Reach Out and Touch Someone with Your Company’s Blog

Filed Under Content, Design, Strategy, Successful Blog | 5 Comments

In the small business blogging world, there are good blogs and there are not so good blogs. That being said, how would you rate your blog?

As a small business, what is your goal behind having a blog in the first place? Do you use it as an opportunity to promote your company’s products and services? Is it more of a forum for you to get things off your chest or talk to other business owners? Or is it just something you felt you had to have given your competitors have one?

Like many small businesses that sport blogs, the initiative to grow the blog is often there, but the time doesn’t seem to be. What ends up happening is the blog takes a back seat to other more important matters, the content becomes stale, and next thing you know you have a blog whose hits become less and less.

Growth is Possible

If your company’s blog is collecting dust on the Internet, there are means by which to grow it and enhance your company’s online profile.

Among the initiatives to employ are:

Who is my audience? – If you haven’t already answered this key question, you’d better. You can spin your wheels on your blog if you don’t know the answer to this question. In order to make your company blog stand out, you need a niche, something that sets you apart from the competition;
Determine the time factor – It is important as a business owner with a company blog to determine how much time and effort will go into it. If you have a marketing person/team in place, the blog typically falls to them. If not, and you are the one primarily responsible for the blog, set time limits each week as to how much time will go into the blog;
Good copy is imperative – Whether you are writing your company’s blog or a staff member is it is imperative that it offers good copy. Your content needs to be interesting, useful and timely. Make sure that the blog provides both current and potential customers with information that peaks their interest, is important to their lives and is up to date. Also, keep the blog postings relatively short, given that the time demands on readers are greater than ever;
Just as important as good copy is, your blog needs a clean look. How many blogs have you visited where the design is cluttered, hard to follow and looks like a kindergartner laid it out? If you’re not a design guru, find someone who is so that the blog looks and acts professional;
Reach out to others – Another key is linking to other blogs and commenting on other’s posts. When you scratch someone’s back, they will hopefully do the same in return;
Respond to comments – In the event you are getting comments on your blog, by all means respond to them. This shows the reader that you are engaged in the conversation brought by others, along with getting you noticed more throughout the blogging community;
Know your metrics – If you’re writing a daily or weekly blog but not checking the statistics, what’s the point? Company bloggers want to know how many people are clicking on the blog, what demographics do they represent, when are they clicking on the blog etc. Find the right analysis program to track your numbers and see what your traffic reports look like.

While these are just a few of the areas you should zero in on, remember, YOU control the look and sound of your company’s blog.

Don’t expect the company blog to itself bring in a ton of revenue, but look at it more as a component of your overall strategy to reach out and touch someone, in this case, customers.

Photo credit: thefosburyflop.com

Dave Thomas is an expert writer based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

Take Readers on Your Travels

Filed Under Blog Review, Content, Successful Blog, Writing | Leave a Comment

You love to travel and want to put pen to words, be it before summer ends or down the road.

If you’ve thought of creating a travel blog, it is probably easier than making your travel plans, packing up the suitcase, and making sure you have a good time.

In order to craft a good travel blog to draw in readership on a regular basis, have a few basics in place.

Content, Content, Content

First, review different travel portals online to see how others do it, what to avoid, and what niche you may be able to fill that readers could be missing.

Whether your travels take you not too far from home or halfway around the world, the goal of any quality travel blog is to make readers feel like they’re along for the ride with you.

In order to have your blog followed regularly, the first and most important aspect is providing regular content.

While you’re probably not going to be able to afford to travel every month (unless you do it for a profession), a blog that is sparingly updated stands much less of a chance of gaining a regular following.

The next and most obvious factor is having a clean looking blog that is grammatically correct, flows nicely, has attractive pictures, and makes the reader feel like they’re part of the journey.

While your writing tone should be informative and to the point, don’t make it out to be an instruction manual. We travel for the simple purpose of getting away and enjoying new experiences or rekindling old memories, so keep the tone of the blog enjoyable.

It sounds rather obvious, but it is important to maintain a travel journal during your journeys so that you can look back and pinpoint items to a rather exact science. Hopefully your travels involve lots of fun activities, so recording them for posterity will make it easier when you begin to blog.

Adventures in Life

When traveling down the blogging road, be sure to engage your readers in your adventures. If your readers comment or ask questions about your journeys on the blog, be sure to respond in kind.

Another plus to writing a travel blog is that it can lead to new friendships with others who also like to set sail on new adventures. In some instances, you might actually find new travel partners to share journeys with. Sharing blogging information is also a plus, as travel bloggers can promote each other’s sites, therefore leading to more readers.

While travel bloggers should not expect to make a fortune or even any money early on with their sites, there is potential to profit from one’s journeys.

Assuming that your travel expenses are not going to come easily, making some money off of a travel blog can help assist in covering some of those costs.

In closing, a travel blog should be done in order to convey your travels to others and share the good times that traveling can bring.

Update the blog regularly, engage in conversation with readers, and make the experience one that is fun and doesn’t seem like a job.

If you follow those basic rules, your travels and writing about them will be a vacation.

Photo credit: freetraveltime.com

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like call center services and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

What do the voices in your head say?

Filed Under B.A.D. Blogger, Comments, Community, Content, Guest Writer, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, leadership | Leave a Comment

I received a few messages from folks about last week’s blogpost, mentioning the use of both George Bernard Shaw’s quote and my own grandmother’s prompt to “pretend you’re alone,” when faced with making decisions. As a result, I’ve been thinking a lot this week, as I’ve run my errands or while exercising on the treadmill, about the impact quotes and mantras have on us (or, in the instance of this particular blog entry, me).

Anyone who has participated in self-help books or self-improvement exercises has usually been advised to place reminders in various places around their home where they will be seen. Usually in the form of Post-it notes or notecards with quotes, these sayings or goal statements serve as visual cues to stay on track. Faithful readers of this series will note that I traditionally punctuate entries with various quotes as a means of underscoring my content.

I like quotes for a number of reasons: seeing wisdom encapsulated in these written snippets provides a ballast or redirect for me. Quotes also help me when I realize that I share a commonality, in terms of understanding a mutual lesson. It is reassuring when I see that I agree with someone who has achieved a level of success to which I aspire.

As it relates to independence, I also see quotes as an invisible coach of sorts, encouraging me from the page. When I feel as though I am not getting anywhere or, worse, going backwards, seeing/remembering a quote reminds me that all is not lost. That I have the power of choice.

So I thought that today, I’d share a few quotes that provide the framework for my work across strata: as a mother; as a friend; as a businesswoman. A few days ago, on twitter, there was an exchange among three other “tweeps” who were talking about work vs personal lives and personas. My answer was that mine intersect. I work with people I like. My work is woven into the fabric of who I am as a vocation; therefore, the quotes I use are applicable across roles.

Many of my personal favorites originate with Eleanor Roosevelt. There are literally hundreds of her quotes from which to choose, but the ones that drive me:

“It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.”

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do” (emphasis mine).

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

The naturalist and spiritual seeker in me is drawn to transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. These two men drew strength from nature and endeavored to align themselves not only with their environment, but also with their inner natures.

Here are three Emerson quotes that regularly filter to the top of my consciousness:

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”

Of these Thoreau quotes listed below, one is literally affixed to my refrigerator in the form of a magnet!

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.”

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Other quotes attributed to favorite public figures from whom I draw strength: Pablo Picasso, Maya Angelou, Albert Einstein and Oscar Wilde. Please share some of your favorites in the section below. Have any quotes made a difference in your life? How?

——-
Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive)

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Cool Tool Review: Proxlet – Your Rescue for Twitterchats

Filed Under Business Life, Content, Guest Writer, Successful Blog, Tools, Trends | 1 Comment

A Guest Post by Leo Widrich

Last Sunday was my first time to participate in #blogchat a weekly held Twitterchat and boy was it an amazing experience conversing with @lizstrauss and @mackcollier. It boasts great personalities each week helping you to answer any Social Media and blogging related questions.

For long I was quite reluctant to join in Twitterchats as I felt I would overwhelm my followers for the time the chat was going on with my tweets.

Fortunately I finally found a solution I can offer, since staying away from this massive amount of great insights at #blogchat is definitely not an option.

It is a nifty Twitter App called Proxlet.

What does Proxlet do?

Facebook has a very useful “Hide this post” option integrated. Proxlet gives you this exact same thing, only for Twitter.

Using proxlet, you can temporarily hide certain things on Twitter which clutter your timeline or aren’t currently the core thing of your interest.

How to best use it?

Proxlet fortunately takes the “hide this” feature a step further and allows you to explain in a very detailed manner which area of tweets you want to block.

You can block Apps you don’t want to show up in your Timeline. For example am using it for both foursquare and paper.li since I feel they don’t add enough value.
You can also stop certain individual users temporarily, for example because they are at a conference and you are not really interested in their tweets at that point.
Another way to make use of Proxlet is to block certain hashtags from showing up in your timeline.

What is the best part of Proxlet?

The best part of proxlet is that it works not only at twitter.com, but can also be used for your favourite Twitter clients such as Twitter for Iphone, Tweetdeck and others.

Someone approached me that he couldn’t take the load of my #blogchat tweets and Proxlet turned out to be a superb solution for both of us. He could continue following me, yet was freed of those unwanted tweets in a short space of time.

What are your thoughts on Proxlet (http://proxlet.com) ? Have you had a similar problem yourself before too? Please let me know below.

Leo Widrich writes Tips for Twitter on his blog. You can visit his website, Bufferapp, or find him on Twitter as @leowid.

_________

Thanks, Leo, for checking out proxlet for us!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Be Irresistible: 10 Steps to Consistently Develop Highly Viral, High ROI Products

Filed Under Business Life, Content, Successful Blog, Writing | 7 Comments

How Good, Great, and Elegant Is a Product that No One Uses?

Yesterday while I was talking with @MichaelPort about solid.ly the software system he’s developing to support his Book Yourself Solid System. He told me about a conversation he had with venture capitalist who asked him, “What makes you think you can move from writing books into developing software?” I was taken by the perfectness of his answer. It was something like …

“I’m hiring the best people to do the development, but I know and care about the people who will be using it.”

That lead us into a discussion of what a product developers job is.

I spent almost 3 decades developing products for teachers — books, CD-Roms, websites, videos, audios, and others. During that time, I learned a lot about how products were made — what works, what doesn’t, and that the great idea that hasn’t made it to the market probably isn’t there NOT because someone hasn’t already thought of it, but because

it’s too expensive,
too labor intensive — to build or to use
or no one really wants it.

If I can’t afford it, don’t have time to use it, or don’t want it, it doesn’t matter how elegant, great, clever, cutting-edge, award-winning or beautifully you produce it.

10 Steps to Consistently Develop Highly Viral, High ROI Products

But the most crucial thing I learned as product person was that no matter how much I thought about my products, I had to think about my customers more. My role wasn’t to produce great products, but to produce great products people wanted to buy and use. Those are the products that folks buy again and tell their friends about. Here’s the secret I discovered …

It’s not my brilliance that makes a product irresistible. It’s not the awards the product might win that makes a products go viral and gain loyal long-term fans. It’s understanding my role as the product person is to know, love, and serve the customer.

Most of my intelligent customers could do or learn to do what I do.
But if they did what I do, they wouldn’t have time to do what they do.
My job is to make the customer’s life easier, faster, more meaningful and, if possible, more fun.

We turned around a failing company by developing highly viral, high ROI products by getting as close as we could to our customers. Here’s a few ways to do that before you even start planning that product execution …

Know and live with the people you’re building for. Talk to the people you want to use what you’re building. Live in their natural habitat. Know the issues of their lives. Know the little things that bring joy to them. Know the prickly things that they don’t even realized irritate them daily. Know the influencer group of your customer group. Know the folks who understand both groups intimately and best. Invite the most interested from all three groups into your process as participants not just advisors.
Use measurements appropriately. Data supports how people do things but rarely gets down to the why they do or the patterns of what moves them emotionally. When you think you know something, then, test and measure it. Don’t build a profile of customers through measurement only. Think about what companies would get wrong about you if they only used the quantitative data and scores from your medical check ups and school reports about you, without ever finding out about your personality.
Respect the products that your customers are already using. Don’t fall into the trap of only seeing the faults of what’s already out there. That product you see so many flaws in has already solved a huge number of problems for your customers or they wouldn’t be using it. If it’s so bad, why does it have 100,000 or a million people using it? Ask people what they love about it. Be careful not to build something that takes away something they’ve made a part of what they’ve come to enjoy and they’re regularly doing. Lose what they hugely love and it won’t matter if you offer something that fixes a minor irritation.
Start with a small offer built to your highest standards. Respect your customers’ time. Make the first release your best work, not a beta test. If you know your customers, if you’ve lived with them and invited them into the the development process, you know what works for them. Deliver it. Don’t play with their time or ask them to work out the bugs for you. That’s your job. If you want to attract the best, be the best.
Simplify until there is no learning curve. Simple is not only elegant. It allows us to focus on why we got the product not learning the product first. Apple has mastered this. They can put the entire manual for using a product in a pamphlet that no one reads because we can pick up the product already knowing how to use it.
Get paid for your product. Free samples are fine. Free products are not. The model of building things for free costs those who build products more than we might think. We release things unfinished at standards less than our best. We don’t build the appropriate support or service into them and we ask too much from our “free” customers who take us for granted. We work with people on promises. We lose money, reputation, and if nothing else, time we don’t have. Ever seen a tweet the equivalent of, “I’d gladly pay for Twitter if they’d guarantee service.”
Systematically and strategically build your customer base as you build your product line. We no longer need to build a huge department store and fill it will products to prove we exist. We don’t need to stress our resources, cash, or infrastructure like that. Release one product that does one thing well for one audience. Let that product and that customer base finance the next. One customer group well served is better than 12 products less well defined — and one product is easier to market and easier for our friends and networks to share on our behalf. Know, love and serve that first group and they’ll tell their friends. They’ll also tell you what they want next and what group of their friends are your next best bet.
Learn the life cycle of your product and know when to revise. Every product has a life cycle. It seems the way of the Internet to let the product die a slow death. Know how long that product is likely to sell well, then just after the peak selling point, carefully revise it to add new features. Once you’ve got a history to rely on do this on a predictable schedule. If your product life cycle is 9 months to a year. Plan your next revision at 11-12 months. Be careful not to revise out the features that customers love and not to add features they don’t care about. Look to make your product even easier, faster, and more meaningful at doing what it does. .
Release new products on a predictable schedule. High tech companies might be slaves to the fast-changing conditions, but not every company is. If you can provide a predictable release schedule get fully behind that. It will build discipline into your infrastructure and your process. Predictability also builds trust. Customers will come to know that they can look forward to something knew from you when they’re planning their budgets. .
And go back to Step 1 by getting to know your customers even better after they buy from you. Think of that first purchase as the first date in a long-term relationship. Value the customer who’s already shown a commitment above all others. Respect them by giving the best offers to them, not to the “potentially new” customers who haven’t been listening to you. .

These 10 steps work. I know because I’ve used them successfully and two well-respected financial guys have put their names on that fact.

It takes two things to win a loyal and growing customer base,

products customers truly want that live up to their promise
and more opportunities to get those kinds of products from a business they can trust..

Simply being that business who knows, loves, and serves their customers better than anyone else can save those customers the time of having to look in other places when they need what you offer. Who wouldn’t value that?

Have you had any experience with a company that consistently builds highly viral, High ROI products.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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