soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

Blogging Under Cover

By

Credit: lockergnome.com

There’s something about having few subscribers and few comments to a blog that’s a gift in disguise. Can you imagine what that might be?

This week, I read Danny Brown’s blog post about criticism mentioning the “natives getting restless” and how he had unsubscribed from A-lister blogger Chris Brogan’s blog because Danny thought Chris was snarky. Two days later, I read Chris Brogan’s blog post about criticism – accepting it and receiving it well which mentioned Danny Brown’s blog post and his unsubscribe action. Chris was surprised because he felt Danny was a regular commenter on his blog.

Do you understand what I’m getting at?

The responsibility Chris Brogan takes to “write 4,000 words daily and post about four times a day” is a choice no one else is making that I’m aware of in the blogging world. The pressure he puts on himself to consistently ideate, deliver, respond and repeat on a daily basis is astonishing. When other award-winning bloggers who also generate high-level content begin to bicker with peers in the space  that’s when I’m glad I blog under cover.

Everyone has an opinion, and when leaders begin to comment about leaders, that’s when we bloggers attempting to adopt the lead in something can be glad we’re not. What I find fascinating about how we perceive people in social media is that the words, emoticons, punctuation, LOLs, avatars, tone, and, style form the basis for perception – all without benefit of hearing the spoken presentation (unless there’s a video or webinar to put voice to words).

I’m not sure who’s really getting restless – the social media A-lister blogger leaders who day in and day out must generate topics and content to feed the hungry masses, or we bloggers under cover who can easily sneak away into oblivion without anyone batting an eye lash.

Before You Blog

By

Blogging is a journey. I just read Chris Brogan’s blog post today about how he writes 4,000 words daily and inspires you “how to write three blogs a day.”

For 99.9% of us, that ain’t happening; nor is it necessary. A blog post a day is ideal, and for 50% of us that ain’t happening, either!! So what’s a blogger to do?

Before you blog for real, you need to take into consideration the following:

  • A blog does not stop needing attention. It’s a living, breathing communication channel that requires nurturing. That daily pressure can be a deal breaker for those who cave under that responsibility.
  • Understand that subscribers and numbers of comments don’t necessarily imply success. It’s true, we’re a numerical society and “followers” count, but look at quality over quantity. There are many people who read this blog and say so on Twitter and elsewhere, yet they don’t subscribe. (That’s OK. Methinks having more subscribers would put added pressure to write and post daily.)
  • Goal setting is what everyone says you need to do; I say it’s pretty much hogwash. In public relations, we write plans and proposals oriented to goals; do goals really drive action and execution? One would hope, but for a blog, I’m not so sure.
  • Setting strategy is more like it – who are you targeting and with what fodder? It’s important to know that at the outset, and it’s also important to know this can change six months in to the blogging experience.
  • Understanding voice and what that means is just shy of critical. You need to give yourself a good six months to tap your voice, earn the confidence to recognize what that is and to keep forging ahead. While voice is often illusive, always remember to whom you’re writing and with what content.
  • Writing, writing, writing. You ought to be able to burn a blog post in 60 minutes tops and that includes its writing, adding of links, posting, adding an image and publishing. There are posts that take longer, and these are usually research oriented.
  • Understanding the back end of a blog is absolutely the most critical factor in your blog’s success. I cannot undercut the importance of this. I have so many horror stories that to others are laughable, but as a non-IT person forced to grapple with software, servers, plug-ins and widgets, the learning curve is painful.
  • I recommend Dwight Maskew of Carbon Based Life who is more than helpful in re IT. I asked a tweep who she used for her blogs, and she recommended Dwight. You will not be disappointed.

Lastly, for today, blogging takes confidence (a favorite post I wrote awhile ago when I was in the blogging dumps). There are so many emotions that go in to blogging, they are hard to describe and share. Everyone’s journey is different; what matters is your perseverance to keep it alive.

Bloggers Are Not Morons

By

Time management is not in my favor of late. You’ve not heard from me here in awhile because I’m off to The SMB Collective, my new blogging adventure targeting all things small-to-medium business. If you head on over, you can see it’s a vibrant community of many voices and perspectives providing rich content for we SMBs. I’m loving how it’s coming together, but at the risk of ignoring you!

I will keep Soulati-TUDE! going and growing; it provides me a singular outlet for opinion and perspective on my calling — public relations. 

That calling was put into question last week on a late Thursday night when a commenter here called me a “moron” and questioned my parenting ability as well as a few other choice words. She, the 20-year-old, had found a blog post I wrote awhile ago, Shards of Glass Ad Not Cool, and decided that because she didn’t agree with my opinion she’d lambaste me with her questionable intelligence.

My reaction was one of dismay, and I immediately deleted the comment although I thought twice about it. While the blogosphere is supposed to spark healthy debate with opposing views, being attacked negatively is uncalled for.

My colleagues were supportive, and thanks to Michelle Quillin of New England Multimedia who suggested I should’ve kept the trashy attack live so she and all the other moms could support me and blast back. I guess everyone likes a good war of words, but you know what? I can’t waste my time with imbecility; nor do I wish my colleagues to do that either.

Thanks, too, to Jenn Whinnem who shared a site I had no idea existed, Spokeo. She reversed the email of the commenter recorded in my blog’s database to see how and where she engaged. It informed me of her age and showed the X-rated trashy sites she frequented. Enough said, eh?

I’ve seen other bloggers add policies about commenting to their pages, and this is certainly good fodder for why.

Blogging Encouragement Tips

By

I’ve been neglecting you. For the last two weeks, my attention has been on building a new blog called The SMB Collective. This project, officially 14 days old tomorrow, has been consuming me and proudly so.

If anyone remembers my trials and tribulations to launch this blog with no prior experience, it was painful. I launched this second blog and first post with three pages in less than eight hours — from scratch — a blank screen.  For those who knew me back when, this is a laudable accomplishment! Why?

  • Blogging takes perseverance, and blogging takes confidence. There’s a definitive need to disengage from fear. If you back up your blog, you can get it back. Experiment with themes, design, plug-ins and more. Stick your neck out and try something new once a week or faster based on your comfort level.
  • Blogging voice is as fleeting and illusive as a butterfly seeking non-existent nectar. Now that I see the quantity of content bloggers are putting out, I also am noticing a fluctuation in voice. Where I’m going with SMB Collective is down an educational path to provide current topics relating to small-and-medium businesses’ daily life. By gathering experts, screened by Twitter engagement, each with distinct capabilities into one blogging community, I’m hopeful our voices will offer rich perspective that can help solve and address small business problems with solid solutions.

(I think what I just said there was more oriented to goals/objectives versus voice? I’m thinking to get to voice you need to state blogging objectives.)

  • Blogging takes time! Managing a collection of writers/bloggers and guest authors is nothing short of time consuming. Last night, I had no idea it would take me 2.5 hours to upload three posts with links I had to find, images I had to include, bylines I needed and more. Basically, that was time needed, but not budgeted.
  • Never regard blogging as a chore. When you don’t feel “it,” then don’t write. Anyone who blogs understands what I mean by “it.” For writers, it’s the inspiration from a Sun Chips bag or Gap logo that provides great fodder.
  • Embrace failure as a teachable moment. As adults, failing is so much harder to handle/manage. Although a time waster, it’s necessary to fall flat on your face so you can pick yourself up with less inhibition to try it again.

So, these are my tips to keep the blogging thing going and growing. What else might you add?

Twitter Roundup — What Every New Blog Needs

By

Credit: https://simonnemichelle.files.wordpress.com

I just registered as an official hash tag, and a new blog called SMB Collective is in the works. This post is inspired by the mission for SMB Collective to be educational, supportive and bring global perspective on a variety of topics for all small and medium business owners. Within that tier one audience is the newbie blogger, and this information is for them/us.

(Background on the formation of #SMBChat can be found and .)

I asked several tier-one tweeps and blogging communities, including #SBT10 and #BlogChat, what they recommend every new blog needs. 

(For your information #SBT10 is at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesdays hosted by primary ring leader of WordPress premium theme, Headway. I thank Grant for teeing up my question on Twitter yesterday to help garner this fodder.)

The Twitter Tweep Round-Up

Following is the roundup of everyones’ suggestions varying from previous posts and video to someone’s brand new post and other tips on plug-ins and strategy. What’s neat is the interpretation of the question and thus the varying insights and expertise:

  • I’ll begin with a few suggestions of my own (knowing my first blogging attempt is deficient in many of these aspects) — each blog needs a good back-up plan, whether Back-Up Buddy or something else. Analytics are necessary to identify posts most popular with highest traffic. A plug in that allows the emailing of comments is required (not here yet); and, I like New England Multimedia’s blog yesterday (see below) with the plug in Michelle uses, called Comment Luv (it enables a blogger’s previous post to present with a posted comment elsewhere). Lastly, RSS is important; people need ways to subscribe to your blog.
  • was the first to respond. He said every blog needs (for starters) an about page with a picture; a widget for categories; e-mail opt-in; social connections (I believe that means ways to follow, repeat on Twitter, Facebook, etc.); and, threaded comments.
  • Amy Howell with claimed she was a newbie and tossed this question off to who added a blog post written a year ago in answer to my question. In spite of her tee up to Mark, Amy added links, promotion of others, imagery, and use of humor as her recommendations for new blogs.
  • Mark W. Schaefer’s from July 2009 offers tongue-in-cheek serious counsel from his friend John Bottom, a gifted B2B marketer in London. They both agree “good, original content” is all that’s needed. Mark says be consistent with personal passions and interests; focus on one broad subject area so as to not confuse your readers; be interesting, useful and entertaining.
  • Jon Buscall, who resides in Sweden and owns , shared a link to a YouTube he developed featuring WordPress plug ins and a bit more.
  • of storytelling fame shared these tips for every new blog — A great title that relates to the business if possible; an about page that describes what’s in the blog for the reader as well as giving a little info about the business as it relates to that; a services page that describes what’s offered, whether via e-commerce or brick and mortar; a contact page that has every way imaginable to get in touch with the business and the people behind it; a contact form should be there, too; a story page (you knew that was coming right?). While they’re not prevalent yet, they soon will be. This is where the emotional connections between business/brands and customers are going to be cemented.
  • , a B2B marketer who runsa well-respected blog,  , pondered a bit and suggested a PLAN (for content and promotion) and key plugins like All In One SEO Pack and Subscribe2 are required.
  • asked if the question referred to WordPress and if so she recommends getting a good theme; one that is SEO friendly (she uses Thesis), and get Akismet for spam management. Calls to action should be positioned clearly and above the fold (because you’re blogging for a reason). Include the RT button as well as Like/Share on every post.
  •  Several people who surfaced as a result of my at-large question suggested I feature Doug Stewart’s blogging tips for small businesses and entrepreneurs, and they are . Doug tweets from Oklahoma. I just met Bruce Serven yesterday, and he recommends “perseverence” for any new blog or blogger.
  • My new PR friend from The Netherlands offers his number-one recommendation as great content –“that really crushes it!” and a good measurement tool as a close second. (I like that he’s always using “crushes.”)
  • , a regular contributor here, took the question directly to heart and ran off to write a brand new post with her recommendations and five best practices for beginning bloggers. She said it was too much to fit into multiple 140s on Twitter. Love that, Michelle! If you tap in to her piece, she suggests images, make the ask, KISS, title, and keywords.

Because these are so valuable, and the content I find is also valuable on , I’m providing the links they gave me on Twitter for . Because these suggestions by WordPress Beginner are important, I’m sharing nearly the entire bulleted list right here, so everyone can link quicker. If you’d like to see more from these guys, I encourage you to follow them on Twitter and peruse their blog. These guys rock. (Hey, can you help me design my next blog?)

Must Have WordPress Plugins for Every Blog (extracted from WordPress Beginner, and they say “We recommend these plugins for any new blog or existing blog. There are more plugins that would need to be added based on the niche and your needs. But for any generic blog, this should be a good list to start with.”)

  • – comes installed with your WordPress by default. All you have to do is get an API Key to activate it. It prevents your blog from comment spam. Read our .
  • – This is an ultimate necessity for your blog if you want to have any chance of ranking high in search engines. All-in-One-SEO Pack allows you to add unique meta description, keywords, and titles to each page of your blog and blog posts. ( for the Recommended Settings and tips.)
  • – When running a blog you need to allow your users to contact you. This is the best free contact form plugin to this date. It makes everything easy. (An alternative to this plugin is a paid plugin known as which is extremely feature rich.)
  • – This plugin lets you make backup for your blog’s database as often as you need. You can set this process to be automated and have it deliver to your email or a safe spot in your webhost. By having this plugin, you can always stay on the safe side because if anything goes wrong, you have the latest backup in your possession. If you want to get a full backup of your WordPress site, then a commercial plugin known as is the BEST option.
  • – A plugin that allows your users to subscribe to the comments, so they will be notified when the next comment is posted. It helps your user to stay updated with the discussion and keep the activity going on your blog.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU for everyone who contributed to this crazy “crush” of tips from peeps strictly on Twitter. I LOVE Twitter and all of you. What did we miss in this SMB Collective?