my humor blog for five years on Blogspot. And while I have been relatively free of spam, lately I’ve been getting a single spam message by a Chinese spammer on every post I make, which meant I had to delete it every single time.
I tried making people sign in, then made it so only people with a Google account could leave a comment. But this weasel was always a step ahead, and I had to delete message after message.
But Blogger finally caught up with something WordPress has been able to do for years: block spam comments.
Blogger now filters spam comments into a spam folder, just like the one they have in Gmail.
When someone leaves a comment on your blog, it will be reviewed against our spam detector, and comments that are identified as possible spam will be sent to your blog’s Spam Inbox, found at Comments | Spam.
While I thoroughly appreciate the filter and the fact that they’re finally doing something about blog spam, why couldn’t they do this a couple years ago?
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
I’ve been playing around with Friend Or Follow over the last few days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people suck at Twitter.
Friend Or Follow is a Twitter tool that shows people you’re following, but aren’t following you; people who follow you, but you’re not following; and people you have a mutual followship with.
I dumped over 500 people from my Twitter account this week with FOF. I checked out each account I unfollowed, and frankly, some of you people are just doing it wrong. That’s why I unfollowed you. Not sure if this includes you? Then check out the…
Five signs you suck at Twitter.
You claim to be a social media consultant/pro/expert/guru (CPEG), but your following to follower ratio is 10:1. That is, you’re followed by 5,000 or more people, but only following 500. Social media consultants looove to say “have conversations with people.” But shouldn’t people who truly value conversation be willing to, I don’t know, have them?. Or at least fake like you are? If you’re a CPEG, you should have a ratio fairly close to 1:1. This is not to say that everyone should have a 1:1 ratio. Just the CPEGs. (Pro tip: you’ll also have more than 200 followers. I’m just sayin’.)
Nearly every one of your tweets is some motivational or inspirational message. Why do I need to get ten motivational messages peppered throughout the day? If it didn’t help me at 8:30 — 29 minutes after your HootSuite-scheduled “Good morning, my tweeps! Make this an excellent day!” — then it’s not going to help me at 9:30, 10:30, and so on. Don’t regurgitate someone else’s cleverness, show me yours. If you really want to motivate me, tell me about the cool stuff you’re doing.
You’re trying to amass as many followers as you can. If you’re a celebrity, a public figure, or someone who’s really, really interesting, that’s great. If you grew your network through hard work and earned those followers, more power to you. But if you resort to computer scripts, trickery, and joining follower-building networks to boost your rankings, then stick with being a LinkedIn LION. Twitter is not a competitive sport. Despite what you’re already doing to LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter isn’t just one more race to the bottom of mediocrity and uselessness.
Your Twitter bio has the words “money,” “fast,” and “make” in it. I spam-block every single person whose bio says they have some money making system they want to share with me. Stick to peddling penis drugs and fake watches by email.
Your time between tweets can be measured with a calendar. You don’t have to tweet many times a day, but at least once a day wouldn’t kill you. Even every other day would be fine. But when you’re only tweeting every 3 – 4 weeks on a regular basis, then Twitter isn’t a communication tool, it’s an afterthought, like calling your mom the day after Mother’s Day.
What is your Twitter pet peeve? What sort of annoying behavior have you seen?
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.
For example, Scotland is cutting £2 million ($3.1 million) for the arts. The National Theatre of Scotland, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, and Scottish Opera are all facing cuts of 10% in government funding.
This all got me to wondering how arts organizations could use social media to promote themselves, and find additional fans, attendees, and donors.
The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is one of the largest arts organizations in Indiana.
There are only a few arts organizations using social media, but with social media’s explosive growth, the organizations that aren’t are missing a great opportunity.
While you may think that social media is only for young people, this is a fallacy that has long been disproved. In fact, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women, age 50 – 60. If that demographic fits within your core audience, shouldn’t you be trying to reach them? And what better place to do it than where they are already?
Second, if your core audience is people in their 50s and 60s, don’t you want to try to reach a younger audience? Otherwise, your audience will get smaller and smaller as they retire, move away, and die. If a younger audience is using social media, then you should try to reach them in their world, instead of forcing them to come to yours. They haven’t come yet, and that’s not going to change any time soon.
So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.
Set up a blog and give readers a behind-the-scenes look at your organization. Your blog should be more than just a press release center. Don’t just make it a place to dump all your promotional information. Post photos of rehearsals. Let staff, actors, and performers post their thoughts on performances. Post diary-like reflections of preparing for an upcoming show or performance.
Create podcasts of musical performances.If you’re a musical organization, create a regular podcast, and make that available to the public. People can listen to past performances and get an idea of what you sound like. But if you think “if people hear us on a podcast, they won’t want to come,” that’s untrue. (Did you know that was the argument by orchestras against selling sheet music, the Victrola, and radio?) The New York and Chicago Philharmonics have shows on public radio stations around the country, and the Indianapolis Symphony has a highlights show on WFYI, our local public radio station, and yet they still get people to attend. If anything, when people hear a performance, it makes them want to see it live.
Create videos of performances. If you are a performing arts organization, try posting videos from past performances on YouTube, and then putting them up on your blog. This is especially true for visual performances, like dance and theatre troupes. This will let people know the kind of thing they can expect when they attend one of your performances. And if they like what they see online, they’ll want to be a part of the experience, and attend a show.
Create a Facebook page for your organization. If there was a single social networking tool that was made for arts organizations, Facebook is it. Not only does it have the largest population of social media users (500 million people around the world), but it’s ideally suited for posting or reposting content from other sites. You can repost your blog content, videos, and photos to your Facebook page. You can ask your members and attendees to join, communicate with them directly, ask them to tell their friends, which will bring in new Facebook friends.
Share your contacts with other organizations. Yeah, I saved this point for last, because a lot of you will think I’m crazy. But think about it for a minute: your biggest competitors are not the other performing arts organizations in the area, it’s television, movies, restaurants, and general laziness. You probably don’t share members, so you’re not competing for the same dollars. But sharing contacts could be a benefit to both organizations. For one thing, you can introduce dance fans to the music that supports the dancers. You can introduce theater goers to dance, another visual art form. And as you cross-pollinate your membership, both organizations will benefit, rather than steal members.
How can you cross-promote with another organization?
Do a feature of each other in your respective blogs.
Promote ticket sales (buy one of ours, get one of theirs for 50% off).
Do a joint performance, like their orchestra playing for your opera. Have their chamber quartet play at your museum event.
“Like” their Facebook page, and encourage your Facebook friends to like it as well. Ask them to reciprocate.
By combining your social media efforts, you can double your efforts, introduce a whole new audience — who is already predisposed to appreciating the performing arts — to your organization. The result is you’ll be able to add new audience members to each organization, and strengthen both.
What is your organization doing? Are you using social media, or do you want to try using it? And if you’re not in an arts organization, how have you seen other organizations using it?
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
I’m also speaking at the Social Media 101 event on Thursday, August 14 about — what else? — Social Media. This is for you new bloggers who are still learning about social media and blogging.
If you want to attend, I can give you a 10% discount off the tickets (because I’m kind of a big deal. Wait, what? They’re giving all the speakers that deal? Suck!). You can register for BlogIndiana 2010 (affiliate link) on the website. Enter the code “SPEAKTOME10” and you’ll get 10% off your registration fee.
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
I had a friend respond to one of my previous blog posts with an interesting reverse on my previous statement:
Is blogging really killing newspapers? Or is it that the decline in the quality of newspapers has lead to an increase in blogging?
This really has become a chicken-or-egg problem for me. Which cause is leading to what effect? Has it really been that blogging is killing newspapers, because people would rather get their news online? Or has the continual firing of local writers and publishing the national news wires meant that people are abandoning their newspapers for more local news?
I have always had a complaint about the Indianapolis Star, our local paper, which seems to be doing everything they can to get rid of their local writers. They’ve fired many of their local columnists and beat reporters, and they even got rid of their local blogger program. Last year, they worked with local bloggers to write about their local news — their suburbs, neighborhoods, and towns — and it was one of the most popular sections of the online newspaper. But they discontinued the practice, and readership declined once again.
Now, these dips on the chart are not the times they released their local bloggers. In fact, this is only a basic look at readership, and not even a totally accurate one. (Compete.com can tell us trends, not a completely accurate look, like you would get with an analytics package, like Yahoo Analytics or Google Analytics.)
But if I were the Indy Star, I would try anything to get rid of those dips. If local bloggers are able to attract readers, get them. If local writers covering local news brings in subscribers, hire them, and lay off the upper management who keep making these poor decisions.
I don’t think it’s the bloggers who are causing the drop. But rather, whatever is making people abandon their online local newspaper is what’s driving them to get their news from other sources.
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
We’ve been debating around the office whether it’s better to write for search or to write for readers.
I think it’s actually a little of both.
On the one hand, there are people who will never optimize a single blog post for search engines. They just write awesome stuff and people flock to them through word of mouth.
On the other, there are people who believe that it’s okay to churn out crap, just so long as you win search engine results. Their thought is if you win more search, you get more traffic.
The problem with the latter is that while you may get more traffic, you also get more people who see your writing is crap, and so you get more people who ignore you. The problem with the former is that you can’t rely on word of mouth. That’s why it’s important that you do both.
I call it writing for posterity.
Writing for posterity means you want to win search, but you also want people to read it. It means you optimize for search while you write as well as you can. This shouldn’t be an either/or proposition.
I had a great example of writing for posterity on my Laughing Stalk humor blog last week. For no reason that I can determine, I got a big spike of readers — 600 over 3 days — showing up at a column I wrote nearly a year ago.
My blog post/humor column, “Honey, It’s Over. Burma Shave!“, started ranking high on my Google Analytics, nearly 10 months after I first wrote it.
The source? Google.se, or Google Sweden.
The reason? I don’t even know. I don’t know if I got featured on a front page somehow. I don’t know if a news story mentioned the incident. I don’t know if there was an auditorium filled with Swedes who were all visiting my site.
What I know is that I had nearly 606 Swedes visit my site over a 3 day period, and spend some time on my site. They came because they found me on Google (Google Sweden, which I guess just makes me Swedish famous), and they stayed for an average of 40 seconds. Not huge time, but all the RSS bots seem to be screwing with my Time On Page stats.
Had I tried to just focus on search for this post, my readability would have most likely suffered. But had I just focused on readership, I may never have been found.
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
A couple weeks ago, Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot’s blog manager, talked to Google’s chief blogger, Karen Wickre about corporate blogging, and the important things companies need to do when taking the plunge into blogging.
Wickre says the most important thing a company new to blogging should do is to get a feel for what’s out there, and consider what they would want their blog to say. A blog could be personal, could be about thought leadership, or could focus on customer service. But find the blog’s voice, and stick with it, she says.
While that’s important, I don’t think it’s the most important thing. In some ways, that issue is going to resolve itself as time goes by.
I believe the most important thing about corporate blogging is that a blog will “establish ground for the company.” Wickre said a good company blog should do all these things:
Do most posts offer useful or unique information?
Do they reflect the company’s values and interests?
Do they demonstrate the people behind the company/products?
Wickre had other good points for corporate bloggers to consider, but for me, this was the biggest. We try to get our clients to see that their blog needs to be more than just a commercial, or a catalog. Yes, you can have those kinds of posts, but you also need to tell your customers about your company. You need to show what you stand for, how you work, why you work. You need to answer questions about your company, your products, and your values. You need to introduce your staff to your customers, and let them develop relationships. (Remember, people buy from people they like. If they like your staff, they’ll like your company, and they’ll buy from you.)
Your corporate blog is more than just a marketing mouthpiece. It’s not a cheap form of sales literature. It’s the window into your company and possibly one of the best ways to communicate with your customers. So find the voice, jump in, and you’ll answer all Wickre’s questions as time goes by.
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
I’m so sick of these 40 under 40 lists I see going around. Indianapolis Business Journal did a 40 under 40. There are Young Professionals Groups all over the place. And even the trade organizations are getting in on it.
What’s the big deal with being 39 or less? It’s if 40 is some magical number that anyone over it is no longer good enough to be considered awesome. As if you’re over 40, the rest of society is going to go all Logan’s Run on you. As if being over 40 means you’re a doddering geezer who’s staining their shirtfront with drool and cluelessness.
The Social Media 40 OVER 40 List
The Social Media 40 OVER 40
I’m tired of it, and I’m going to do something about it. So I’m going to compile a Social Media 40 OVER 40 list.
This isn’t a definitive list yet. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how this is going to turn out. Is it based on voting? Is it an editorial decision? Will we do it state by state? We’re not sure. It depends on how big this gets.
But here’s what I want. I want nominations of anyone who is 40 years or older and works with social media, whether professionally, or as part of their job responsibilities, or even someone who does it as a sideline or hobby. I just want nominations of someone who is a rock star, or aspiring rock star, in social media.
If you want to nominate yourself, that’s fine. There is no shame in doing this. If you want to nominate someone else, that’s fine too. Please leave the following information in the comments section:
Name
City, State
Twitter handle
Website (hey, you can even link to it so you get some SEO juice out of it)
No more than 200 words about how you’re using social media.
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
You hired incompetent staff. You hired people you can’t trust to properly deliver your company message. You hired people you don’t believe will represent you correctly to the outside world. That sounds like you made some bad decisions.
Do you trust your employees to answer your phones, or do you answer all the calls yourself? Do you trust your salespeople to speak to customers without you, or go on all the sales calls with them?
Of course you trust them. You have people you trust to count and spend your money. You have people you trust to write sales brochures and organize trade shows. You have people you trust to produce your product, put it in a box, and stick it on a truck. You have people you trust to speak to customers when they call in with complaints. And you even have employees you trust enough to let have access to email.
Yet you don’t have people you can trust to write 350 words three times a week on a platform where errors are easily fixed? That means you hired the wrong people for the job, and that’s nobody’s fault but yours.
Think of it this way:
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh trusted his employees.
Hsieh trusted them to tweet and blog.
They tweeted and blogged the bejeezus out of that company, in addition to providing some awesome customer service.
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Anyone can write a basic blog. It’s not that hard. And I’ve talked for hours, whether at seminars or at a one-on-one “brain picking” session about basic blog writing. But I rarely get the chance to talk about advanced blogging, the secrets that I use to improve my blog, and make it stand out from the hundreds of thousands of basic blogs.
This is a good book to use for advanced blogging. At least until I write my own.
Here are 10 advanced blog writing techniques we use for our clients and ourselves.
Use WordPress.org: I don’t have anything against platforms like Blogspot.com, WordPress.com, or Posterous.com (I have blogs on all three). But WordPress.org is what a lot of the pros use, because it’s extremely customizable and you can improve its functionality with a few plug-ins.
Use a search engine optimization plug-in: We use All in One SEO Pack and Zemanta. Both of these let us do some additional optimization on our articles, which is something the other blog platforms don’t do as well.
Choose 1 – 2 keywords or phrases per post: Stick with the mantra, “one idea, one keyword, one post, one day.” This post is about the keyword phrase “blog writing techniques,” and nothing else. Not about choosing topics, not about winning readers, not about whether video or photos help with readership, it’s just about how you actually write posts. By doing this, I not only boost my SEO efforts, but I don’t overload people with information.
Write catchy, dramatic headlines: Your headline needs to be catchy, interesting, and compelling. Include phrases like “10 Secrets” or “5 Tips” to fire peoples’ interest. Also, be sure to use your exact keyword phrase in the title for better SEO.
Watch your keyword density: Density means the percentage ratio of keywords to copy. This particular article has about a 1% keyword density (1 keyword every 100 words). If the number is below 1%, search engines might not realize what your post is about. Anything over 2 %- 3% could be seen as keyword stuffing, and the search engines could drop you. Shoot for 1.5% – 1.99%. Divide the number of keywords by the total number of words to figure density.
Automate your cross-posting: Use services like Twitterfeed.com and Ping.fm to promote your posts to your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts, and 40 other social networks. It will save you several minutes every time you publish a post.
Use analytics to determine how your effectiveness: This lets you see where your traffic is coming from, what brought them there, and how long they stayed. You may learn that a particular keyword is getting a lot of traffic, so you write about that topic again. Or that a particular website is sending a lot of traffic, so you work to get published on that site again. I like Google Analytics for solid analytics.
Publish your blog 2 – 3 times a week: Everyone who starts blogging has great intentions, but life intrudes and this resolution gets broken like it’s January 3rd. If you want to excel at blogging, you must write more than once a week. Schedule an hour a day to write, or schedule a three hour block, and write all your posts in advance.
Become a fast writer: Writing fast means being able to find the best words and assemble 400 of them in 20 minutes. If you can’t do this, focus on those things that are holding you back, and work to overcome them. Being able to write fast will also help you publish more frequently.
About the Author: Erik Deckers Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Blogger FINALLY Gets Spam Filter
My biggest frustration with Blogger has been the absolute lack of spam moderation. This has been a problem, because I’ve had my humor blog for five years on Blogspot. And while I have been relatively free of spam, lately I’ve been getting a single spam message by a Chinese spammer on every post I make, which meant I had to delete it every single time.
I tried making people sign in, then made it so only people with a Google account could leave a comment. But this weasel was always a step ahead, and I had to delete message after message.
But Blogger finally caught up with something WordPress has been able to do for years: block spam comments.
Blogger now filters spam comments into a spam folder, just like the one they have in Gmail.
While I thoroughly appreciate the filter and the fact that they’re finally doing something about blog spam, why couldn’t they do this a couple years ago?
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: Blogger, blogging, comments, spam
Posted in Blogging, Tools | View Comments
5 Signs You Suck at Twitter
I’ve been playing around with Friend Or Follow over the last few days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people suck at Twitter.
Friend Or Follow is a Twitter tool that shows people you’re following, but aren’t following you; people who follow you, but you’re not following; and people you have a mutual followship with.
I dumped over 500 people from my Twitter account this week with FOF. I checked out each account I unfollowed, and frankly, some of you people are just doing it wrong. That’s why I unfollowed you. Not sure if this includes you? Then check out the…
Five signs you suck at Twitter.
What is your Twitter pet peeve? What sort of annoying behavior have you seen?
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: facebook, linkedin, social networking, social networks, twitter
Posted in Networking, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | View Comments
5 Ways Arts Organizations Should Use Social Media
Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.
For example, Scotland is cutting £2 million ($3.1 million) for the arts. The National Theatre of Scotland, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, and Scottish Opera are all facing cuts of 10% in government funding.
This all got me to wondering how arts organizations could use social media to promote themselves, and find additional fans, attendees, and donors.
The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is one of the largest arts organizations in Indiana.
While you may think that social media is only for young people, this is a fallacy that has long been disproved. In fact, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women, age 50 – 60. If that demographic fits within your core audience, shouldn’t you be trying to reach them? And what better place to do it than where they are already?
Second, if your core audience is people in their 50s and 60s, don’t you want to try to reach a younger audience? Otherwise, your audience will get smaller and smaller as they retire, move away, and die. If a younger audience is using social media, then you should try to reach them in their world, instead of forcing them to come to yours. They haven’t come yet, and that’s not going to change any time soon.
So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.
How can you cross-promote with another organization?
By combining your social media efforts, you can double your efforts, introduce a whole new audience — who is already predisposed to appreciating the performing arts — to your organization. The result is you’ll be able to add new audience members to each organization, and strengthen both.
What is your organization doing? Are you using social media, or do you want to try using it? And if you’re not in an arts organization, how have you seen other organizations using it?
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: facebook, Lead Generation, performing arts, Social Media, social media marketing, tickets
Posted in Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networks | View Comments
Learn 7 New Secrets to Promote Your Blog at BlogIndiana
I’ll be speaking for the third year in a row at BlogIndiana on 7 NEW Secrets to Promoting Your Blog Through Social Media. My session is at 10:15, on Saturday, August 16, in Room 252 of the ITCC Building on IUPUI’s campus.
I’m also speaking at the Social Media 101 event on Thursday, August 14 about — what else? — Social Media. This is for you new bloggers who are still learning about social media and blogging.
If you want to attend, I can give you a 10% discount off the tickets (because I’m kind of a big deal. Wait, what? They’re giving all the speakers that deal? Suck!). You can register for BlogIndiana 2010 (affiliate link) on the website. Enter the code “SPEAKTOME10” and you’ll get 10% off your registration fee.
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: blog promotion, blogging, BlogIndiana, Presentations, Social Media, speaking
Posted in Blog Writing, Blogging, Social Media, Social Media Analytics | View Comments
Have Bad Newspapers Increased the Need for Blogging?
I had a friend respond to one of my previous blog posts with an interesting reverse on my previous statement:
Is blogging really killing newspapers? Or is it that the decline in the quality of newspapers has lead to an increase in blogging?
This really has become a chicken-or-egg problem for me. Which cause is leading to what effect? Has it really been that blogging is killing newspapers, because people would rather get their news online? Or has the continual firing of local writers and publishing the national news wires meant that people are abandoning their newspapers for more local news?
I have always had a complaint about the Indianapolis Star, our local paper, which seems to be doing everything they can to get rid of their local writers. They’ve fired many of their local columnists and beat reporters, and they even got rid of their local blogger program. Last year, they worked with local bloggers to write about their local news — their suburbs, neighborhoods, and towns — and it was one of the most popular sections of the online newspaper. But they discontinued the practice, and readership declined once again.
Now, these dips on the chart are not the times they released their local bloggers. In fact, this is only a basic look at readership, and not even a totally accurate one. (Compete.com can tell us trends, not a completely accurate look, like you would get with an analytics package, like Yahoo Analytics or Google Analytics.)
But if I were the Indy Star, I would try anything to get rid of those dips. If local bloggers are able to attract readers, get them. If local writers covering local news brings in subscribers, hire them, and lay off the upper management who keep making these poor decisions.
I don’t think it’s the bloggers who are causing the drop. But rather, whatever is making people abandon their online local newspaper is what’s driving them to get their news from other sources.
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: blogging, citizen journalism, mainstream media, newspapers
Posted in Blog Writing, Traditional Media, Writing | View Comments
Blogging for Posterity, not Search or Readership
We’ve been debating around the office whether it’s better to write for search or to write for readers.
I think it’s actually a little of both.
On the one hand, there are people who will never optimize a single blog post for search engines. They just write awesome stuff and people flock to them through word of mouth.
On the other, there are people who believe that it’s okay to churn out crap, just so long as you win search engine results. Their thought is if you win more search, you get more traffic.
The problem with the latter is that while you may get more traffic, you also get more people who see your writing is crap, and so you get more people who ignore you. The problem with the former is that you can’t rely on word of mouth. That’s why it’s important that you do both.
I call it writing for posterity.
Writing for posterity means you want to win search, but you also want people to read it. It means you optimize for search while you write as well as you can. This shouldn’t be an either/or proposition.
I had a great example of writing for posterity on my Laughing Stalk humor blog last week. For no reason that I can determine, I got a big spike of readers — 600 over 3 days — showing up at a column I wrote nearly a year ago.
My blog post/humor column, “Honey, It’s Over. Burma Shave!“, started ranking high on my Google Analytics, nearly 10 months after I first wrote it.
The source? Google.se, or Google Sweden.
The reason? I don’t even know. I don’t know if I got featured on a front page somehow. I don’t know if a news story mentioned the incident. I don’t know if there was an auditorium filled with Swedes who were all visiting my site.
What I know is that I had nearly 606 Swedes visit my site over a 3 day period, and spend some time on my site. They came because they found me on Google (Google Sweden, which I guess just makes me Swedish famous), and they stayed for an average of 40 seconds. Not huge time, but all the RSS bots seem to be screwing with my Time On Page stats.
Had I tried to just focus on search for this post, my readability would have most likely suffered. But had I just focused on readership, I may never have been found.
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: blog analytics, blog writing, blogging, readability, search engines, writing
Posted in Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Writing | View Comments
Corporate Blogging’s Chief Purpose from Google’s Chief Blogger
A couple weeks ago, Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot’s blog manager, talked to Google’s chief blogger, Karen Wickre about corporate blogging, and the important things companies need to do when taking the plunge into blogging.
Wickre says the most important thing a company new to blogging should do is to get a feel for what’s out there, and consider what they would want their blog to say. A blog could be personal, could be about thought leadership, or could focus on customer service. But find the blog’s voice, and stick with it, she says.
While that’s important, I don’t think it’s the most important thing. In some ways, that issue is going to resolve itself as time goes by.
I believe the most important thing about corporate blogging is that a blog will “establish ground for the company.” Wickre said a good company blog should do all these things:
Wickre had other good points for corporate bloggers to consider, but for me, this was the biggest. We try to get our clients to see that their blog needs to be more than just a commercial, or a catalog. Yes, you can have those kinds of posts, but you also need to tell your customers about your company. You need to show what you stand for, how you work, why you work. You need to answer questions about your company, your products, and your values. You need to introduce your staff to your customers, and let them develop relationships. (Remember, people buy from people they like. If they like your staff, they’ll like your company, and they’ll buy from you.)
Your corporate blog is more than just a marketing mouthpiece. It’s not a cheap form of sales literature. It’s the window into your company and possibly one of the best ways to communicate with your customers. So find the voice, jump in, and you’ll answer all Wickre’s questions as time goes by.
Photo credit: DannySullivan (Flickr)
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: blogging, business blogging, corporate blogging, Google
Posted in Blog ROI, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Marketing | View Comments
Taking Nominations for Social Media’s 40 OVER 40
I’m so sick of these 40 under 40 lists I see going around. Indianapolis Business Journal did a 40 under 40. There are Young Professionals Groups all over the place. And even the trade organizations are getting in on it.
What’s the big deal with being 39 or less? It’s if 40 is some magical number that anyone over it is no longer good enough to be considered awesome. As if you’re over 40, the rest of society is going to go all Logan’s Run on you. As if being over 40 means you’re a doddering geezer who’s staining their shirtfront with drool and cluelessness.
The Social Media 40 OVER 40 List
The Social Media 40 OVER 40
I’m tired of it, and I’m going to do something about it. So I’m going to compile a Social Media 40 OVER 40 list.
This isn’t a definitive list yet. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how this is going to turn out. Is it based on voting? Is it an editorial decision? Will we do it state by state? We’re not sure. It depends on how big this gets.
But here’s what I want. I want nominations of anyone who is 40 years or older and works with social media, whether professionally, or as part of their job responsibilities, or even someone who does it as a sideline or hobby. I just want nominations of someone who is a rock star, or aspiring rock star, in social media.
If you want to nominate yourself, that’s fine. There is no shame in doing this. If you want to nominate someone else, that’s fine too. Please leave the following information in the comments section:
Photo credit: RileyRoxx (Flickr)
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: 40 over 40, contest, Social Media
Posted in Marketing, News, Public Relations, Social Media | View Comments
Don’t Trust Your Staff to Write Your Corporate Blog? Guess Whose Fault That Is.
Do you trust your staff to blog?
No? Then that’s your fault.
You hired incompetent staff. You hired people you can’t trust to properly deliver your company message. You hired people you don’t believe will represent you correctly to the outside world. That sounds like you made some bad decisions.
Do you trust your employees to answer your phones, or do you answer all the calls yourself? Do you trust your salespeople to speak to customers without you, or go on all the sales calls with them?
Of course you trust them. You have people you trust to count and spend your money. You have people you trust to write sales brochures and organize trade shows. You have people you trust to produce your product, put it in a box, and stick it on a truck. You have people you trust to speak to customers when they call in with complaints. And you even have employees you trust enough to let have access to email.
Yet you don’t have people you can trust to write 350 words three times a week on a platform where errors are easily fixed? That means you hired the wrong people for the job, and that’s nobody’s fault but yours.
Think of it this way:
Now do you want to trust your employees?
Photo credit: James @ NZ (Flickr)
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: blogging, business blogging, corporate blogging, Marketing, Zappos
Posted in Blog Writing, Blogging, Marketing | View Comments
10 Advanced Blog Writing Techniques Used By Professional Bloggers
Anyone can write a basic blog. It’s not that hard. And I’ve talked for hours, whether at seminars or at a one-on-one “brain picking” session about basic blog writing. But I rarely get the chance to talk about advanced blogging, the secrets that I use to improve my blog, and make it stand out from the hundreds of thousands of basic blogs.
This is a good book to use for advanced blogging. At least until I write my own.
Here are 10 advanced blog writing techniques we use for our clients and ourselves.
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.
Tags: advanced blog writing, blog writing techniques, seo, Social Media Analytics, social media promotions, writing
Posted in Blog Writing, Blogging, Communication, Writing | View Comments
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