soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

Archives for September 2012

20 Ways To Build Blog Community

By

Creative Commons License: Dr. Kelly Page

This blog, Soulati-‘TUDE!, has the most amazing community, evah. Not lying; it’s vibrant, insightful, buoyant, supportive, accustomed to a good blog-jack, and full of ‘raderie. I love this community, and it wasn’t built overnight.

I’ve been “accused?” of being an excellent community builder; I cannot lie, I had no idea what that meant when someone shared that with me the first time. So I started to pay attention, and here are my tips on how to make your blog community blossom:

20 Tips to Build Blog Community 

1. Engage with a commenter! So often when I hit a new blog and leave a comment, it’s crickets and I never go back.

2. Genuinely thank people for taking their time to come by and leave a thought. How many blogs are there now? A couple million? Good grief.

3. Be exceptionally welcoming (not drippy) to newcomers. You know who they are! It’s so cool when someone new stops in; thank them.

4. People’s time is so valuable; you have to respect those who stop in…until you get to know them, and then you can become more personable.

5. Mix up your topics. I did a test that Ralph Dopping was aware of…I wrote a post that was purely about public relations and he was the only one who commented. We deduced the post was not general enough and didn’t appeal to a wide audience.  A general topic promotes more engagement; people feel more comfortable participating because the topic isn’t over someone’s head.

6. Do what I just did…take more time to go to someone’s blog and grab their latest blog post and insert it as a hyperlink in your post. When you do that, I’m getting a pingback, and I know automatically I’m coming over to say thank you.

7. Don’t just put a Twitter ID in your blog post when you mention someone because they are totally unaware they’re being called out.

8. Send a note on Twitter to the folks you really want to read your post; ask them/invite them to your blog. Kaarina Dillabough is perfect at this practice when she guest post; she’ll send me a note and I try to get there as often as I can to support her. She also informs me when I’m tagged in an article.

9. In comments, ask another question like Shakirah Dawud does. She’ll comment on your comment and then pose a question back to bring you back. Smart commenting.

10. Join Triberr. Can’t say enough about Triberr. You may think you don’t need it, but every blogger needs Triberr. I’ve written about this too many times to go on a Triberr tirade here; just trust me on this one.

11. Your comportment says so much about the community you’re trying to build…are you personable, laughing, flirtatious, serious, professional, funny, witty, open-minded, welcoming, consistent, paying attention? (Yes, blog communities demand all of that and more.)

12. Do you comment and return that favor on others’ blogs? I believe that commenting IS quid pro quo…you comment at my house, so I better show up at yours. What do you know about that? I’ve done some experimenting and have deduced it’s true. Commenting on others’ blogs definitely leads to community building.

13. I have often wanted a roll-call menu so I can tick off my name to say I visited; sometimes I don’t want to leave a comment, but I want the blog owner to know I stopped in. So, when you stop in and don’t leave a comment, think of something anyway and do let the blogger know you’ve come over…it’s like a courtesy. Commenting is not ding-dong-ditch!

14. Make a point of remembering peoples’ writings and recall that in comments.  I cannot stress this enough. When you engage in comments and recall a post about someone recently wrote, then that visitor is impressed because you’ve made a point to make them feel special.

15. Ask for help, opinions, insight and expertise. No blogger knows it all; your community is a resource for you. When you ask for that knowledge, then you can build on it in a new post.

16. Reward your community with lists. Wait! Don’t yell at me…apparently, people hate lists that are link bait. I get that, but I don’t adhere to that practice. I do do lists and I do them infrequently; yet, when you see one here, it’s the real deal, written from the heart.

17. Help a newbie! When you see someone in your community struggling to get readers, commenters or topics, take them under your wing and try to help. Ask them to write a guest post for you, single them out in comments, use commenting systems that enable you to tag someone so they stop in…there are many ways to keep a community growing, and these are mine.

18. Add Comment-Luv or Lifefyre or another commenting system that allows commenters blog posts to be visible when leaving a comment. It’s a courtesy for visitors, and I love it because I can see what others are writing and jump there with one click.

19. Blog! You have to blog consistently to build community; no kidding. If you post once per week or less, or your blog has fallen off for more than a three-week hiatus, you’ll find your community disappearing or never growing. The consistency of posting is the secret sauce.

20. I’m done…no more tips! What’s your 20?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q&A With FeedBlitz CEO Phil Hollows

By

I didn’t know what a merry ride of inspiration this last week and more would be when all of a sudden Feedburner stopped distribution of my blog. It was something I didn’t monitor, didn’t care about, and didn’t want to learn; until it was broken. Then it was forced attention; the kind I love to hate.

Miraculously, a direct email campaign arrived in my box from FeedBlitz, “” with an ebook. That was all it took; didn’t care that I had to pay after a 30-day free trial (most things cost something) and didn’t care to do my research for something better. The timing was right and FeedBlitz has a reputable brand.

On my merry-go-round that is still circling, I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with who manages support questions, to my surprise.

A series of posts , and last week launched the Feedblitz series on about 10 blogs with many more conversations about the whole RSS thing. It’s still a confusion for me, but it’s because I’m stomping my feet and trying not to pay attention.

Phil was nice enough to play along with me and answer a few questions for bloggers that don’t know why they need RSS, don’t know why FeedBlitz is so special, and generally are on the fence about migrating from free and dead Google Feedburner to something robust with email marketing and publishing.

Thanks, Phil for taking time from your Sunday to share some thoughts:

Soulati-‘TUDE! — What is RSS?

— RSS is a standard format for producing a machine-readable form of your blog. (Jayme: what does machine-readable mean? That the blog can be read on all devices, desktops, tablets, notebooks and laptops, etc.?)

Soulati-‘TUDE! — Why do bloggers need RSS?

— RSS is the glue that ties your site to other services and platforms, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Every service or plugin that takes your posts and makes them appear somewhere else is using RSS to make that happen.

Soulati-‘TUDE! — Should every blogger have an RSS feed?  Why?

— Every blogger already has an RSS feed! All blogging systems produce an RSS feed by default. It’s actually work to disable. And yes, you should publicize it, so that visitors who don’t want to subscribe vie email can add your site to their RSS readers (such as Google Reader) and have your content pushed to them automatically.

Soulati-‘TUDE! — Do you cater to the largest bloggers or do you also realize that small bloggers grow to become big girls and boys?

FeedBlitz –– Every blogger starts with zero subscribers!  We at FeedBlitz welcome people who are just starting out – and we also serve the RSS feeds for some of the best known bloggers around, such as @Copyblogger with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

Soulati-‘TUDE! — What are your differentiators over other options on the market today?

–– You need to track RSS statistics so you can monetize your blog better. FeedBlitz is the only RSS service offering both RSS feed statistics and email / social media subscription options.

Unlike the only other service with both options, Google’s FeedbBurner offering, which is currently failing to deliver any metrics and is completely unsupported, FeedBlitz is fully supported, continually under development, and has much greater flexibility in terms of RSS and email management.

Soulati-‘TUDE! — Your service charges based on subscribers; Feedburner didn’t. Tell us about cost per subscriber and whether a large blogger with many subscribers might be forking over a lot of cash for the privilege of using Feedblitz.

FeedBlitz — FeedBlitz charges for email subscribers; RSS readers come along for the ride at no extra cost to our paying customers.  FeedBlitz is price competitive with other premium email subscribers, but offers RSS serving and metrics and much more flexibility for blog email subscriptions than anyone.

A full list of features compared to Feedburner is here . As I write, FeedBurner hasn’t produced any metrics for anyone for over four days straight, and is completely unsupported. If you depend on your blog to generate business, and you depend on your subscription service to get your word out, the benefits of a small monthly fee (and working with a partner that respects you and your audience) compared to the current cost of free is surely obvious. If your blog is valuable to you, surely its subscribers should be served by a vendor that values them. (Jayme ponders: EXCELLENT point!)

Soulati-‘TUDE! — Why are you managing support questions yourself? You’re the CEO!  Is that like sweat equity? Or does it also give you the pulse of your customers?

FeedBlitz — I like the Craig Newmark (Craig’s List) approach – get on the front lines, see what’s what. We’re all hands on deck as FeedBurner has imploded. Finally, my being here makes everything real. I care about our clients and their communities and how we make a difference. Standing up and supporting them is a key differentiator. I’m happy to do it!

Soulati-‘TUDE! –– What are the top three reasons a blogger should migrate to your service? i.e. what sets you apart?

FeedBlitz — Support, greater flexibility to reach your subscribers and superior branding.

Soulati-‘TUDE! — Tell me your impression of mid-tier and smaller bloggers — someone in my community suggested your marketing campaign is not tailored to all sizes of bloggers…obviously the largest blogger brings you the most money, but…

— We’re tailoring our messaging right now to people who feel frustrated with and abandoned by FeedBurner. Everyone using FeedBurner faces the same challenges, no matter how large or small their site is. Size, in this case, really doesn’t matter. We want everyone using FeedBurner who wants a better, supported replacement to feel welcome here.

Soulati-‘TUDE! How many subscribers does your blog have? 

FeedBlitz — FeedBlitz News has about 30,000 subscribers, mostly via email.

Soulati-‘TUDE! Do you think subscribers are the de facto metric when it comes to blogging, or how do you measure blogging success? 

FeedBlitz –– Engagement is the winning metric; it indicates quality. I’d take 1,000 committed subscribers over a list with 100,000 people in it but nobody reading what we’re saying any day.

This has been a with Phil Hollows, CEO, of FeedBlitz. Bring on the questions for Phil, Peeps! 

Are Only The Biggest Bloggers Worthy?

By

Credit: Jayme Soulati, Millennium Park, Chicago

Once again, big versus small is a platform for a discussion on blogging. You may recall Mark’s Schaefer’s blog post about the future of blogging (and the for the life of me, I combed his blog for the link to that and cannot find it, sorry!) which took the ‘sphere by storm. Last week, as was shared in a post on Feedblitz, I was called a little blogger.

Most peeps who know me also know there’s nothing little about me…both physically and personality.  My community supported me; yet I took no offense. Barrett Rossie, who writes at The All Inbound Blog and was recently featured on Follow Friday at Spin Sucks (his background is highly impressive) was more aghast and said, “what does that make me a micro-blogger?”

Every blogger who writes a blog should feel big…really big.

Characteristics of Bloggers 

  • It takes courage and inspiration to launch a blog and keep it going day after day.
  • It takes engagement, community- and-relationship building to create something Kevin Costner-esque that people want to come to and feel welcome in.
  • It takes a special kind of deference to let the criticisms rub off shoulders and the teasing not become uncomfortable.
  • It takes a person with an open mind to engage with all types of personalities, ages, genders, religions, ethnicities, nationalities, topics, tones, voices, and so much more.
  • It takes a special someone who courageously braves the critics and publishes opinions and thoughts that may rub instead of soothe
  • It takes confidence to bare a soul now and again with more fervent emotion and show another side of the person behind the masthead.
  • It takes attitude to stick out the neck in support of peers and the community who may be getting bashed in comments.
  • It takes a mature blogger to NOT put up the dukes with a commenter who goes off on a tangent when the instinct is to fight back and engage.
  • It takes confidence to ignore the posts from the A-listers who share their vision for the future of blogging that doesn’t bode well for those of us looking on.
  • Most of all it takes YOU knowing that in your contribution is special and no one can tell you any differently.

These characteristics make a successful blogger regardless of the number of subscribers. If you’re really into big data, that’s fine, but once in awhile look  at the human side because behind every good blog is a person.

What do you think?

 

Contest Now Open: Win IT Help Migrating to Feedblitz

By

By now everyone knows I’m on a Feedblitz migration kick. My post this week launched a barrage of migrations from Feedburner to Feedblitz, many blog posts about it and even more thinking about how and when and why to do it.

I’ve already been in touch with Phil Hollows, CEO of Feedblitz , to invite him to do a Q&A with me – heck, we may even do a video or podcast? Should I get that crazy with him? I’ll try to address the many troubles readers are concerned with; including me!

Put that aside…here’s the really exciting thing this morning!

Contest Open Now

I got an email from Rebecca Caroe of Creative Agency  Secrets. She works directly with Phil Hollows of Feedblitz. As is my duty to do the due diligence, I asked Phil for a vouch. He confirmed that Rebecca is legit, and here’s what’s so cool about that…

Three lucky members of the Soulati-‘TUDE! Community have a chance to win a free tech consulting project to help them migrate their blog(s) from Feedburner to Feedblitz. Rebecca wins because she can fine tune her service offering; you win because you don’t  need to experience the headache I did to migrate my blogs to Feedblitz (and still tweaking). So, just in case you don’t get it; Rebecca’s team is going to do your entire migration for you; you need do NOTHING (except the two little thingies below).

Two little caveats when you’re chosen to become the winner:

  • Feedblitz offers a free, 30-day trial; a credit card is required to register up front although it won’t be charged for 30 days.
  • Logins and passwords need to be shared for both Feedburner and Feedblitz with Rebecca’s team to get the migration complete.

How to Win

I’m going to make this real easy for us all.

  1. In comments below, add your “Count me in,” and you’ll officially be entered in the contest.
  2. By Friday 5 p.m. EDT, the contest closes; no more entries.
  3. I’ll write all the names in an email to my Mom and ask her to pick 3 names off the list. She’ll have no clue because she doesn’t read this blog.
  4. I’ll announce the winners in comments over the weekend.
  5. I’ll connect winners with Rebecca on Monday and step out of the way!

Easy Peezie, Lemon Squeezie…I always try to say that when the opportunity is ripe! Heh.

Let the games begin! Remember, contest closes at 5 p.m. EDT Friday this week!

 

 

Little Bloggers Rule

By

I’m pointing a finger at , the CEO of Feedblitz, with whom I’ve become so very acquainted over these last 10 days since I decided to .

I wrote a blog post on my experience (link above), and Phil alongside my good friends and . No one would argue these two are short of A-listers (because all the A-listers fully deny they’re anything at all related to such a moniker).

What Phil said in his case study about my blog is that I am a “little known blogger.” (He said after that he should have said, “little known to him.”) No worries, Phil!  I happen to know that my blog post  about Feedblitz has influenced no less than six migrations to your Feedblitz service and about four (that I’m aware of).

Now, mind you, I was not influenced by Danny Brown’s post to migrate to Feedblitz. I had seen it, but the email marketing campaign Feedblitz sent to me worked.

And, I do agree with you, Phil…in some regard…I’m a little blogger, but not little-known, at least in social media circles.

Not So Good Little Blogger Facts

  • This blog has few to no subscribers. Subscribers are NOT one of my metrics for blogging success. (Well, OK, that’s really lame; I ‘m gonna work on that!)
  • There is no newsletter. Not for lack of interest; it’s for lack of time.
  • The RSS feed I had was really just for my daily blog post, and I never knew how to use it. (Now, Feedblitz can share all my content from two blogs, comments elsewhere, tweets, Facebook posts, and more.)

 Awesome Little Blogger Facts

  • #RockHot community with comments that are so in-depth and insightful they can become blog posts on their own.
  • Readers who lurk, like and tweet about what they see.
  • Positive commentary everywhere that shows my content sings (based on what people tell me).
  • Passion about topics, profession, teachings, sharing, engaging, and so much more.
  • More than 2.5 years blogging and a year blogging on another blog.
  • Contribution to the future of blogging that no one can deny.
  • Consistent growth with tweaks and tech that help nurture newbie bloggers (because there is always someone newer).
  • Mentorship of little bloggers and encouragement to stay the course.

So, Phil, and everyone else who regards subscribers as the best metric (especially when you make money off subscribers, I get that), it’s not always about the analytics. Although, would call me stupid for not putting that on top of the heap.

  • Bloggers have goals.
  • Stick to yours.
  • Publish genuine, authoritative and authentic content consistently.

One day we all will be that not-A-Lister blogger who got a start somewhere.