Subjectively Speaking

This is part five of a five-part series I’m writing.  The five parts are homework, being mindful when writing, mechanics, promotion, and follow-up.   The first installment also has a bit more of an introduction that sets up the what/why of this.

This section discusses a few things an author can do once the post has gone live and you’ve done what you can to promote it.  This, in my opinion, is what makes social media truly social.  For an example of who does this really well, take a look at Jason Falls and Mike Troiano (I spoke about them here).  Jason lives in his comments, and his engagement with his readers shows.

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1. Most blogging platforms automatically alert you when comments are made.  If your platform does not, get in the habit of checking once per day (sorry!).
   1. Consider signing up for the RSS feed of your blog’s comments

   
   

2. Respond to comments (almost all of them).  Comments that don’t necessarily need a response are the ones that read “nice post”.  Otherwise, treat this like a conversation.  It’s as if you said something verbose and important (in person), and this is a person’s reaction.  Like a cocktail party (or any other face-to-face conversation, for that matter), you wouldn’t just ignore them.  You’d respond.  This is a digital conversation, not an e-mail exchange.




3. If someone disagrees with you, you can politely defend yourself.  If someone continues to do so, or is belligerent, take the high road and end with something like, “Thanks for stopping by!”.




4. After your blog starts to take shape, consider running it through http://websitegrader.com or http://blog.grader.com to get a sense of how it stacks up on multiple measurements.  Note that this is not a definitive tool, but it does lend some insight into what is working well and what can be improved.

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What other things do you do after a post goes live?

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreykeefer/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Tags: blog, blogging, guideline, guidelines, leadership, preparation, thought, thoughtleadership, tips

This is part four of a five-part series I’m writing.  The five parts are homework, being mindful when writing, mechanics, promotion, and follow-up.   The first installment also has a bit more of an introduction that sets up the what/why of this.

This section lists some suggestions to go about promoting a post once you have it created and just publish it.  As with the mechanics post, each person will find their own routine, and perhaps this is only a starter list.  In fact, if you’re well-read (like some of the people  I mention here and from where I’ve drawn some influences), then you probably don’t need to promote much at all.  The mere value of your content is all the promotion you need.  If you follow a different protocol (or use additional protocols), please share that with me and the other readers in the comments.

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1. If you don’t yet already have one, get a Twitter ID/handle.  If you are blogging, you should have a Twitter ID. It’s one of the best ways to promote a blog and to keep in touch with readers.  Plus, more blogs are permitting sign-in to the comments via Twitter IDs.




2. Tweet it out (Guy Kawasaki suggests 12:00n ET is a good time, to catch lunch time on the east coast and coffee time on the west coast, but I guess it depends on your target audience; Dan Zarrella has some really good stats here).  One of the most click-worthy tweet messages goes something like this: “new blog post: “{title}” ({bit.ly link})”  Flat-out saying that you have a new blog post is fine (presuming you’re also sharing other content, too, and not just using Twitter as a broadcast vehicle).  Also, if you want to be re-tweeted (if you want this to be shared, with a chance of it going viral), leave room so people can re-tweet you.  Save at least the length of your username plus five more characters (RT @{username}) of the 140 character max.




3. Send out a short notice about your blog post to an in-house distribution list, based on your blog topic or product focus.
   1. Encourage these people to send it to their own internal networks.  Encourage people to promote the blog post in status updates (Linked in, Twitter, Facebook, Xing – anywhere else).
      1. Advanced promoting: if any of you are deep into social sites, you might even have a ping.fm account to aid in propagating that message faster.
   2. Provide some canned text for people to use for the various channels…
      1. a short (140 characters or fewer) blurb for Twitter and LinkedIn
      2. a more casual, but longer message (up to 420 characters for Facebook)
      3. a bit of a different message for e-mail (and remember to add, as indicated above, the overall link to your blog in your e-mail signature; a specific message promoting a specific post will contain a specific URL)
      4. an in-house message through a micro-blogging service (like Yammer)
      5. use the same bit.ly link in all the messages.
   3. Take-away: The purpose of promotion is to spread the word.  As long as you are not obnoxious about it, you can leverage the depth and breadth of your collective social networks.




4. In the homework section, you spent some time in various forums and sites to understand where the conversations are happening.  Now that you’ve become a member in these communities, you can safely drop a note about your recent post in one of the comments.
   1. Find a related post, and make the comment there.  Do not just drop a link to your blog post.  Comment back thoughtfully, and gently guide the discussion back to your blog post.  Again, use the same bit.ly link.




5. Pinging the bloggers in your space directly, and as soon as your post is published (maybe even just before) so they can scoop it/comment on it.
   1. A currency among many (though not all) bloggers is the ability to leak or scoop a story before others do.  Giving their site the traffic (and ideally they will link back to the original post) might be the currency they want to write a post… about your post.
   1. Advanced promotion technique: Selectively tag this post on social bookmarking sites (delicious, digg, StumbleUpon, reddit, Yahoo! Buzz, etc.)
   1. Selectively means not instantly tagging every single one of your posts with every keyword you can think of; that’s kind of like spamming.
   2. http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-bookmarking-websites (as of January 2010)
   3. Create accounts there if you do not have any.
   4. Example:
      1. Go to delicious and search on a tag .  See the people who tagged a link with the same tag.  Add them to your delicious network (presuming you’ve created an account).  Then, when you publish your blog post about the same topic, you tag it as such in delicious, and then send that link (with a short polite note) to them, using delicious.




6. Look at your dashboard or Google Analytics info – see from where your inbound traffic is coming (referral sites).  Go there and establish a presence.  Over time, become a member of that community, and start to comment.
1. Advanced promotion technique: If you have a Facebook profile, consider adding your blog to the Networked Blogs network through the app.  Note that Facebook has recently disabled the ability for apps to auto-publish to user profiles, so this may be of limited usefulness.
2. Advanced promotion technique: Consider adding the Zemanta plug-in (or other similar service) to spread the news of your blog posts into the footers of other, related blog posts. http://www.zemanta.com.
   




7. Finally, here’s a Google thread on how to increase blog traffic (i.e., how to quickly promote it): http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=783df3ee11f507f1&hl=en

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What other promotion tools and techniques do you use?  Let me know in the comments section.  Up next is part 5: the encore.

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/victius/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Tags: blog, blogging, guideline, guidelines, leadership, preparation, thought, thoughtleadership, tips

This is part three of a five-part series I’m writing.  The five parts are homework, being mindful when writing, mechanics, promotion, and follow-up.   The first installment also has a bit more of an introduction that sets up the what/why of this.

This section lists the steps that should be strongly considered for every post.  Note that some of this content is repeated from section two. Each person will find their own routine, and perhaps this is only a starter list.  If you follow a different protocol, please share that with me and the other readers in the comments.  As mentioned previously,  my thinking on this topic has been influenced by others in this space that I follow.  You can read more about that here.

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1. Draft it, even if it’s just an outline.  Get some ideas on paper.  Keep in mind a story arc (beginning, middle, and end).
   1. This will help you tremendously, especially if you have a loose idea kicking around, and you want to add more to it later.  If an idea strikes you when you’re away from a keyboard, call your work voicemail and leave yourself a message.

   
   

2. Go back and write it (fill it in).




3. Link to other content.




4. Insert an image.  Any image (any thematically-related image).  A screenshot, a related-tie in to the post, something…




5. Add a title to your blog post.  One suggestion is to do a quick Google or news search for some of the keywords in your post and look at news headlines and see if something sparks an idea.




6. Conclude your post (and every few posts) with something to the effect of: “— If you like what you’re reading here, consider subscribing to the RSS feed to be alerted when more new posts are added.” Also push that they might want to stay in the loop via the e-mail subscription.




7. Spell check it.  Twice.  If your blog platform doesn’t have spell check, copy and paste it into an MS Word doc and spell check it there.




8. Categorize and tag your post appropriately.




9. Preview it.




10. Set it aside for 20 or 30 minutes and try to clear your head.  Then, preview it once more, and post it, or (depending on your blog platform) schedule it for later publishing.  Think about your audience and when might be the best time to reach them.
    1. This is where the bit.ly metrics and Google Analytics metrics come in handy.




11. After you post, and have the published URL, copy it and paste it into bit.ly and make a short URL to ease in promoting your blog post (described in the next and final section).
    1. Note that a bit.ly link to your overall blog (mentioned above in ‘Homework’) is different than the specific URL for a specific post that you want to shorten.  The overall blog URL will show all your posts in reverse chronological order.  By default, any visitor will see the latest post.  To get analytics on specific posts, you need to create a bit.ly link for the specific URL of that post.

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What other automatic/have-to-dos did I miss?  Let me know in the comments section.  Up next is part 4: promotion.

image source: 2 Assembly Lines from Paint The Car’s Flickr photostream

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Tags: blog, blogging, guideline, guidelines, leadership, preparation, thought, thoughtleadership, tips

This is part two of a five-part series I’m writing.  The five parts are homework, being mindful when writing, mechanics, promotion, and follow-up.   The first installment also has a bit more of an introduction that sets up the what/why of this.

Here we talk about the things to keep in mind when thinking about and writing a post.  This section in particular (and some of the other sections), and my line of thinking in general has been influenced by others in this space that I follow.  You can read more about that here.

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1. What’s your angle?  What’s your point?  What are you trying to do, convince, persuade, or achieve?
   1. It’s OK if (on occasion) you want to get a thought out there just to stir conversation, or if you want to plant a seed for a later blog post (foreshadowing).  You can use one blog post to tell a back-story; then when you get to the meat of your point, you don’t have to lay it all out – you can reference back to a prior post.

   
   

2. A good rule of thumb for blog posts is a few paragraphs.  If you need more specificity, go to six different blogs now (ones you have bookmarked, or use http://blogsearch.google.com/ to search for some).  Pick one post from each and skim it.  Is it too long?  Too short?  Keep in mind your own consumption habits: when you read a blog post (or any online article), after how much text do you find yourself saying, “wow, this is a lot of text”? – use this as a guide.
   1. Advanced tip: after ten or so posts, poll your readers.  Ask them what they like about your blog and where you could improve it.  This content vehicle is as much for them as it is for you.




3. Once you find your style, every so often change it up for one post.  Write something very short.  Write something very long (break it up with headings and white space; better served for technical reference pieces).  Embed a slide show (that’s hosted on http://www.SlideShare.net ).  Embed a video (an interview with someone, or a video response to questions).  Embed an audio file (podcast).  Cross-post somewhere else and link to it.  Invite in a guest blogger.  You get the idea.  Find a theme and stick to it for consistency.  But every so often, change it up to keep it fresh.  Chris says it much better here than I do.




4. Link back to some of your other, previous posts.  This helps spread your news (look at your blog dashboard or Google Analytics to see what other links people are clicking).
   1. Or, link to other blogs in your company (if applicable).  Or, link to other company content (that isn’t blogs).  Or, link to other external content.  Try to have at least a few links (this is not hard and fast rule).  This is more art than science.
   2. A rule of thumb: pretend your blog post is part of a cocktail party conversation; in the conversation, you mention a term or phrase that, say, 20% of the people listening might not know.  Where might they go to get a summary of that point so they won’t be lost for the rest of the conversation?  This is the kind of content that can be linked.




5. Add images to blog posts 98% of the time.  This increases the eye candy of posts tremendously.
   1. Sites to get images:
      1. http://images.google.com/advanced_image_search?hl=en (on the ‘usage rights’ drop down, pick ‘labeled for re-use’)
      2. http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
      3. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
   2. In every post, from no matter where you got the image, give image credit and attribution.  Flickr offers a great way to do this through it association with Creative Commons. I use that when I can. Other times, I usually do it as follows: in smaller text than the rest of the blog text, and at the very end (after my question or call to action): I write: “image source: xxx”.  If applicable, I’ll hyperlink the xxx text to the site from where I got the image.  I might not link to the actual image, but instead link to that user’s page or photostream (it helps promote their content).




6. Blog titles are important.  Consider that many people (especially if they are reading Internet content in an RSS aggregator) will decide from the title alone whether or not they open a post to read it.  Picking a snappy title is much more art than science.
   1. Here is a good article on how to write snappy headlines/titles: http://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/




7. Consider ending your posts with a call to action or a question.  This is where the ‘social’ part of social media comes in.  This is especially easy if you write a controversial / opinion piece. (“So, that’s my take on the issue.  What about you, readers?  Let us know in the comments.”).  It’s a bit more challenging if you offer up a viewpoint and don’t have a natural way to ask feedback.  Asking people to share an experience that is parallel or against what you discussed is an option.  Opening up the comments to ask readers to share links to sites is another (e.g., your post is about eating well when traveling, but you complain that it’s a challenge to find good food on the road; you ask readers to share what sites and services they use to do so).




8. Conclude your blog post (and every few posts) with something to the effect of: “— If you like what you’re reading here, consider subscribing to the RSS feed to be alerted when more new posts are added.” Also push that they might want to stay in the loop via the e-mail subscription.
   1. Even though the links to do so for each will be prominently displayed on the blog, it’s OK to remind people that they can stay on top of things this way.  Once your blog readership is in the thousands, you can do this much less frequently.




9. Each blogging platform is different, but many have the option to categorize and tag a post.  Categories are big, general buckets of what the content is about.  An analogy to this is the ten or so divisions of the Dewey Decimal system (Is it fiction?  Is it cooking?).  Tags are a more granular way to separate content.  Tags can also span categories.




10. Don’t go tag crazy.  Don’t “reach” for a tag title.  If you don’t make a fairly explicit reference to a topic or tag in your post, you probably shouldn’t be tagging it as such.  Like titles, tags are more art than science.

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What other high-level things should be kept in mind when writing a post?  Please add them below in the comments section.  Up next is part 3: the mechanics of posting.

image source: Wikipedia

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Tags: blog, blogging, guideline, guidelines, leadership, preparation, thought, thoughtleadership, tips

I’m helping create a content collection at my workplace so people have some resources when getting started in the social media swimming pool. Part of that is blogging. What it isn’t is throwing two paragraphs on digital paper and hitting ‘post’. Well, it can be that, but you might not get the attention, traction, comments, and following that you desire. If it’s a personal blog, then sure – go for it. But if you’re blogging professionally to help establish a beachhead of thought leadership or want to otherwise promote your brand, there’s a bit more thinking that goes into it.

I’ve taken all of the content I’ve written on this topic and broke it up into five pieces: homework, being mindful when writing, mechanics, promotion, and follow-up. Below is Part 1: Homework.

Keep in mind that this is a guideline, and one person’s opinion. You may have other tips, and if you do, I really encourage you to share them below in the comments. I’d like to make this a dynamic resource .

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1. Where is the blog being set up? Internally? Wordpress? Blogger?
   1. Knowing where will affect some of the future decisions, actions, and operation (like plug-ins).
2. If you haven’t already done so (and you have the ability to do so), look through the available themes/skins of the blog. Much of this is personal preference (colors, fonts, etc.), but pay more attention to layout.
   
   
   1. If you are going to be posting word-heavy content, then you might want to consider a format that has one major wide column and a narrow column on the left or right (i.e., not a three-column layout).
   2. If you think you might implement several widgets, or do not need to take advantage of the horizontal real estate of a screen, a three-column layout might be more your style.
   3. There are several layout options, and many let you preview them before you implement them.




3. Spend 20 minutes or so and go through every setting and menu feature on your blog. I know – it sounds arduous, but you need to know how the blog contents work.
   1. For example: do you want comments automatically approved? Do you want to moderate every comment, or just the first? Can people sign in with OpenID or Facebook Connect or Google Friend Connect? Does your blog permit that/those? Can it with a plug-in/add-on?




4. Download and install applicable plug-ins / add-ons / widgets / extensions.
   1. Some of these include a widget that pipes in a Twitter feed, a ‘Follow me’ button on Twitter, Share This tools, Facebook Connect, and others.
   2. If this is a for-fee Wordpress blog (e.g., you purchased a URL {the blog is not xxx.wordpress.com}), spend some time reviewing the several plug-ins to make the blog more social and sticky.
   3. If this is a free Wordpress blog (e.g., the URL is like xxx.wordpress.com), the custom installation of plug-ins are not permitted, but there are several free widgets that can be installed that make the site more sticky.
   4. At a minimum, implement Google Analytics. For pay Wordpress sites, this is a free plug-in. For blogger and blogspot blogs, this should be free (all one needs is a GMail address/Google account to get an analytics account). It may be automatically turned on.




5. On some blogs, there is an option to display an image in the sidebar or top banner. You can also add an embedded URL to this image. The image can describe something about the product or initiative discussed on the blog, and you can then embed a link that drives that click back to a relevant page on your main site, or somewhere where you have a call to action.




6. Get your picture and profile loaded up and update. The profile needn’t be elaborate, but it should give a first-time reader some sense of your perspective. Make this a three-dimensional experience, and not just a two-dimensional experience. Do this for each author if you have more than one.




7. Use Feedburner to burn a feed and track RSS subscriptions. You also get many other insights.
   1. This link explains more about Feedburner: http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=79408
      1. Why this is important: readers who sign up for RSS indicate an explicit display of interest in content (versus the ‘I don’t know if they are reading my message’ of an e-mail).
   2. Advanced: Feedburner allows the implementation of additional social ‘stickiness’ when reading blogs in an RSS reader. To see an example, subscribe to my RSS feed, and open in an RSS reader; look at the bottom of the post.




8. If your blog has an e-mail subscription option (some do, some don’t), make sure you add yourself to the e-mail sign-up on the right.
   1. Why this is important: you need to see this as your readers see this, and when they see it.




9. Conduct a listening exercise (if you haven’t done so already, fast track this). Understand the conversation around your product, brand, competitor, industry, initiative, and trend (the where, the what, the who, and the how).
   1. Consider using some of the content from the listening exercise in the keywords of your about page, your blog description, general category names for blog posts, tags for blog posts, and the like. Take advantage of the work you did so that when others search on the same content, your blog has a better chance of showing up in those search results.




10. Claim or submit your blog to http://www.Technorati.com, http://www.IceRocket.com, http://blogsearch.google.com (try http://blogsearch.google.com/ping)




11. Identify key bloggers who already talk about your product, brand, competitor, industry, and trend. Some of these bloggers may also show up when conducting the listening exercise.
1. Use sites like http://www.Technorati.com, http://blogsearch.google.com/, http://www.blogpulse.com/, and http://www.icerocket.com/ to search for topics and the top bloggers on those topics.




12. Read through a random sampling (five, maybe?) of posts of some of their content. Post at least three comments.
1. Why this is important: you’re doing this to establish a rapport with them, so when you want to post a comment at a later date with a link to your blog, they don’t simply delete it. Plus, it may encourage them to comment on your blog.




13. Join the social networks that you discovered in the listening exercise (the forums, the sites, etc.; note that ‘social networks’ are not just Facebook and LinkedIn).
1. Become an active member.
2. Listen.
3. Answer a question.
4. Share a link or two.
5. Once you are a real member (and not just a newbie), then you will feel comfortable when you start promoting your own content.




14. Add to your e-mail signature a link to your blog’s home page.

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Can you think of any other homework assignments that need to get done before starting a blog? If so, please add them below in the comments section. Up next is Part 2: being mindful when writing.

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laffy4k/ / CC BY 2.0

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Tags: blog, blogging, guideline, guidelines, leadership, preparation, thought, thoughtleadership, tips

A friend and colleague of mine is lecturing at Emerson College this semester.  He is leading a class on Sales Promotion and Special Event Management, and invited me to come in and speak about using social media.  The semester began with the purposes of developing and implementing sales promotions as part of a marketing mix.  From there, it went on to discuss the different types of sales promotions and progresses through the process of understanding how to develop a promotion that meets specific business and marketing objective and the tools available to implement and measure the success or failure of a promotion.  At this point in the semester, the students have worked on a project and have just finished presenting their launch plans to the rest of the class for feedback.  I delivered the following content just after their presentations concluded.

If you’ve been reading this blog all along, you’ll know that my first recommended step is to listen.  Naturally, this is how I framed my presentation for the class.  I knew the subjects/topics of the presentations ahead of time, so I did some digging in to show some real case examples of listening.  Three of the five groups had mentioned some sort of social media element (to varying degrees).  Interestingly enough, my friend did not tell them in advance that I’d be speaking about social media..

I’ve embedded the presentation below so you can see what I presented.  Like the other presentations I’ve embedded, you miss out on the talk track.  But you’ll get the general idea.  You can click through and go right to SlideShare to download the slides directly if you like (you’ll need to create an account if you haven’t already).  Below I posted a few of the questions I received in the class, and some answers as well.

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Q: How do I go about listening?

A: On the resources page, there’s a link to another presentation I prepared that walks you through how to conduct your own listening exercise.

Q: So, assume I’ve gone through the listening exercise.  Now what?

A: If you’ve done this for, say, two weeks, then you’ve amassed a fair amount of mentions.  The idea isn’t to track every single mention, but rather look for the trends.  So, take your 100 mentions, and look for the top four or five communities or sites where there’s activity happening.  Now, repeat the listening exercise, but just in these sites.  Join the groups.  Become  a member.  Now hang out and listen.  Are people complaining?  Sharing files?  Talking about the competition?  Now you can start to enter the conversations with nodding your head, answering a question, sharing a link.

Q: Are the for-fee social media monitoring sites better than the free search?  What do you get that’s better, if anything?

A: Generally speaking, yes.  But let’s clarify a bit.  The pay sites offer a ton of data mining, and can provide sentiment analysis and a host of other metrics.  This is great if you work for a large company and this is something you need.  If you work for a non-profit or a start-up, I suggest using one of the lower-priced firms, or doing this manually.  I do this manually, in conjunction with a paid service, so I can see if I’m spending my budget wisely.  A key in this is to set up an aggregator (I use Google Reader) and point all your  news collecting into one funnel, and sort through it there.

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image source: stethoscope by

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Tags: begin, business, launch, listen, product, service, start