Blog Archive Promotion To-Do List

March 8, 2006 by Liz

I’ve been having to go to meetings lately. So I’ve been printing my most popular articles and taking them with me, using them as writing fodder–as a place to get ideas. That’s what got me thinking how often it is that we forget the best promotion that we have is sitting in our blog archives.

Letting readers know what’s in our archives is a great way to invite them to become a part of our brands, our blogs, and our businesses in a more intimate fashion.

Blog Archive Promotion To-Do List

Here’s a check list of a few things we all should be doing to promote our blogs from within. I call it the Blog Archive Promotion To-Do List.

Put Popular Posts where folks can find them. I’m as guilty as the next guy, as I’m not a tech and I’ve not yet charmed one into helping me put up an automatic list of popular posts. But in the meantime, I have a Popular Post Page in the sidebar, and I’ll keep it even after I get that list of Popular Posts. If you can’t create a page, hand code links to your best posts.
Feature Related Articles at the end of every new post. When you finish writing a post, let folks know about other articles you’ve written that they might be interested in. Intra-linking of this nature is not only a service to your readers, it lets search engines know how the content on your blog has relevance and context for your readers.
Intra-Link to Past Articles when you can. If you have an article that perfectly fits what you’re talking about as my post Think Before You Intra-link so perfectly suits this one, remember to include a link to it.
Read your stats to see what’s popular and make more. Then read those posts to learn what made them favorites with readers. Keep popular posts in a collection. Try to figure out what they have in common. Use those common features to guide you as you write in the future.
If you get key word traffic, make sure it’s landing on the posts that it should. If it isn’t find a way to tag your posts so that the next person who searches with that key word gets to the post that delivers the right goods.

I’m sure I’ve not thought of all the ways we might be using archives as promotion. You must have ideas too. What are some creative ways that you’ve used your archives to encourage readers to visit more and stay longer at your blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Looking in the Right Direction — The MSM Isn’t. Are You?

March 7, 2006 by Liz

Why the MSM Can’t See the Threat

The Main Stream Media and those who aspire to be part of it are concerned about what’s happening with blogs. They just can’t seem to get their minds around something that doesn’t abide by the rules that have been carefully laid out and followed for so many years. The old guys . . . and I did say guys didn’t I? . . . at the top are used to calling the shots, so used to it, they’ve lost track of basics of how market economies work. Certainly if they received their MBA in the last 25 years, they ran into the work of Michael Porter.

So let’s start with the competitve threat posed by blogs as defined by Michael Porter’s Five Forces that David Starling so eloquently stated

the power of suppliers
the power of buyers
barriers to entry
the degree of rivalry among incumbents
the presence of substitutes

Blogs, as David so eloqently stated, are all five. They have power over suppliers and buyers and in many cases are them. Blogs have no barriers to entry. Blogs are substitutes and rivals.

So why isn’t the MainStream Media shaking in their boots?

Possibly because they can’t bring themselves to believe what they’re seeing.

How could it be possible that a bunch of real people without their resources could be doing anything called publishing? If we don’t see it, it can’t be happening.

Sad to say, looking in the wrong direction is a popular response in the world of business.

What Should the MSM Be Worried About?

On to Scott Karp’s comments that I mentioned earlier . . . This is why Media/Web 2.0 needs Marketing 2.0 Ã¢â¬â we need a new economic paradigm for valuing attention, which will create a new paradigm for value creation in Media/Web 2.0.

Media+Web longing for a economic paradigm that includes Advertising/Audience is how I paraphrased it. Where do we find that? We find that three places.

A Listers
Blog Networks
Social Bookmarking and Social Search Engine Sites

All of these have one thing in common–Power. The power to move an audience around the the web with a small effort. We know the value of the Slashdot effect. The good news can bring down a network server. It works the same within the tight network of the A-Listers. Scoble says “breeeeeport” and all his fans link to it. Think of what a network of 80 or so blogs might have the power to do if they wanted to move an idea or an audience across the internet.

It won’t be long before advertisers understand this.
It will be slightly longer before the MSM understand that the advertisers do.

What Happens to Us in the Magic Middle

That’s why we in the Magic Middle need to take Social Bookmarking seriously. It has the power to make a significant difference in the future of our place in the Internet. We need to find the ways to use it in our favor, to use it to maintain our status as the “mom and pop” stores of the Internet.

Whether we need to buy into the advertising model or not we’ll have to find ways to compete with the power brokers on the level of audience, or else we’ll get lost. Socialbookmarking offers a venue that could be the best chance. At the very least becoming a part of something bigger than we are is probably a good thing to do. A new blog every second means that every second we get smaller.

To be an entrepreneur in a world of millions of them is going to require a new kind entrepreneur and a new kind of entrepreneurial thinking and networking.

When my son was four, he was fascinated by geography. He knew more about the planet than most adults do. As I tucked him into bed one night, he asked about a business trip I was taking the next day.

“Mom, There are mountains in Nevada. Right?”

“Yes.” I said.

“Don’t look this way and walk that way,” was his response.

I’ve never found out whether he thought I was going to walk into a mountain or off a cliff. I was just charmed that he was worried about me.
He’s a nice one too. 🙂

What are you doing to make sure you’re looking in the right direction?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Leaders, Tunnels, and Vision

March 5, 2006 by Liz

Leaders and Tunnel Vision

When your thinking is stuck in a tunnel,

it’s the leader in you that finds a way out.

Seeing the tunnel and the light at the end of it

is what leaders recognize as opportunity.

Walking to the light invites others to follow.

What the leader called opportunity, others call vision.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Finding that Dream Company

March 2, 2006 by Liz

I am often asked

by would-be entrepreneurs

seeking escape from life within

huge corporate structures,

“How do I build a small firm for myself?”

The answer seems obvious:

“Buy a very large one and just wait”

–Paul Ormerod, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics

via Tom Peters

Did I hear a laugh of recognition?

Not all corporate structures are broken. Some have leaders and imagination.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blogs: The New Black in Corporate Communication

March 1, 2006 by Liz

PART 2 IN A SERIES

. . . Has the blogging sensation passed corporations by?

Not by a long shot. Instead of public blogs, think about blog technology. That’s the focus for many leading companies around the world. From McDonald’s (MCD ) to Cannondale Bicycle, corporations are using the software to revamp internal communications, reach out to suppliers, and remake corporate Intranets. Often the site doesn’t look much different from what it’s replacing. Sometimes there’s nothing particularly bloggy about the results.

But these corporate initiatives are interactive and cheap to deploy — making them an attractive form of communication. “Blogs are a way to bring our knowledge together,” says Dave Weick, chief information officer at McDonald’s. –Stephen Baker, Business Week Online, The Inside Story on Company Blogs

Who Said Blogging Has to Be Public? We might not find many Fortune 500 blogs on the Internet. That doesn’t mean that Fortune 500 companies don’t have them. It means that we’re not invited to their private party. Corporations are taking advantage of blogging technology inside their firewalls.

Move Over Website, Bye-Bye Intranet

Blog technology is slowly overtaking the traditional website and Intranet structure at some corporations. Why is that?

Blogs are low in cost to set up and less expensive to maintain.
Blogs require less technical expertise.
Blogs offer a sophisticated content management system that’s meant to be updated daily. They invite communication.
Blogs are interactive. They allow relationships to form between people.
Folks can blog from their desk, their home, the local coffeeshop, even their telephone.

Like employees from another era, websites and Intranets constantly need to be brought up to speed. Blogs have the right skillset for today’s knowledge-based enterprise–they’re innovative, fast, accessible, and made for constant changing . . . and they can be as beautiful as any website. What’s not to like? I’d hire one.

Communication in Every Direction

Ever heard the saying, We’re all 100% responsible for communication? Blog software is being used to make 100% communication happen in almost every direction.

Blogs are carrying on conversations between management and employees that allow them to get to know each other as people.
Blogs are providing safe storage and collection of team project information, so that the entire team can literally be “on the same page.”
Blogs are connecting vendors with buyers, replacing fax machines, messy email inboxes. and lost correspondence.
Blogs are establishing and maintaining unprecedented information flow between field reps and home office folks, drawing companies together.
Blogs are ensuring everyone in a group has access to the same information at the same time in the same way from almost any point on the planet.

Choose your options. You can have any color as long as it’s blog technology.

Why Do We Need to Know This?

Rare is the person who doesn’t already do business with, work for, or buy from a company who is already using blogs in these ways. It’s reasonable to think that a Fortune 500 company that has made any step toward putting a public blog online has experimented with internal blogging. Think–McDonalds.

The Internet website and company Intranet are quickly becoming just so . . . old hat.

If we want to be invited to the party, we need to dress the part, know the culture, and speak the language. We need to be prepared as vendors, consultants, customers, and employees. We need to factor in this data when we think about where we fit. How does this change the way I interact with companies? How might this information affect my brand, my business, or my life in general?

For this black tie party, blogging technology is definitely the new black.

The world is getting smaller. I’m starting to think there really is only one party.

If I’ve got this wrong, please set me straight. I’ll listen. I’m the nice one.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blog Archive Promotion To-Do List

Why the MSM Can’t See the Threat

What Should the MSM Be Worried About?

What Happens to Us in the Magic Middle

Leaders and Tunnel Vision

PART 2 IN A SERIES

Move Over Website, Bye-Bye Intranet

Communication in Every Direction

Why Do We Need to Know This?

The Only One