Social Media Week 2 - Readings

The Digital Handshake, pages 55-76 (Business Blogging)
 
Blogs have been around the longest are a good base for other social media attempts. A blog is defined as an easy to use content management system. They should be written in an informal tone and be authentic. When done right they will stimulate conversation. 
 

Things to consider before you blog

1. Have your purpose for blogging figured out.
2. What tone will the blog have? What topics are covered?
3. Who will write the blog? Marketing people are not best qualified.
4. Control or converse? Best is somewhere in-between.
5. Establish a blogging policy with guidelines.
6. Monitor what is being said about your company.
7. Decide on a blog platform. Decide if it should be on your server (news updates), or externally (personal type).
8. How will you market your blog?
9. Figure a way to track statistics. Traditional methods are not always the best.
10. Know your keywords.  

 Blogs have morphed into lightweight Content Management Systems. They can be set up for a client who you can turn it over to so that the content can be developed by them. By adding social widgets to them they become a community.  


No matter what, the mantra from the beginning of the web is still true, 'Content is key!' If there is not something to bring people back they will not come back.  This means if you have a partially filled or not at all filled niche, you can use a blog to become the expert people will turn to on the web.  


Blogs and search engines work hand in hand.  They have the things that search engines look for:

• Titles - each post should have one and search engines look for that title tag
• Keywords - make sure post uses the words that will draw people to your site
• Recent content - keep content up to date, update regularly
• Lots of content - search engines can not read flash, they can read text
• Links - search engines look for outgoing and incoming links
• Relevance - does your site match the keywords in the post, then it is relevant to the site

Creating a successful Business Blog:

1. Know your audience and write with them in mind.  Define who you are trying to reach just like normal marketing except here we are defining community.  Picture those people in your mind when you write. 
2. Write with Google (and other search engines) in mind. Put keywords in title and in the body (as close to top as possible).  Post at least 3 to 5 times a week and stay on topic. 
3. Find, follow, and communicate with influential Bloggers in your niche. Read their post, write comments and track back to them. They may return the favour and send traffic your way. 
4. Find out the people you need to influence. You do not need to be a rock star blogger to be successful.
5. On occasion write 'top ten' posts.
6. Write 'link bait' posts - ones that people will want to link back to.
7. Establish a Presence in the Social Mediasphere - use the other social networking tools to link back to your blog.  Also, make interesting comments on other blogs as well as respond to comments on your blog. 

Social Media Marketing, pages 9-30 (Blogging)

 A blog is a form of a Content Management System that is easy for every one to send articles (post) to. It is a hub for your other social media marketing efforts and should be conversational in nature. 

While people have been keeping journals for years it was not till mid 1990s that they did it on line, the hard way, by editing the HTML.  In 1999 LiveJournal and Blogger came on the scene. 

Features

Some common features to all Blogs are:

• Posts - Most important is to have consistent posts on topic. Long post structured so that they include scannable items like lists and subheadings. Short posts should be structured around a news events. Both styles are good and can be mixed together. 
• Permalinks - Since your article can be found many ways and places, you should make sure the title provides a permanent link back to it. Preferably it should be clean and have some keywords in it.
• Comments - To provide some feel of community, comments should be opened and maintained.  Do not delete negative comments, respond to them. If it is someone being disruptive or offensive, delete them.
  Spend some time looking at other Blogs and thoughtfully responding to them. Remember to maintain your comments as some spammers are seeing this as a good place to make quick links. Take time to put in a way to prevent this (CAPTCHA). 
• Themes - Customise the look of blog on your own or with may paid or free themes. Your look says a lot about you. 
• Archive and category pages - Make sure that it is easy to find previous posts as they will fall off the main page.  This can be done with dates or by tags put on posts that can be looked at in a topic list. 
• Blogrolls - Links to other sites are usually in the side bar of a blog. These would be sites you read regularly.  Try to link to popular sites in your niche.
  Links - The currency of blogging.  When you link to other sites it shows up when the owner of that site looks at the logs and they may start to look at you. 
• Trackbacks and Pingsbacks - A communication back to the blog you linked from. Have too much spam now so it is not used as much. 
• TweetMeme Button - Allows people to see how many people have tweeted about this post and give them a way to do so.  Can easily drive traffic to your site.
• Subscriptions - Allows readers to be able to get your posts in an RSS or ATOM format for use in a feed reader.  Another idea is to provide email subscritions.

Platforms
Hosted vs. Self-hosted? 
Hosted means that the code to run the blog will be on a server out of your control, often with the name of the host in the domain name (blogger, livejournal).
Self-hosted means that you will control where the software is, and you will maintain it. This may require a specialist if you are not tech savy. Try to barter for these services if you can.  

• WordPress
  Most widely used software to blog, free and open source. Easy to use but may require tech help to set up. 
• Moveable Type
  Most high traffic sites use this. It can be self-host or a domain like TypePad.
• Blogger
  Blogger is hosted software. It lacks many features in other software.
• HubSpot - Includes tools and blogging package. Paid hosted service lets your name appear in the domain.  

Content Strategies

• News - breaking news is the most popular of content but hard to come by, though it can be done. Publish it quick however, it does no good to be number 2 in the news. 
• Lists - Readers like bite sized information. Lists (like top 10) are ways to do this. Add pictures or video and do in reverse order if possible. 
• How-To's - Know how to do something, post it in your blog. 
• Controversy - It is easy to stir the pot but make sure that you have a good argument and this can work.  However, to do not make personal attacks, and do not make a habit of this type of post. 

Building an Audience
When no one comes to your blog, go to them.  What social network tools do they hang out at.  Also focus on links and commenting.