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Archives for May 2011

Does Your Blog Make Commenters Comfy?

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I was along for the ride on one of the most contentious (according to comments) blog posts ever, and based on “Popular Posts” tallies in his sidebar the highest-number-of-comments (250) as of this moment (and no signs of stopping).

I’m speaking of Marcus Sheridan who writes The Sales Lion. He owns a swimming pool company and said he turned to social media in the downtick to save his business. Everyone talks about him, and his brand is authentic and popular. I read my first blog post of his via my reader one late night and was so blown away by his writing and content I kept it as “unread.”

So, in earnest, I read his post early Friday morning about Blog World because I had really wanted to go and meet some great folks. Marcus’s post was the first recap I would read; however, it’s turned more into a critique free for all with the show’s organizers, other speakers, other attendees, and even people who “most offended” those in audience during the final keynote.  You can read it all here; it’s amazing.

But, that’s not what this blog post was intended to be about, although it’s a really nice segue.

I was duly impressed with the comfortable feeling I got when I first arrived at Marcus’s blog on Friday and felt compelled to comment and then began to hijack the comments in usual banter with Gini Dietrich. Gini and Marcus assured me it was OK to do so when I said, “oops, apologies if this isn’t cool.”

What that means is a huge welcome mat is open at The Sales Lion. I just went back to check, he has no “Ad Age Power Blogger” badge or other award-winning badges in his sidebar (although, I know if he tried, he’d win something hands down). By welcoming comments from the small and large, unknown and well known, The Sales Lion allows all of us to commune within his community, and that’s what he’s done tremendously well – create a vast community.

The comments rolled in all day long on Friday and were still going strong through the night, on Saturday and today (Sunday). I was overwhelmed and wondered how on earth someone receiving that measure of comments could get any work done? (Marcus, how do you do that? Manage comments without them controlling your time?) Curious, I decided to check in Friday during dinner and see how the comments were tracking.

Lo, the one I opened was TO Gini Dietrich and it was ABOUT how comfortable the woman felt leaving a comment because others were not just “trolling.” (I assume that means bantering?) She felt her thoughts would be sincerely welcome.

And, so, the topic for this post was being written on a napkin in a restaurant and the one comment I decided to open confirmed it was a viable topic. Oh, yeah, and Gini just had to pop in to also confirm we are the same person.

Think about your welcome mat on your blog. What would commenters say about your house? If you need a lesson, head on over to Marcus’s and see the warmth and sincerity with which he invites you in. He doesn’t need any badges in his margin; he’s already an exponential power.

I’ve written about this before, but this level of engagement is so hugely quality that I need to share. It’s Marcus’s grace, sincerity, authenticity, and balance with which he responds to each and every commenter and not just with a brush-off. He engages people and invites them back without asking.

We can all learn just by observing; my take-aways are still in gel form, but the first lesson is right here.

 

Scary First Video How To

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I knew as a blogger I had to get into vlogging, and it irritated me that I was behind the eight ball watching the perfectly gorgeous presentations by Erica Allison at Allison Development Group and Gini Dietrich who has the style of a regular TV broadcaster on her effervescent productions with bicycle in hand over at Spin Sucks.

When I get an idea or set my mind, I will not rest until it happens. That’s how that scary first video occurred yesterday – spur of the moment, no planning, just run with the tech and fix it later. Now, mind you, I have to admit, it had been brewing a few days that I would do a skit with no audio. Funny; I listened in real time to someone watching and she said, “What’s wrong with my sound?” (Nothing! Intentional!)

  • *I had tried some time ago to do use my Kodak  Zi8 pocket recorder, but that dang thing swizzled on the stick and my head was moving to keep up with the camera. And, I didn’t know how you tested the picture when you couldn’t see yourself for positioning, and the sound was horrifying! Who cares about lighting…sheesh.
  • Enter iPad2 (the best buy of the century). I downloaded FlipCam App, but that didn’t do anything. I found the video cam that allowed me to reverse the lens to shoot me instead of what was in front of me. Cool.
  • Then I had to play with the tilt because the iPad was in its docking station that caused an angle with more of the ugly ceiling and wooden ugly beams to be more visible.
  • Lighting; as I said fuhgeddaboutit. That was an entirely other matter I’d grapple with later.
  • Recording complete, I tried to email the file, but it was too long; however, I was able to upload to YouTube. Well, upload where? I quickly went to my account and saw a user name I didn’t want, “jsoulati.” So, I deleted the account, and created a channel for my company, Soulati Media. Then I hit “upload to YouTube” from the iPad. Voila! It appeared! I watched it and at that moment Erica Allison phoned, and I was absolutely freaking out that I’d do this.
  • Next step: upload video from YouTube to blog. I found the button; grabbed the code and hit “new post” on the blog in html format. I added the code, but it kept disappearing on me. I wrote brief introduction and posted; video was not there! Went back to html format and uploaded code again, hit save, update, and success!

Then, the embarrassment, chuckles, relief that everyone thought I was a total clown and really wanted to hear me talk (wait for the next one), flowed in. There’s good thing launching scary video about noon; not too many peeps are tracking on Twitter then.

I think I’ve done a good job, along with everyone else, of letting the world know my scary video is the start of something pretty scary. Watch out world; here I come!

Momaraderie Is Sunday Sweets With Shakirah

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This Momaraderie feature is the first (besides my mom’s) to share about a woman who doesn’t know she’s being tapped. (I love surprises!) She made such an impression on me in the last 48 hours, and what a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning sharing it with you.

Shakirah Dawud is a mother of a daughter who is two-years-old. We all know what that means; following around the baby, consistent attention and basically doing EVERYTHING for her child. She is also a professional copywriter and book editor, and when you sign on to regularly read her blog at Deliberate Ink, you’ll grasp immediately how she can be an editor…a really good one.

It’s because her writing always knocks it out of the park. ALWAYS. I’ve not had the privilege of working with copywriters (it feels more like an advertising thing), and she’s not fully in the camp of public relations (because she’s sitting just outside the fence) yet I see the possible blend, especially with someone so engaged.

Let me tell you a bit more. I’m learning about her in snips and snaps and this should give you a head start:

** Not sure how I was first introduced to Shakirah, perhaps she just appeared in my stream one day with this terribly long Twitter ID with her full name TaqqiyahShakirah_Dawud, I think. And, then, she shortened it to @ShakirahDawud (yeah) b/c I could remember it better. In my blog comments she was commenting, and I asked her how I ought to address her as there were two first names; she told me Shakirah and that was perfect.

** And, she told me she was shy; and I saw that in comments and could feel her holding back. Now that she’s entirely more comfortable the floodgates have opened and she’s pouring out the content and comments everywhere and engaging her personal brand. It’s marvelous to see.

** Nice segue to the comments; Shakirah is one of the most thoughtful and in-depth commenters I’ve ever had the privilege of having on my blogs. On Friday, I posted a Childhood Obesity and BMI Screening Mandates piece over at The SMB Collective. It was one of the most popular posts ever on that blog (I’m still in test mode trying to figure out what it’s going to be when it grows up), and I thank Shakirah for pushing the conversation. She posed such rich thought which encouraged others to weigh in, too, and keep the stories coming. I will be pulling from comments to do a round two on that topic.

** Around the same day, Shakirah posted a blog at her house about Wet Jeans and Chrysler about her childhood memory of wearing tight, skinny jeans to a water park and getting teased.

I’m so eager to keep learning more; in fact, I’m quite eager to see her lovely face – when do we get an avatar, Lady? Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy getting to know Shakirah as much as I have. Her blog is a wonderfully warm place with equally warm individuals sharing personal anecdotes (how does she do that?). Stop in to find out…again, you can find her over at Deliberate Ink.

 

About Condoms & Social Media, Heh

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credit: blogs.laweekly.com

It’s Saturday and finally hot. My mind takes silly twists and turns without the confines of intense focus of the customary work week (which has grown to encompass nights and weekends).

I’m sitting in the streaming sunshine with streaming thoughts (stay with me here) marveling at all the comments still active on three blogs I commented on and wrote yesterday (do people ever put up boundaries?). Scanning a headline in O’Dwyers “Congloms, PR service firms see big Q1 gains,” I did a double take — condoms? Really?

And then my mind immediately returned to a sassy comment I’d made the other day in conversation (what, me sassy?); whatever happened to the condom (the link is clean…from Wikipedia)?

There’s a high profile case that has me blown away (well only wind blown) — that of the Terminator having sired a love child 10 years ago with his housekeeper while married to his also-celebrity wife Maria Shriver with whom he sired three(?) children.

And, let’s not forget John Edwards whose high-profile wife was terminal with cancer while he sired a love child he tried to keep under wraps unsuccessfully with a vendor to his presidential campaign. I’m not the man in the heat of passion with some young tart wanting a piece of his DNA; however, wouldn’t one think if he was a man in such a position of power and celebrity as these two both were that a condom would be in order?

I don’t know, call me stupid.

So what do condoms have to do with social media? Uhmm, nothing…but let me stretch the confines of creativity to ensure I’m ready for Monday…(you know keeping my brain cells focused on intense work over a weekend).

Let me define this useful item, (rarely used by celebrity males at least two we’re aware of which keeps mass production in check), as a sheath or protective barrier (it’s also defined as such by Wikipedia, a link above). And, a protective barrier has many uses in social media…here are three for you:

  • **How do you protect your Facebook page from getting spammed with negative comments? Let’s ask Burson-Marstellar! Why, you just remove the unacceptable posts from unfriendlies and hope for the best (aka suffer the backlash).
  • **How do you protect your Twitter account from being seen by your boss? You keep it locked and only accept tweeps by approval, of course. For sure; that’s a marvelous way to grow a community and engage, isn’t it?
  • **How do you add more subscribers and commenters to your blog posts? You take off the protective barrier and hope that posts like this don’t offend anyone. And, if your “subscribe” widget isn’t working or you miss the deadline for the Feedburner distribution by 20 minutes, that really helps protect anyone from reading a really bad Saturday post that truly stretches it.

That is all.