Posts tagged blogging tips
Turn the beat around. Let’s blog upside down
Jul 12th
I’m asked to review a ton of blogs. Some of them are pretty sorry. But with just a few little tweaks, they could be really great. Here are the three biggest beginner blogging mistakes I see every day …
1) Blogging upside down.
When most people tell a story, it’s linear. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Problem is, people who read blogs have ADD. They are not going to wait until the end to get to the punchline. You have to give them the punchline first and THEN tell them who, what, when, where and why. Turn your blog upside down!
In journalism school they used to call this “burying the lead” — making readers work for the main point of the story. Most blogs can be improved by wiping out the first third of the story. Have the courage to put your blog under the knife.
2) Length matters
I have a theory about building a blog community. You have to earn the right to go long. The more credibility you have, the more time people will stay on your blog. If you are just beginning, new readers are going to give you just a few moments to make your case — if you’re lucky. If you’re Malcolm Gladwell, you can write 10,000 words without a care.
Respect your readers and their precious time. Get in, make your point, get out.
3) Grab them hard
Headlines are the most important part of a blog. Without a scintillating, compelling, tweetable headline, your hard work will never see the light of day.
Here is a bad headline: “My biggest blogging challenge.”
Somebody set the alarm to wake me when it’s over. It might be a GREAT blog, but the headline is just a snoozer. Plus it can’t be easily tweeted. When you use the word “my” it will look like it is the tweeter’s biggest blogging challenge, not yours.
Headlines are among my biggest struggles too. I’ll work hard on a post and then have no idea what the headline should be. I tend to give myself a headline deadline. At some point you have to push that publish button and get on with your life.
Today is a perfect case study. I could have gone for the obvious “Three Ideas to Make Your Blog Better.” This would have been a safe bet and it would have received a lot of tweets because when you put a number in the headline, it’s usually a hit. But I just hate settling for the ordinary. If you’re going to commit to providing insanely great content, eschew the obvious. Take some risks.
I was captivated by the “blog upside down” notion. Then this little rhyme got stuck in my head, “turn the beat around” – which sounded like a disco song. So I found a disco picture to go with it. Is it insanely great? No. Honestly, it doesn’t even make sense. But at least I’m trying to push it out there just a little bit further!
Here’s something I think about. If headlines are so important … maybe we should write the headlines first? Anybody do that?
How are you working through these obstacles? If you had to add a fourth item, what do you struggle with? Join the blogging boogie in the comment section, won’t you?
29 Reasons Why Your Company Blog Has Stalled
Apr 25th
By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist
At {grow} we spend a lot of time talking (sometimes arguing) about the intersection of social marketing and smart business. In almost every situation, publishing a blog is an excellent strategy. A blog creates a new marketing asset that generates leads, qualifies prospects, builds loyalty and retains customers.
Unfortunately, publishing a blog is much easier than maintaining its growth. A quick tour around the blogosphere offers ample evidence of how challenging business blogging can be. Empty comment sections, single-digit retweet tickers, lackluster headlines, and anemic topics are just par for the course.
It’s easy for the social media cool kids to chalk these missteps up to corporate laziness. However, there is a different answer. I think it’s just plain ignorance of what’s required to keep a blog moving in the right direction. Marketing managers are just blind to the danger signals that indicate that a blog is heading for obscurity.
So, we’ll take a quick look at 29 reasons why business blog has stalled.
Starting Without A Vision
1) Focusing On The Wrong Audience: Sometimes your audience isn’t the buyer of your products. I’ve seen companies jumpstart their blog growth by focusing on the user of the products rather than the “decision-maker.”
2) “I” Focused: Remember, social business is not about YOU. Blogs that focus on customers, problems, answers, and dreams build value much faster than online sales pitches.
3) Doesn’t Inspire: Your blog must stand for something beyond making a transaction. Readers must catch a glimpse of your hairy audacious vision of the future.
4) Focused on “Things” and not People: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that products enhance more than people. I love Apple products not because they are well designed but because Apples explains how they are designed for me.
5) Infested with Jargon: It’s impossible to craft a successful blog around jargon and abstract principles. The more specific you are about your vision – the better.
6) Doesn’t Lead (pandering to polls, surveys, and testing): Mark and I have been talking about this for a few months now. Your readers don’t want to lead you. They want to be led. Your editorial calendar is proof of your brilliance; it can’t be outsourced.
7) Isn’t Innovative: Blogs die when they depend on me-too topics. If you are unlucky enough to manufacture a commodity product then you’ll need to blog filled with innovative topics.
8. Hypocritical: Your stated vision isn’t reinforced by your social communications. You can’t say the customer service is a priority and not respond to customer service inquiries via Twitter.
9) Shallow – You aren’t creating the stories and content that adds vibrancy and relevance to your vision
Confusing Monologue with Dialogue
10) Barring Comments: Not accepting comments is stupid. If you need to bar comments then you don’t need social media. Period.
11) No Response: People are funny about communication; if they talk to you they want to hear back! Not responding to comments demonstrates that you don’t respect or care about your audience.
12) Robotic, Party-line Responses: When you do comment make sure you sound like a human being. Leave your buzzword bingo skills back in the cubicle.
13) Spotty Posting and Updating: Erratic and unpredictable posting schedules says “you can’t rely on me for information/”
14) “All About Me”: If your blog comments start with “I”, “We”, “Our”, or “My” then you can bet that they will get ignored. Your readers will listen to you after you’ve talked about them.
15) Lack of Gratitude: Saying Thank You is a dying art. Show genuine appreciation for your readers spending time with your blog. Give them free stuff, thank them in your comments, follow them on Twitter, retweet their stuff, link to them in blog posts. It’s the best investment you’ll ever make.
16) Not Encouraging Feedback – Close-Ended Posts: Business bloggers have a devilishly hard time getting readers to comment. After reviewing hundreds of blogs I’ve discovered that most of these blogs don’t encourage feedback. Their posts are neatly summarized statements that scream “don’t comment”. Consider writing your post as if you need reader input to complete the post. Remember The question mark is your friend in social media.
17) Talking At versus To Your Readers: Here on {grow} almost every commenter is addressed by the first name. Do the same. When a readers sees their name they instantly feel that the blog is talking to them and not at them.
18) No Follow-up in Other Channels: Comments, tweets, and updates isn’t the whole ballgame. Email is still an essential communication channel for businesses. Often your most influential readers will ask questions via email. Answer these as if your business depended it on it.
19) Machiavellian Comment Policy: Deleting everything but the rosiest or blandest comments will destroy your blog. Grow a thick skin or go back to putting brochures in the mail.
Failing to Build Rapport
20) Confusing Logos With People: Using a logo as the face of your social media effort is a risky proposition. I understand that branding is important but people identify with visionary people and passionate communities not logos.
21) Not Talking About Your People: Social business works because it tears away the curtain and shows that your company is human, authentic, and engaged. Talk about your people and their contributions.
22) Not Cheerleading for Your Customers: Your blog is a powerful platform for including your customers in your marketing. Celebrate their successes and crow about their people. They will quickly become the #1 source of traffic for your blog.
23) Treating Your Blog Like a Brochure: Blogs build audiences and establish credibility. They suck at directly selling product. Do so and you will drive away visitors in droves.
24) Using Twitter and Facebook for Advertising: Be careful with using Facebook or Twitter as tool for broadcasting links to your blog. These tools require an upfront investment in rapport building before you can use them for driving traffic
25) RT Laziness: Simply hitting the RT button without reading and adding value puts you in the “spam” category and devalues your contribution.
26) Not Following or liking your customers: Find your customers twitter handles and Facebook pages and follow them. This shows that you are interested in them and want a relationship beyond the transaction.
27) Letting your lawyers control your voice: Social Media requires a degree of empowerment and trust. Craft a clear social media policy and educate your team. They are your voice – not the legal team.
28) Confusing Brand with Voice: One more point, your brand is usually built and set in stone by agencies, graphic designers, media planners and copywriters. Your “voice” evolves through communication, engagement, and collaboration with your customers, readers, and enthusiasts. Don’t confuse the two. You might even find that your social Voice is your true brand.
29) Thinking Social Media is the Marketing Team’s Job: Surprisingly, your marketing team a relatively “small” part to play in your day-to-day social media plan. Successful social media programs inspire collaboration between PR, Customer Service, Production, and the executive team.
Are you responsible for steering a corporate blog to success? What are some of the challenges you’ve faced?
Stanford Smith is a hopelessly addicted angler, father of 3 hellions, and the wild-eyed muse behind PushingSocial.com. Follow him on Twitter to get his latest unorthodox tips for getting your blog noticed and promoted.
Take the Mystery Out of Twitter!
, the best-selling Twitter book in the world! Learn the three elements behind every Twitter success, 22 ways to build a relevant audience, strategies to create personal and business benefits, and hundreds of amazing tips and time-savers.Click on the image for a Special Amazon promotion!
How a Blog Went From Zero to AdAge 100 in Nine Months
Jan 25th
The success of {grow} has been stranger than science fiction and a wonderful surprise. In less than nine months, it’s rocketed up the charts from being unranked to as high as 65 on the Ad Age list of global marketing blogs.
My friend Adam Vincenzini recently asked me to describe the keys to this success. I’m not sure I can — which I understand is a wholly unacceptable answer! But I can certainly describe what I have LEARNED.
First you should understand that the Ad Age list is not necessarily a reflection on the quality or even the popularity of a blog, including mine.
Blog alchemy
The list is comprised of five individual scores which together create a somewhat controversial alchemy of algorithms. Only one of these five scores is tangentially associated with reader engagement as expressed by number of tweets, comments, etc. If rated only on engagement, my blog would be in the top 25 of all marketing blogs … thanks to YOU!
The Power 150 ranking is also highly dependent on historical back links, directory submissions and other SEO blogging devices. That puts a new blogger at a permanent disadvantage. Older blogs will probably always be at the top of the list no matter how hard anybody works on their blog in the future.
A very real example of this — there is one blog in the Top 100 that has not been updated for two years! Based on this strange scoring system, I would guess top guns like Chris Brogan or Copyblogger could never write a post again and still not drop out of the Top 10! I think it would be more fair to have some sort of running average based on the last 12 months.
But however flawed the system may be, it is the most noteworthy and prestigious system around. And I also think it passes the “sniff” test — if you look at the blogs at the top, I think most professionals would concur that yes, they reflect some of the best blogs out there. So, I’m honored to be part of it.
A different path for {grow}
I have not followed a typical path to success that you might read about on Problogger or TopRank because I simply don’t have the time and energy to pay attention to keywords, backlinks, and self-promotion. I have literally spent ZERO time worrying about SEO. For better or worse, I just write.
This attention to content and personal respect for my readers may be the thing that has helped power the blog. In fact, I have evidence to suggest that traffic from search engines only results in “tourists,” not really anybody who becomes a contributor to the community. I find that authentically engaging on Facebook, Twitter, and the comment section is a much more effective way to build a real audience instead of just blog traffic. There is no SEO short-cut to success. You have to create value one reader at a time.
I can offer four core values I try to demonstrate with every post:
1) Content that is “RITE” — Relevant, Interesting, Timely and Entertaining. I try to write a blog post that only I could write. In the end that’s the only competitive advantage each of us has.
2) I honor my audience. Anybody who spends their time reading and commenting on my blog deserves my care and attention. I try to reply to each comment and if I can’t answer something succinctly, I invite the commenter to call me. I have provided employment, recommendations, guest posts, personal advice and much more to my readers because they have become my friends.
3) Humility. On most blogs the comments are far better than the original post because the world is filled with people smarter than me — people who are amazing in their own way. I love that. I respect that. I thrive on that diversity. So many bloggers write with this air of self-righteousness or a trumped-up voice of indignation. Who am I? A conversation starter, nothing more.
4) Consistency. I don’t consider blogging an after-thought. It’s difficult to be consistent but it has to be a priority. I have a family, a career and charitable projects. To make a blog achieve its full potential, you have to work like hell.
Where does it go from here?
I question whether {grow} can sustain its place in the Top 100, let alone move up any further. The primary reason — there is only a handful of blogs at that level written by one person instead of an organization. As the blogosphere gets more crowded, it will be tougher to compete as a solo artist when everybody else is playing with a back-up band! But who knows? I’ve been wrong plenty of times — as you well know!
This would be a good time to say THANK YOU. Blogging is the best part of my job thanks to your comments, tweets, and amazing support! I think this is the best blog community on the social web! Thank you for being so very generous to me and loyal to the community.
Any way, that’s the best I can do as far as what drives the success of {grow}. It’s an unorthodox approach, but maybe it can work for you too? What do you think?
Note: After I published this post, Debra Andrews of Marketri pointed out that some people might infer that I have only been blogging for nine months. I began blogging in April, 2009 and was unranked for a year (until April, 2010). So from the time I was a “zero” on the list of more than 1,000 blogs until the time I was in the Top 100, it was nine months. I wanted to clarify this point and thank Debra for pointing this out! Sorry if I was unclear.
Overcoming blogging’s fear factor
Dec 5th
I talk to a lot of bloggers. In fact I speak to some blogger somewhere almost every day … supporting, encouraging, listening, and helping where I can.
And I think I’ve determined the biggest hurdle that keeps people from ever beginning a blog.
It’s not a lack of ideas.
It’s not time.
It’s not writing ability.
It’s CONFIDENCE.
Fear of failure and criticism seems to be the most overwhelming reason why people don’t blog. Having some trepidation about blogging is reasonable. After all, it’s kind of like public speaking in a way, isn’t it? I think it is a pretty rare person who can put themselves out there in a public way and not have at least a little insecurity.
So what do we do about it? Here are a few ideas that seem to be working …
Re-frame the fear. “Blogging” is a word associated with publishing and being in the spotlight. Let’s use a different word — “essay.” Can you compose a 500-word essay on a topic that interests you once a month? In analog terms, 500 words is one page, double-spaced. That seems pretty easy, doesn’t it? Well, let’s start there. Set a goal to write one 500-word essay every month on a topic related to your passion or profession (or if you’re lucky, both!).
Now, let’s look at writing a second essay every month. This one is based on something that you’ve read — a book, a newspaper article, a blog post. Write this 500-word essay on why you liked the article, what you learned from it, or how it impacted you. Focusing on two essays a month … that seems achievable doesn’t it?
Focus on fun. Now, let’s address the fear factor directly. If you’re thinking about blogging, you probably have some thought that you will enjoy it, right? Well blogging IS fun. It’s an interesting challenge, a wonderful creative outlet, and an opportunity to join an amazing global community of bloggers.
So one way to get over the anxiety is to focus on the benefits to yourself, not the fear of criticism from unknown “others.” Even if nobody reads the thing, many bloggers tell me they keep doing it just because it’s so enjoyable. Focus on this opportunity to learn a fun skill that might open up some new doors.
Seek active support. When I started blogging there was a small group of people who were also just starting out and we encouraged each other along the way — Jayme Soulati, John Bottom, Steve Dodd and Gregg Morris, to name a few. They would leave a comment now and then or tweet a post out just to keep me going. I’ll never forget — one time I was beginning to wonder if anybody was reading the posts I was writing and out of the blue I got this email from Dan Levine:
I appreciate what you’re doing — slowly and surely, thoughtfully and methodically, you’re helping shape the direction of this “new” medium. In a landscape filled with yes-people and a few too many sheep, your posts are making ripples that will eventually lead to new ideas and fresh approaches. I have no doubt. So … thank you.
Let me tell you — that was a great confidence booster at a critical time for me. Blogging can be a lonely job. Remember that on average, only 2% of your readers ever leave a comment. So take the time to build your support group of fellow beginners and encourage them by becoming active on their blogs.
Handling hate — I’ve received about 7,000 comments on {grow}. I take a lot of risks in this forum and would say I have only received two or three comments that were unprofessional pot-shots. That’s 0.04%. Now I get plenty of criticism and dissent because I encourage that. But mean? No.
Expecting negativity is an unfounded fear. Bloggers, and those who read blogs, are generally an extremely nice and supportive bunch of folks. They may push you, they may disagree with you, but that is sign that they care about what you say. It’s recognition that you’ve had an impact and you’re making people think. That can be a point of pride, not a source of fear.
Fear of failure — If you define success as attracting a thousand readers, or achieving professional recognition, or even becoming rich from your blog, well, you might fail. But there are lots of other personal and business benefits of blogging even if you have a small audience or you never get rich. And you’ll never achieve any of them if you don’t try. What’s the worst that can happen if you “fail?” Probably not much.
You are unique and amazing in your own way. There are people who would benefit from hearing your stories and learning from your experiences. Dive in. The water’s fine!
Join the conversation. What fears did you have when you started and how did you overcome them? What advice would you provide beginners?
Welcome to {grow}
You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
Groups We Believe In
