soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

That Blogging Voice

By

What's Your Voice?

Apparently, “voice” for bloggers is the Holy Grail. To get there as a newbie, you need:

1. Confidence you know what you want to say

2. Ignorance of others’ critiques when you’re having an off day

3. Knowledge about where you’d like to be one day (a few goals are good)

4. Patience and perseverance about design and techy back-end crapola

5. Strength of spirit to plug away as frequently or infrequently as you like

I had a stressful summer as is typical around my life as a working professional and mom. I struggled to manage time with travel, family and a reduced work day. The blog suffered.

Not only wasn’t I posting as regularly, I wasn’t feeling it either; yet, I pushed to post.  A few remarks (see number two above), and my confidence shattered to the point of almost throwing in the towel.

Rather than quit, I wrote (what some called by best post) “Blogging Takes Confidence,” a heartfelt rendition to share I was not on top of my game. Buoyed by support from that post, I am again compelled to tackle the world.

What’s changed?

  • My child is back in school.
  • I’ve regained four to five hours in my work day.
  • My desk is (relatively) clean again.
  • My brain is de-cluttered, and my countenance is calm.

So what is this “voice” thing?

Merely, voice is the confidence to believe what you’ve got to say has merit; to know the criticism of others is not intended to derail you but to help you get over a natural hump or two; it’s the ability to find a diamond in the rough and share it with the world from your own perspective and, well, I think that’s right?

Blogging Takes Confidence

By

This post is as much for me as it may be for you.

Blogging takes confidence. This list below includes several circumstances and what I know from experience helps make that confidence grow upward instead of into the dumps:

  • The recognition to spot a stumble with content and how to get ahead from that confidence-lacking position.
  • The ability to hear, process and get beyond the somewhat-negative commentary implying that “you suck” at this blogging thing and should hang it up.
  • The strength to read and take inspiration from the massive amounts of content being generated by others in the blogosphere and on social networking that put your feeble attempts to match that to shame.

If anyone is anyone who is a blogger who had to start somewhere, I bet any of the above has come to fruition. Indeed; for me it’s true. And, let’s not forget – we are our own worst critics.

And, so, these tips below are as much for me as they may be for you:

  • Blog with confidence and believe that you have something to say today.
  • Hear, process and determine whether to take action about others’ negative comments who at heart are critics not intending to derail you.
  • Read the blogs you subscribe to, comment there, and become inspired from peer bloggers’ inspiration. It’s OK to adopt a topic and fashion it into one of your own with a new perspective.
  • Be true to yourself. If your editorial content is more about reporting on a wide variety of topics, there’s a reason for that. Perhaps you come from the agency world of public relations (ahem) where knowledge about a breadth of topics, industries, companies, and concerns navigate your ship.
  • Know that it’s commonplace to stumble on voice because no one has the perfect voice every day they blog. It’s OK to craft a simple, short post chock full of emotion about one topic or another. It’s OK to struggle with what to write about today and then recognize that maybe today is not a good day to write.
  • It’s very OK to wonder if anyone is reading these words, and then it’s OK to be pleasantly surprised when someone provides a comment (whether positive or slightly smarmy) verbally or on e-mail because that is an indicator someone is paying attention.
  • You’re not to worry about the dag-gone back-end of the blog because that, too, comes with experience. You will persevere on the technical insides of your blog (Jayme) because learning does not happen overnight (Jayme).
  • When you’re having second thoughts about blogging, look around. Are you in balance? What circumstances have your inner balance off kilter? This can be your children, your finances, summer, and a house under construction, clutter, or lack of “me” /”you” time. Breathe, and focus on you.

So, blog with confidence, people, and know that that is exactly what you’re charged to do. Being a thought leader or expert comes with time.

I’d like to thank Macali Communications, Kevin Donnellon and Christina Rampersad for providing the inspiration for pushing this blog forth.

What expertise can you lend to we less-than-a-year bloggers to keep on truckin’?

A-Lister Bloggers: New Print Feature Writers?

By

I get inspired by the amazing talent of the A-lister bloggers (at least in my book) to day-in and day-out craft thought leader social media content. How can this much provoking copy be created and most of it not begin to sound the same?

You know, there are only so many dresses on the rack; eventually, you’ll see another woman with the very same dress walking ahead of you on Michigan Avenue. (You get my drift, guys!)

Segue to the daily newspaper suffering from the demise of advertising, subscriptions and fewer journalists. It got me thinking about feature sections and pull-out special sections of the daily newspapers I read. Don’t you think these pages are chock full of a lot of nothing?

Here’s the brainstorm. A newspaper should contract 2x/week with some hot tamale bloggers and publish a new feature section with content that resonates a whole heckuva lot more than what print subscribers are paying for.

Here’s my list who can fill the queue; who else comes to mind?

  • Jason Falls, , who is so prolific and wordy hot that I shake my head and marvel.
  • , who launched 12for12K and has numerous awards as a Canadian blogger and is also of the set.
  • , , who has become a B2B social media thought leader with his lively and thoughtful community.
  • who pens a daily storytelling blog with a roundup of what’s going on across the 2.0 world
  • David Meerman Scott of and a keen author of public relations blended social media works.

These gentlemen are noteworthy in their leadership in this social media space. I’m sure they’d appreciate your attention to tell them so, too.

Build a Social Media Foundation

By

Like the full-page ads in More magazine for lipstick, hair care, mascara, and bronzer, the ads collectively tell a story. They are encouraging women to add such products to their glamour foundation.

What products might you expect in a ‘zine to encourage the building of a strong social media foundation? Here are my picks; what are yours?

  • Twitter. Getting a bad rap these days, aren’t you, Twitter? The fail whale is getting the best of you, but I still believe. Every company may not wish to engage in Twitter (no, it’s not about what you’re having for dinner), but it’s THE hot spot in microblogging. And, listening is half the conversation.
  • Trending Topics/Searches on Twitter. The mighty hash tag (#) helps you search for what’s popular among Twitter’s ~75 million users (of which 17 percent are active). You can also search for key words adding your company and that of your competitors to the mix.
  • Facebook. There are ~465 million global Facebookers. Like it? Those former fan pages now “like” pages are confusing still, but companies are launching Facebook communities in droves. Many of the Fortune 100 companies are managing consumer crises on this platform and permitting audiences to comment either negatively or positively about the customer experience. Trust me on this, Facebook is NOT going away. Some say it’ll surpass Twitter and throw a major curve ball in that direction. Twitter v. Facebook? Yep.
  • Trackur. Get a tool that helps you manage online reputation. So many conversations I’m having are about “I don’t want anyone speaking negatively about my company or services.” One way to manage negative comments is to feed the pipeline with positive content. If you’re in a grudge industry where people loath hiring your services, perhaps dentists, lawyers, body shops, surgeons, tax accountants, there are bound to be high emotions around the customer experienc. Nip that in the bud with high levels of content marketing.
  • A blog. Think about this carefully. Blogging is critical, reaps benefits and requires devoted time. Ask me about the merits, and I’ll tell you…best way to boost the thought leadership potential and garner positioning for your company.
  • SEM. Search engine marketing is another critical foundational tool to pave the way to success of your blended social media program. Can’t blog without the search engines knowing about you!
  • You Tube. Many folks are jumping in to video; You Tube is a highly popular platform to grab attention. You want that video to go viral? Hold on…first things first! Develop cool content, optimize it, and post to a channel of your own, and then drive traffic accordingly using all the aforementioned methods of communication.

There are so many more to add to this mix, but for starters, you’ll do fine with these when you do them well.

Expertise Comes in Shades of Gray

By

Yesterday there was a blog post suggesting WordPress sucks along with its top-notch themes Thesis (which I run here) and Headway (which I started my blog with and switched).

After commenting on the post, I saw a tweet about the same post suggesting the author was absent his morning java to have written something so ridiculously futile (that’s with a long “I” as the Borg say).

This got me thinking about expertise and how it’s defined. I am an expert in public relations; are you? Perhaps to some degree you are, and mayhap not to the same extent as I.

I am not an expert blogger, however, nor do I relish the steep learning curve the IT and back end present. This is the gist of what the aforementioned blog post said – the back end of any blog is a daunting adventure. To blog expertly, one needs mastery of the back end.

As my friend Gregg so aptly puts it, “Jayme, this should be like falling off a log to you.” So I cringe, nod my head, bow it in shame, and continue to attempt to do it all myself and make silly non-expert mistakes which eat my time and efficiency.  And, I insist I’m doing this for the sake of learning and becoming an expert…one day, sigh.

Next to those guys leap years ahead of me designing their blogs in cool themes and developing new WordPress apps, widgets, and plug-ins, I’d like to think my content rocks.

I know for a fact that expertise is a gift; the more you earn it, the more you need to give it away. That’s exactly what I’m doing here; helping the next peep merely stumble on the path rather than take a hard fall.

Expertise comes in all shades of gray; I’ve just begun to color. What tint are you?